Page 9

Deerpark and Mount Hope

Page 9

The day the fort was attacked two women had been there, and while they remained, the soldiers were quite merry and told the black woman who was very fleshy, among other things, that they soon expected an attack from the Indians and that as she was so fat as not to be able to run she must not expect to escape, &c. The race was not to the swift in this instance.

During the war the times were so troublesome and dangerous that when the residents visited their families, removed to Rochester and other places as previously stated, they had to go armed in companies of several at a time or guarded by the soldiers along the lines. On one occasion William Cuddeback and Abraham Low returning alone from a visit of this kind in a wagon, were shot at by the Indians when near home and the latter was wounded in the shoulder, but by applying the whip pretty freely they left a wide margin for their pursuers.

Many of the alarms of Indian attack turned out to be false to the no small joy of the parties in danger. On one occasion and before the forts were built, the female part of the family of William Cuddeback on hearing an alarm prepared to leave the house with the children, and secrete themselves near the river. Jacob Cuddeback, one of the family, then very old and blind, was solicited to accompany them, but refused, saying that probably the Indians would not kill so old a man, and if they would it could not shorten his days much, and he would impede their flight. He staid and they left.— It turned out a false alarm and when he heard the family returning to the house, thinking them the Indians, hid himself under the bed. When he found out who they were, he thanked God that he was yet safe. On being chided afterwards for his cowardice and fear of death, old as he was, he replied that even a worm would crawl for its life.

Tradition speaks very favorably of this aged man and early settler, and says that he was a person of vigorous mind, well educated, had an extensive historical knowledge and was thoroughly versed in the scriptures; so much so, that questions on Theological subjects were generally submitted to his decision. He was employed to go to the Governor of the Colony and procure the patent of 1200 acres. He lived to be about 100 years old and retained his senses well till the last hour of his life.

During this war the Peenpack neighborhood furnished the government for the Northern expedition with a wagon, horses and teamster.

In the appendix of our paper will be found the names of several persons who took an active part during this Indian war in defending the frontiers of Orange and Ulster counties. The war lasted but a few years and after its close some of the Indians returned to the settlement and continued till the commencement of the war of the Revolution, some of whom our friend Mr. Gumaer recollects to have seen. They were visited occasionally by their friends residing at a distance. A trading intercourse was kept up between them and the whites, one bartering deer skins, fox skins, venison and bears meat, &c. with the other, for such articles of use and ornament as they wanted. John Westbrook kept a small store and tavern in a central part of the settlement which was the great depot and resort for Indian trade. They were very fond of cider, which being plenty they got of the farmers for nothing.

After the close of the war the Rev. Thomas Romeyn recommenced his ministerial labors in the congregation previously mentioned, and continued there till 1771. During this brief period a general attendance was given to preaching, and on the days in which there were no services in the Churches, meetings of the people for reading the scriptures and other religious books with prayer were kept up and well attended. During Mr. Romeyn's time there was a deep and extensive schism in the Dutch Reformed Church in this place as elsewhere in the church at large. The difficulty grew out of the right and authority of ordaining ministers. The Church in this country up to this time had been subordinate to the classes of Amsterdam in the ordination of its ministers, and a part of the body wished the continuance of such a state of things, while the other part were for casting off this troublesome and unnecessary formality, and performing the act by classes in this country. The former were called Conferentie and the latter Coetus, who finally succeeded in their objects which made the Church here independent of that in Holland. Romeyn was a moderate member of the party called Conferentie, being prejudiced probably by the fact that he had received his ordination vows and pastoral obligations in that country. Notwithstanding this schism the members of the congregation generally attended the preaching of Romeyn, though a few leading Church members opposed him and were influential enough to terminate his services in 1771. This strife continued more than thirty years, and the Conferentie party being of the settled order of affairs were the most intolerent and bigoted. The first meeting of the ministers to settle the question was held in the city of New York in 1737. It again met in 1738 when the new plan was adopted and sent to the classis in Amsterdam for their sanction. Nothing was heard of it till 1746, when a letter was received approbatory of the measure. Under the new order the first Coetus was held in Sept. 1747, and strange to say, that although the matter received the approbation of the Holland Church, the Conferentie party opposed it till 1772, when it ceased to disturb the public mind.

Some laughable incidents grew out of this controversy.— In one instance it broke up a marriage: the contracting parties being on different sides of the question, they could not agree on the Dominie. Two of the belligerents met on the road, and having drove till their horses met, stopped, leisurely took out pipe and tobacco, and commenced smoking. How long they continued tradition does not say. At Hackensack, N. J., the congregation shut the doors of the church frequently against Mr. Goetschius, their minister. On one occasion he got in, and the clerk—whose duty it was to read the commandments, a chapter from the Bible, and sing the psalm—to prevent him from preaching, gave out the 119th psalm, to be sung by the congregation front end to end. This in the ordinary mode of singing would have consumed the day, but Mr. Goetschius, after having heard enough for an ordinary service, had the moral outrage to resist and stop such novel proceeding. Ministers were compelled to be reordained, and children re-baptized.