Early Settlers of the Shawangunk Region
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Towards the close of the sixth day from Newburgh the journey was made down the west side of the Shawangunk mountain. There at the foot was a broad, turbid, and impassable river. The Basha's kill was swollen with the spring freshet, the turnpike was submerged, leaving nothing visible but the bridge. There was not at that time a solitary building on the western slope of the mountain that would afford them shelter-not even a barn. They could neither advance nor retreat, so they spent the night where they were, in the mud, homesick and heartsick, and doubtless contrasting the wilds of Sullivan with the pleasant home they had left in the land of plenty and comfort.
The next day the floods subsided so that Mr. Hoyt mounted on one of his horses, crossed the kill, and went in search of assistance. At the west side of the Mamakating valley an enterprising individual had opened a log tavern. Here Mr. Hoyt obtained an extra team, with which he returned to his family. With the united efforts of the three strong teams the cart was safely brought over the stream. That night the family found more comfortable quarters in the log tavern.
When they reached the vicinity of their new home on the east bank of the Neversink, Mr. Hoyt lamed that the cabin he had built was untenable; the snow of the previous winter had broken down its bark roof, and it was little better than a ruin. The settlers informed him there was a small log structure on the opposite bank of the Neversink that had been used as a schoolhouse, but was at that time vacant. Into this he moved his family until he could build another house. The tracks of all sorts of wild animals could be seen around the cabin when the Hoyts arrived there.
There was a saw-mill at Katrina falls, and Mr. Hoyt commenced hauling white-pine lumber from this establishment. Settlers were scarce in the vicinity, but money was much more so; and Mr. Hoyt having brought with him a goodly supply of silver coin, men were found who were willing to leave their own farm work to get it. In two weeks' time Mr. Hoyt's new house was so far completed that he moved his family into it.
For several years the wolves annoyed them very much, and he found it very difficult to rear cattle or keep sheep. On one occasion the wolves killed eighteen sheep near the entrance to his door yard, where he found them lying about on the snow next morning. It was quite common for him to find the carcasses of yearlings in his fields, and occasionally his cattle would come home bleeding from wounds inflicted by the blood-letting and stealthy brutes.
A few years of labor brought comparative competence to the early settlers, whose privations for a time were very great. Here and there, throughout the valleys, was a small clearing, literally choked with stumps and stubborn roots; and in the midst of the clearing stood a little, low, bark-roofed, mud-plastered log-cabin, with a stick-and-mud chimney, with a hole sawed in the logs that served as a window. Near this was a log pen, open to the blasts and snows of winter, in which the pioneer stored whatever of hay or grain he could gather for the subsistence of his shivering cattle. These “children of the wilderness” had no difficulty in procuring meat, as the surrounding woods abounded in deer and bears, which could be had fresh from the shambles in a few hours' time. Wherever the beech-nut flourished the sweetest pork could be fattened, in which toothsome edible bears often came in for their share with the settlers. Wheat could be raised in sufficient quantities alongside the charred stumps, but to get it converted into flour was the great difficulty. It often required a journey of days to reach a flour mill, and then each customer was required to await his turn for his grist, which sometimes consumed a day or two more.
Samp and coarse meal were made at home in various ways. Some had a heavy wooden pestle fastened to a spring pole, with which a half bushel of corn could be pounded at once. This was thought to be a great institution. Later on, small mill-stones, made from the “grit” of Shawangunk mountain, and operated by hard labor, were introduced into the settlements, by which laborious and tedious operation a semblance of flour could be obtained.
Even the water-mills of the most approved pattern of those times were cumbersome and unsatisfactory affairs. One of these was put up in Sullivan county by a man named Thompson, and was facetiously dubbed Thompson's samp-mortar by the early settlers. The whole building would shake and quake to such an extent when the stones were revolving that even venturesome boys would flee from it.
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