These sturdy young people, ambitious, enterprising, accustomed to and delighting in the hardships of frontier life, found in this valley and at this place an ideal spot for their purpose. They determined to place themselves and their families beyond the realms of oppression and persecution, to live as free as the air they breathed, at a point relatively near, where their Huguenot countrymen had settled at Esopus and New Paltz. Game was abundant. Fish were in the streams in quantities. The soil was fertile, productive and easy of cultivation. The native inhabitants were kindly disposed and peaceable. Could anything be more alluring to these after their experience in their native land? Tradition relates that they were happy and contented in these new homes for many years. They were governed by a Christian sentiment and duty. Honor for honest industry abounded. Every person was comforted and ennobled by a "peaceful, pure and stimulating atmosphere of personal and religious freedom."

The typical pioneer's home has been described as a log house on sloping ground, on the brow of a hill, facing and overlooking the level meadow land, from which a path led up to its front door, which was about in the middle of the front of the house. Small high windows are on either side of it. Directly opposite the front is the back door, larger, wider and level with the ground. It opens against the sloping ground so that wood may be carried or rolled in or that the huge back log—the foundation for the fire—may be drawn in by a horse for the great wide fireplace which fills up one end of the single room—the "fire room"—the general living room. Across the ends of the house, logs surround the great stone chimney and are morticed in with the side logs. Between and around these clay and earth fill in the crevices.

Before the days when leaded window glass was first imported from England, thick oiled paper formed their semi-opaque windows. Sun-dials and hour glasses marked the time.

The ceilings were low, the stairs were short and steep. Ladders led to sleeping rooms above. The small cellars contained family supplies to supplement the food furnished by hunting and fishing, in which the Indian residents joined most willingly.

Indian trails widened to foot paths, as every one walked. Later travel by horseback was the custom, and pack horses carried their baggage, food and household effects—canoes and boats were of some service. For light, a bundle of yellow pine knots was burned in a corner of the large fireplace. This "candle wood" would be fastened there between flat stones. Later oil obtained from different sources was burned, as also tallow in betty lamps or brown bettys (shallow pewter or metal dishes two or three inches in diameter with projecting nose over which the wick hangs).

Phoebe lamps were similar but had a second shallow saucer to catch the drip. Later candles were made by dipping, afterwards by moulds. The pale brittle green bayberry candles from the taller shrub or candleberry tree gave most fragrant odor, while later, the brighter better light of the spermaceti candles was of service.

In the latter part of the 17th century, during the active lives of the second and third generations, the lands of the patent were allotted to individual ownership. The several owners then built substantial stone houses at nearby points in the valley. The "Gumaer stone house" of the present day was built. The "Cuddeback stone house," now standing, near the log house by the highway, near a small run of water just south of Port Clinton and about one mile due north of pioneers knoll, was built by Jacob Caudebec and his sons.

This has been occupied by six generations of the Cuddeback family. It is still firm and substantial and a comfortable home. The Swartwout's possessed Seneyaghquan.

These stone houses, generally irregularly rectangular, were most substantially built. Entrance was usually through a large double door, horizontally divided, opening into a large "fire room" at one end, while at the other end of the house was a smaller room, used as a dining room or a "state bed room," where a "Slawbank" or a "half headed bed" was ever ready for the visitor.

Cuddeback Stone House

The large heavy "lug pole" was replaced later by the light moveable iron crane with its iron hooks, pots and kettles in the great broad fireplace. Andirons and creepers were later added to the household equipment. The ceilings showed great logs and rafters rough hewn and supporting a board floor or roof with its heavy bark covering.

The attic, beside providing sleeping apartments, had near the chimney, a room with an opening to chimney and place to smoke bacon, ham and beef; also a room for grains, storage, etc.

The large deep cellars contained bins for potatoes, apples, turnips, beets, etc., barrels for salted beef, pork, game and fish—tubs of sausage, headcheese, etc., and firkins of butter, eggs—shelves filled with fruit, etc., barrels for cider, vinegar, etc.

In the earlier years, the tables were of boards and the dishes, platters, etc., were mostly of wood, so were the trenches, the borols, the tankards, the spoons of laurel wood and the plates of birch bark. Bottles and drinking cups and noggins of leather and sometimes of the thin hard shell of the gourd of horn. Later pewter dishes were substituted. Food was plentiful. Wild native fruits were in abundance, as huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries, grapes and cranberries. Wild turkey abounded in flocks. Wild geese and ducks by the thousands, and pigeons in flocks to obscure the light, and here were also pheasants, partridge, quail, snipe. These, with the products of the soil made life worth living, and secured the settlers comfort and prosperity.

The Indians, friendly and helpful, taught the planting and the raising of Indian corn, their "gunney wheat" or "turkey wheat"—a native American food—the grinding and the cooking of it and the preparation of many kinds of most nutritious foods from it, samp porridge, suppawn, new samp, succotash, using their handmade mills, their stump and sapling mortar also. They had great fear however of windmills. They were also most helpful in killing, securing and preserving game and fish for winter use. In turn, they learned to secure wild honey. With wonder they called the bees "English flies"; called the maples "sugar trees" as they boiled the sap and gathered the sugar.

They joined in the winter sports and pastimes as fox hunting, squirrel killing, bear bayting, and for a generation lived most peaceably with the settlers.

For about sixty years, friendly and peaceable relations existed with the Indians. The French and Indian war beginning about 1755 changed this. The Indians under French influence withdrew from this region, became hostile, made life perilous—property uncertain, and committed many acts of treachery. Afterwards a few of them returned and remained in the valley until the revolution, when the absence of many of the men and the influence of the cunning Brandt turned them again to be enemies of the whites and led to the invasion of 1777 and 1779.

In 1777 the Committee of Safety directed that three forts be built in the "peenpack" neighborhood. The central one near the house of Ezekiel Gumaer was near by the Pioneer's knoll. Surrounding the stone house, on the open land a "picket fort" a stockade was built. Rows of tree trunks, stakes, etc., were planted upright enclosing several acres, an area sufficient to accommodate the nearby families. Around this fort with Capt. Abram Cuddeback in command, many exciting adventures occurred during the revolution. Gumaer states, "that the fort sheltered eleven families, aggregating one hundred and thirteen persons during the greater portion of the years 1778-9."

William Cuddeback, the father of Capt. Abram, was there with his family. He was an old man and died soon after the revolution. His son, Benjamin Cuddeback, was at Fort DeWitt, near the present Neversink highway bridge, at the time of the raid and was in charge of its defense. After the invasion, he returned to the "Cuddeback Stone House," "Fort Cuddeback," with his family, where he died about 1782 presumably of typhoid fever.

The upper was the neighborhood of Meckheckemeck, while the lower neighborhood embracing the valley from Huguenot, south to the Delaware river was called "Little Minisink Neighborhood." Its forts were—Westfall, Decker, near the Delaware and Van Auken, the latter being east of the Neversink where the stone houses afforded the protection.

After the revolution, more attention was paid to agriculture. The small farms were again cultivated to a greater extent. Timbers were rafted down the Neversink and Delaware to market. Saw mills and grist mills were built in the valley. The cultivation of flax and hemp constituted a large part of their labor. The manufacture of cloth and clothing was a household occupation and year end employment for both the men and the women of the families. The sowing, the cultivation, the gathering of the flax which must be pulled, dried and ripped and spread into a "stook" in the field. This was followed by the cleaning, the drying and the tying in bundles. The new grown hemp must be pounded, swingled, carded and dried, then swingled, pounded and hetcheled until the fibers were assorted, spread and drawn ready for spinning. The raising of sheep, the shearing, the assorting of fleeces, the carding of the wool—the colorings of "golden rod green"—the "pokeberry crimson"—the "sassafras orange yellow"—the hickory-oak bark or indigo as fancy may decide. The skeins bleached, washed, dyed and dried were wound on bobbins for the loom. Then came the knitting, the weaving, and the making of the clothing,—broom corn brooms supplanted birch splint brooms. Such constant employment invariably leads to habits of economy, to adaptability and resourcefulness which makes for independence and strength.

This mutual dependence and assistance resulting from their situation made a "neighborhood" feeling whereby each shared in the profits, the pleasures and the luxuries of the others. They joined together in their work and in generous welcome to the kinsfolks. With such environments, to a people, strong, vigorous, enterprising, voluntary exiles for conscience's and their religious sake, these develop strong characteristics in families, more marked in some individuals.

Gumaer notes this development in the earlier generation. He says, "religious reading meetings were held in the peenpack neighborhood," also "the services of an officer were unnecessary in that neighborhood during the first sixty or seventy years of the settlement. They had the honesty and the prudence to adjust all matters relating to their mutual dealings." When roused by fear and danger they became sturdy energetic soldiers who knew only independence and self-reliance. The extent of this is shown by the military records. In the second regiment of Ulster County militia, in the company of which Captain Abram Cuddeback commanded we find among the enlisted men six of the name of Cuddeback—William, Peter, James, Benjamin, Abraham, Sr., Abraham, Jr., five of the name of Swartwout and several names of each of the families of the region. With such inheritance, with such discipline, with such surroundings, with nature as a firm, kind, unyielding teacher, impress of character was early discernible with these people. These families developed traits of character and physical stature which has been most noticeable in members of succeeding generations.

"William Cuddeback, though uneducated, was versed in the scriptures, was characterized as a wise man in his time." Each succeeding generation developed its leaders in the religious, business and social matters of their day, of sterling uprightness and integrity, among a people gentle, modest, retiring, with strong religious convictions, with sympathy and helpfulness toward each other and a fidelity to duty.

Gumaer states, "I have sat many a long winter evening and many an hour in the day time to hear the conversations and arguments of a few of the individuals of the second generation. Many of these communications and remarks were entertaining and instructive as to what had transpired in this valley, and as to the lives of the people." Gumaer also states from knowledge gained in this way he considers "that Col. Peter Cuddeback had the general resemblance to the early members of the family." His picture herewith presented may be considered as indicative of the features and general physique of the family.

Col. Peter Cuddeback

The family life was the community life of the early generations. Remnants of this have continued in some localities where the husking bee, the quilting party or the apple cut afford opportunities for the family to gather and to rehearse tales of the early trials, fortunes and successes. This family visiting, when all of the family were included, with its free hearty welcome, and its unreserved and unstinted hospitality indicated the fellowship of the family as a group and as the unit in the community and is in marked contrast to the twentieth century methods where the individual is the unit.

After the revolution, the state lands of Central New York were opened to settlers. Many of the younger men of the third generation emigrated to that portion of the state and became pioneers on the "Holland purchase" and the military lands of the state where their families have continued to reside.

Later the descendants in the fourth generation, farmers and those of allied pursuits, became owners of nearly all of the most fertile bottom lands in the valley. They were jealous of their ownership of these paternal farms, and guarded them from outside ownership and intrusion. This spirit developed also in the members of those families in western New York where they located. Near Skaneateles, through one section, farm after farm for miles in extent was the property of a Cuddeback, at Owasco, at Moravia. In Niles township, at Twelve Corners, the same conditions existed. Farm after farm was the property of a Van Etten, Westfall, Van Fleet or Cuddeback, or a relative of one of them in the third or fourth generation, from Deerpark ancestry.

Similar conditions to a limited extent existed in other sections as in Wayne County, N.Y., Seneca County, N.Y., Niagara County, N.Y., Wayne and Bradford Counties, Pa., near Adrian, Mich., and in Iowa.

In 1745 Roelof Elting bequeathed to his daughter, Jacomyntje Codebec, certain sums of money—to others lands, which if they sold, they must first offer to their brothers and sisters at the same price a stranger would pay.

In this development of families of succeeding generations in different localities we see illustrated the migratory element of our people.

These sturdy young emigrants of the middle of the seventeenth century settled and established their homes near Kingston, N.Y., about 1650 and reared their families there. As their children reached maturity and began life for themselves, some of them with others, later emigrants, sought adjacent locations for their homes. The Meckheckemeck settlement was formed just previous to 1700. Lands were purchased and the Cuddeback patent was obtained. Here a new generation grew to manhood. Youth again active, restless and alert sought other locations. From 1730 to 1750 the lands along the Delaware, both in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania were attractive. The younger of the families of Cuddeback, Depuy, Shimer and Hornbeck established homes there. Records show that some of the Swartwouts of the third generation, natives of Meckheckemeck, then called "Pin-peck," or "Peenpack," removed to this section.

As the next generation grew to manhood many of them seeking homes crossed over into the valley of Susquehanna into the southern central New York counties. This movement was quite extensive just after the revolution, when influenced by the DeWitts, surveyors, quite a colony from Peenpack established themselves in the "lake country" of central New York.

Again in each succeeding generation similar developments occurred. Soon after 1800 the active, restless young people from Central New York emigrated to Michigan and to Ohio accompanied by relatives and friends from the older settlements on the Delaware and Susquehanna.

These migrations have continued. The more alert or venturesome of each generation have sought new locations to establish their homes. They are now in every state of the Union some who are direct lineal descendants of the emigrant Jacques Caudebec and in the older locations the network of relationship is intricate and closely woven.

The lands in the valley continued to be most productive during the first half of the nineteenth century. Substantial stately houses were built. Large barns and out buildings were erected. The thrift and prosperity of the farmers continued. The social life centered about the church and the homes—a broad hospitality prevailed of which the family was the unit.

During the lives of the fifth and sixth generations, conditions have changed materially. The varied pursuits of the twentieth century gives occupation as varied and diverse as their homes are distant from one another and from the ancestral home of the family. The exhaustion of the soil, the attraction of the productive western farm lands, the migration to the cities, all have tended to diminish the population and the representatives of the family throughout this entire region of country. It is a fact, however, more than eighty per cent, of the lands of the Caudebec patent remains today in the possession of owners whose ancestry may be traced to a patentee.

The first attempt to build a grist mill in the valley was made by Jacob Caudebec and his sons, near the Caudebec stone house. The small run of water over the steep declivity just east of the house furnished the power, the rough stone blocks, the mill stones, were obtained from the Indians. Grains for both the settlers and the Indians were ground there for many years, substituting this for hand pounding with pestle in mortar and for the sapling and stump mortar.

Later other and better mill sites were located in the valley. One of which was the mill site of Henry Decker on the old dam brook. "Ouwe Dam Kill"—a dam across the spring brook about one mile northeast of Port Jervis, overflowed a long, low marshy tract of land extending toward Huguenot, stored water for power purposes for a mill located at that point.

Remnants of this dam are visible today just west of the Huguenot highway where it crosses the railroad as both cross the stream near Port Jervis. Also foundation stone of the old log house, the mill house are still visible about twenty-five feet east of the present dwelling. This property became the property of Benjamin Cuddeback about 1800. The present dwelling built by Benjamin Cuddeback about 1814 stands today typical of its time in shape, size and structure. Later it was the home of Elting Cuddeback for eighty years and of his son, the writer, during his youth.

Jacob Caudebec and Peter Gumaer were French Huguenot refugees. Caudebec came from Caudebec-en-Caux—a thriving agricultural and manufacturing town on the Seine in Normandy, France.

These refugees, Caudebec and Gumaer, fled in 1685 to England or Holland, thence to Maryland, in America, later to New Amsterdam, thence to Oesopus and Wylt Wyck (Kingston), N.Y.

Jacob Caudebec was born about 1666 in Normandy of a family of prosperous merchants. In his flight he became separated from his people. He was unable afterwards to find trace of his own family or sisters or to recover any of their property. Although the following story is found among the writings of Peter Gumaer: "Now I have understood that it had been concluded on between Cuddeback and two of his sisters that he and Gumaer would go to a certain place in England or Holland (I am not certain which) and that after a certain time these two sisters would embark for the same place and bring money to enter into a mercantile business at the place of their destination; and that Cuddeback and Gumaer after being landed at this place waited for these two sisters till after the time for their arrival had elapsed; and giving up all hopes of their coming embarked for America and were landed in the State of Maryland; which passage exhausted the last of their money. Cuddeback had information afterwards, that his sisters after some length of time had arrived and entered into a mercantile business; and he was chagrined in consequence of their having all the money. It was said that after they had arrived Cuddeback corresponded with them by letters and would often remind them of their injustice in keeping to themselves all the property; which I have understood they offered to share with him if he would come and live with them or they would take and do well by one of his children if he would send one of them." Ruttenber states that Peter Gumaer and Jacob Caudebec were the younger members of the families of Abraham Guimar and James Caudebec. He soon adapted himself to the different conditions of life of the new world. He found employment with Benjamin Provost, a trader of New York and Oesopus. He came to this valley in 1690. On October 21st, 1695, he married in New York City Margarette Provost, a daughter of his employer, Benjamin Provost, and Elsje Aelberts who had been married in New York Nov. 5th, 1671.

Jacob Caudebec is quoted as having said that "by leaving France he had been deprived of many enjoyments but he had the satisfaction of leaving his posterity in a country of good land, easily acquired." He is characterized as of a penetrating mind, persuasive in business, of speculative disposition, and most tender towards his family. He retained his mental faculties and physical vigor almost until his last hour. Three of his sons became farmers on the peenpack flats, the lands of the patent. On February 15th, 1726, he deeded a one-seventh interest in the patent to his three sons, Benjamin, William and Jacob, who agreed to pay certain moneys equally to all his children. One son and four sons-in-law became farmers near Shepekunk, in northern New Jersey along the Delaware. In 1715 the name of Jacob Koddeback appears as member of a foot company of Ulster County militia, under the command of Col. Jacob Rutsen. On September 1st, 1689, J. Caudebec, a native of France, took oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary.

Map--Division of Land