Page 9
History of Orange County
Town of Montgomery
Page 9
Among other early residents of the village we name James Ward, John McFaught, David Crist, John McKinstrey, Matthew Hunter, Samuel Smith, Arthur Parks, Oolis Shulp, John McGarrow, George Everson and Mahan Wigton. Mr. Parks and McGarrow kept store on the corner where old Mr. Smedas lived, now, the Messrs. Luquer. Ward lived in a log cabin, near the end of the bridge, the site of which is now occupied by the dwelling of Mr. Abraham Colwell. Smith’s house was on the lot now occupied by Mr. Abner Bookstaver; Parks’, where Mr. John L’Homedieu lives; and Oolis Shulp, in the hollow on the turnpike, east of Mr. Parks. Shulp first located at the Miller Settlement, hereinafter mentioned among the Lutherans, but soon removed here. He was the father of Hons Shulp, an old revolutionary soldier still living in the town, about 85 years old—respected by all who know him as an honest man and good soldier, but soon to enter a mortal combat in which he will lose his life.
In 1727, there was a settlement made by Johannes Miller on the bank of the Walkill, about two miles south of the village of Montgomery. He was a German and came to the country in the beginning of the eighteenth century. After leaving New York he resided in Ulster County—at the time the great depot of German emigrants—and in a few years removed to this location and planted himself upon the Hill, now the residence of Mr. Elinor Miller, one of his descendents. All of this generation recollect the old square stone house as it stood on the crown of the hill like some fortified baronial castle of the olden time, with two doors in front to enter adjoining rooms, and windows like port holes. This individual was the grandfather of Johannes Miller, deceased; but as we shall take a more extended notice of him and his family hereafter, we discontinue our observations for the present.
This settlement extended from the Walkill down towards the village of Wardsbridge, and was principally composed of settled on the 5,000 acre patent, granted in 1722, and called Germantown. The owners calculated to found at least a city, about on the farm of Johannes Miller, deceased, on the road leading from Montgomery to Goshen; and, certainly, there was no better or prettier location for it in the town.
The land was of the kind to captivate the heart and affections of a Dutchman, just from the low-lying glades of Holland. In furtherance of the plan, like the Palatines of Newburgh, they laid out a street eight rods wide, directly east and west, extending from the Walkill through the patent, a to the farm of Mr. Gideon Pelton in Knox’s patent, and called it the Palatine Road. Upon the sides of this road the settlers erected their log cabins and made their clearings. The road that leads down to the farms of Messrs. Row and Ackerman
from the main road, between the residences of Mr. John Miller and Mr. Miller Hunter, (recently Johannes Miller) is a part of this ancient highway. All the rest of it is cultivated a land, being long since abandoned as a public road. They also built a log church and set apart a lot for a burying a which were nearly in front of the residence of Johannes Miller, deceased, on the east side of the highway.— The church was blown down in a gale of wind before the Revolution and never rebuilt. In the yard are many graves, though it has been discontinued as a public burying ground for half a century; during which time a few graves have been opened by the descendents of the old Lutherans, who formerly belonged to the congregation and worshipped in the ancient log church. We have personally examined the yard and but one stone was found with any inscription whatever, which ran thus :—“ Born in 1686, died in 1759. A. M. M.”
The settlement was not numerous at this particular location, at any time, and, by deaths and removals, was soon broken up and discontinued—the lands falling into the possession of the Miller family. The Lutherans, however, who came and settled in this part of the town, united with their Christian brethren, and assisted to keep up the church establishment as long as they conveniently could; but when the church blew down, other and more convenient places of worship had been built and organized, and the church dwindled to nothing. Emigration soon ceased to aid the settlement, and other forms of worship were beginning to be more prevalent in the town. The last minister of the congregation was De Groff, from New Jersey.
Among the Lutherans who belonged to this congregation was Mr. Dederick Shafer, whose descendents are still numerous in this and the town of Crawford. This old gentleman, before his death, manifested a laudable desire to protect and perpetuate the buried ashes of his German brethren, and enjoined it on his heirs, as a dying request in his will, to keep up and preserve this yard forever. So far, his children have religiously observed, in the most filial manner, the dying in-”junctions of this truly pious, feeling and venerable patriarch. In the ordinary course of nature their ashes ought to have: rested and slept the sleep of death in the vallies and on the hill tops of Germany; but, since it was ordered otherwise, in the great economy of settlement and population of the world, we will revere their memory and preserve without molestation their consecrated remains, as they lie entombed on the beautiful banks of the Walkill, far, far away from the land of their fathers.
Mr. Shafer was a tanner, and we think the first who set up a yard for that purpose in this part of the town. The place where he settled and conducted his trade, was just south and east of where the turnpike crosses Comfort’s Hill, on a fine, durable stream that comes foaming and tumbling down through a gorge in the hill, from the flats beyond, passing in its rapid and headlong descent the old residence of Mr. Jonathan Miller, deceased, now, that of his son, Wickham Miller. Daniel Shafer, of the last generation, a son of Frederick, established a new yard, nearer the kill and on the flat below, where the business is still conducted. It was a fortunate circumstance for the early settlers, that many of them were brought up to trades of the most useful and necessitous character, that they might exercise them in their new locations for their own benefit and that of others. We, of this generation, know nothing of the value of such trades, at such a time, nor can we appreciate it.