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General View of the County

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The enquiries supposed to be made by our young-readers are now answered, we trust, to their satisfaction, and we leave the subject with but few additional remarks. The Indians lingered longer and in greater numbers in the unsettled regions of what is now the County of Sullivan than in Orange; for we ate informed that when the commission appointed to divide the Minisink Patent entered upon the duty, they refused to run a line which extended to the Delaware river, and assigned as a reason therefor in their report, that the lands were of little value, and the region of country through which the line ran so thickly infested with hostile Indians that they deemed it unsafe. This was in 1767.

While the Indians resided here it does not appear that they were unfriendly or particularly hostile to the early settlers; on the contrary, the little evidence we have and the absence of the knowledge of any general or partial war between them before they removed, are evidence of their friendly character and of the peaceable condition of the inhabitants during their joint occupation of the County. It was only after their return to the County, just before and during the war of the Revolution, they assumed a hostile character, and declared themselves, by their conduct, enemies of the settlers. The wars in which they had been engaged seemed to have increased their ferocity, and they returned thirsting for human blood. During this period the County did not experience much personal injury or loss of life from their incursions, one or two cases excepted. The eastern towns were wholly exempt and never visited by a hostile Indian. The towns of Montgomery and Walkill, though extending back to the Shawangunk mountain, the only barrier separating the Indian from the white man in that direction, were equally safe; and it was only in the Minisink country where the destructive storm of Indian war was felt and poured out its unmitigated fury. To this locality ran the pathway of the Indian along the valley of the Mamakating and through the gorge of the mountain, which gave easy access and a safe retreat. In like manner they passed from the valley at the north, and made their rapid and bloody descents upon the frontier settlements of Ulster.

Between these points in Ulster and Orange, the Shawangunk mountain was too impracticable for Indian warfare, and consequently the inhabitants of the County within that apace were shielded by it, and remained personally in comparative security in their own dwellings. The incursions of the Indians were sudden and of short duration, of a sly and stealthy character, and what they did was executed as much as possible in secret. They gave no notice of approach—that was only known by the war whoop and gleam of the tomahawk. Their attack was like that of the hawk from the sky or the panther from his lair. The blow was given, and ere the survivors could rally or defend, the foe warn gone. It was these points of Indian assault that the militia of Ulster and Orange were so frequently called during the war. The service warn troublesome and perplexing; for when at home they lived in daily expectation of being called at a moment’s notice to go against the Indians, while the service itself warn surrounded with much danger and hardship in its execution.

As far as these Indian aggressions were made upon the inhabitants of this County immediately before or during the war, they will be noticed in their appropriate places.