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History of Orange County
Settlement of Orange County
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I had it in charge from John Lukens to learn more particulars respecting the Mine road to Esopus, &c. I found Nicholas Dupuis, Esq., son of Samuel, living in a spacious stone house in great plenty and affluency. The old Mineholes were a few miles above, on the Jersey side of the river by the lower point of Paaquarry Flat; that the Minisink settlement extended forty miles or more on both sides of the river. That he had well known the Mine road to Esopus, and used, before he opened the boat channel through Foul Rift, to drive on it several times every winter with loads of wheat and cider, as also did his neighbors, to purchase their salt and necessaries in Esopus, having then no other market or knowledge where the river ran to. That after a navigable channel was opened through Foul Rift they generally took to boating, and most of the settlement turned their trade down stream, the Mine road became less and less travelled.
This interview with the amiable Nicholas Dupuis, Esq., was in June, 1787. He then appeared about sixty years of age. I interrogated as to the particulars of what he knew, as to when and by whom the Mine road was made, what was the ore they dug and hauled on it, what was the date, and from whence, or how, came the first settlers of Minisink in such great numbers as to take up all the flats on both sides of the river for forty miles. He could only give traditionary accounts of what he had heard from older people, without date, in substance as follows:
That in some former age there came a company of miners from Holland; supposed, from the great labor expended in making that road, about one hundred miles long, that they were very rich or great people, in working the two mines,—one on the Delaware where the mountain nearly approaches the lower point of Paaquarry Flat, the other at the north foot of the same mountain, near half way from the Delaware and Esopus. He ever understood that abundance of ore had been hauled on that road, but never could learn whether lead or silver. That the first settlers came from Holland to seek a place of quiet, being persecuted for their religion. I believe they were Armenians. They followed the Mine road to the large flats on the Delaware. That smooth cleared land suited their views. That they bona fide bought the improvements of the native Indians, most of whom then moved to the Susquehanna; that with such as remained there was peace till 1755.
I then went to view the Paaquarry Mineholes. There appeared to have been a great abundance of labor done there at some former time, but the mouths of these holes were caved full, and overgrown with bushes. I concluded to myself if there ever had been a rich mine under that mountain it must be there yet in close confinement. The other old men I conversed with gave their traditions similar to N. Dupuis, and they all appeared to be grandsons of the first settlers, and very ignorant as to the dates and things relating to chronology. In the summer of 1789 I began to build on this place; then came two venerable gentlemen on a surveying expedition.—They were the late Gen. James Clinton, the father of the late De Witt Clinton, and Christopher Tappan, Esq., Clerk and Recorder of Ulster County.— For many years before they had both been surveyors under Gen. Clinton’s father, when he was surveyor general. In order to learn some history from gentlemen of their general knowledge, I accompanied them in the woods. They both well knew the Mineholes, Mine road, &c., and as there were no kind of documents or record; thereof, united in the opinion that it was a work transacted while the State of New York belonged to the government of Holland; that it fell to the English in 1664; and that the change in government stopped the mining business, and that the road must have been made many years before such digging could have been done. That it undoubtedly must have, been the first good road of that extent made in may part of the United States.