DEERPARK DIARY TOWN OF DEERPARK 1863 SCHOOL HOUSE MUSEUM TOWN OF DEERPARK HISTORIAN, P. O. BOX 621, HUGUENOT, NEW YORK 12746 (845-856-2702) SEPTEMBER 2009 VOL. 6 NO. 3 PEENPACK PATENT Joseph Brant took 1200 ACRES 1695 Features this route when he at- • Peenpack History tacked the Maghagkemik Neighborhood (Hugue- • Old Stone Houses not—Tri-States—Port Jervis—Sparrowbush) on • Current Events July 21, 1779. The trail Deerpark Heritage Day at that time went through Deerest Deerpark wilderness. There were no houses. His stealth along Peenpack History the trail completely sur- prised the neighborhood. Peenpack Patent The residents in the more populated area weren’t The history of the word aware of the attack un- Peenpack dates back to the Le- til they saw the homes in nape Indians who lived here in the the entire valley in flames. Neversink Valley. The tribe that Brant had led his Indian lived in the Cuddebackville/Go- and Tory raiders into this deffroy area were known as the Lower Neighborhood by Peenpack Indians. This area was fording the Neversink also known as the Upper Neigh- River and then burning, looting borhood during the time of the and destroying homes, barns, early European Settlers. The tribe PEENPACK TRAIL mills and a school. The destruc- that lived in the Lower Neighbor- tion continued westward toward hood (Port Jervis/Tri-States) were The original Peenpack the Delaware River, with the burn- called the Mahagkemik Indians. Trail was most certainly an In- ing of the Mahagkemik Church, Jacob Cuddeback went to dian trail before it became a road Fort Decker, and other homes, the Governor of the New York used by the early settlers to travel barns and mills. Brant then head- Colony to ask for a patent for the between the Neversink and Dela- ed north along the Delaware with land that the original settlers, Ja- ware Rivers. Today it is a well- cattle, horses and other supplies cob Cuddeback, John Tyse, Pe- traveled road between Cahoonzie that had been looted. ter Gumaer, David Jamison, and and Huguenot. On July 22nd, about 120 Anthony, Bernardus and Thomas The 1875 Beers Map militiamen from Orange and Ul- Swartwout lived on. On Octo- shows that the Peenpack Trail ster Counties in New York and ber 14, 1697, a patent for 1200 went from the Delaware River, Sussex County in New Jersey acres of land was granted to all over the mountain through Ca- gathered at Major Decker’s store- of the families. The Peenpack hoonzie and back down into the house (Neversink Drive) to plan Patent covered land between the valley to the Neversink River at an attack against Joseph Brant and Old Mine Road (Route 209), and the Swartwout Homestead. It cut his band of raiders. They forded the Neversink River, south to the out the entire southwestern sec- the Neversink River at Huguenot Peenpack Trail. tion of Deerpark. and traveled northward on the Peenpack trail until they reached been alterations to the original The DeWitt Clinton House the Delaware River. At that point stonehouse, however its original they continued to Minisink Ford lines are still visible today. The The DeWitt house is in where a battle took place. house is located on Route 209. A Cuddebackville and stands at historic marker is located along the intersection of Prospect Hill the road marking the site. Road and Route 209. Jacob De- Jacob Caudebec had fled Witt built this home prior to the Houses that France in 1686 with his friend, American Revolution and it was Survived the American Peter Gumaer, to escape religious used as a fort during that time. It Revolution persecution. In 1755, he built the had a stockade fence surrounding little house on the hill within sig- the structures and was fired upon naling distance of Fort Gumaer. by Joseph Brant and his raiders The Brant raid on the He was seventy years old at the with little or no damage. During Peenpack neighborhood on Oc- time and lived to be about one the winter of 1778-1779 sixty- tober 14, 1778 destroyed almost hundred. He witnessed the wil- five people from the Peenpack everything within present-day derness being pushed back so far neighborhood lived there because Cuddebackville, Godeffroy and that a son complained that his par- the rest of the homes had been Huguenot. The only habitable ents had lacked the foresight to burned. buildings left in the area were include in their patent sufficient In the 1940s the building the homes of the DeWitts beside woodland to provide fuel for their was used by its owner, Marcus the Neversink River, the stone decendents. Stamp, as a magistrate’s office house of Ezekiel Gumaer, and Ja- As the neighborhood grew and court. The late Dr. W. L. Cud- cob Caudebec’s stone house. The changes took place. Jacob built deback asked the Stamps not to DeWitt home had been fortified the first grist mill on the stream destroy the old building because with a picket fence, just as the near his new home in the Peen- of its historical associations, so Gumaer and DePuy stone houses pack region. Before this the Peen- they had new siding put on and were fortified. The militia and lo- pack settlers had to carry their left it otherwise unchanged. The cal residents fought off Brant and broad, stubby chimney and in- his raiders at the DeWitt and Gu- grain nearly sixty miles to Esopus ward swinging casement windows maer forts, but the Depuy fort was (Kingston) mills or pound it to were original. The handrail of the burned down and the inhabitants course meal in the manner of the stair was a rough hickory pole. escaped to Fort Gumaer. Indians. Within the walls there is a mortar No one knows why the Mr. Caudebec experienced of plaster, corncobs and hair held Caudebec house was spared, espe- many changes in the one hundred in place by split poles. cially since the patriarch’s grand- years of his life from wilderness In 1943 Mildred Seese son was in command of Fort Gu- to the time of the French and In- published the book Old Orange maer. Over the years there have dian War. Houses Vol. II. The following arti- cle, “Clinton Son said DeWitt was Born on the Neversink”, is about Jacob Caudebec the DeWitt house. House “Three places in Orange and one in Ulster County have Brant’s Raiders been represented by local histori- missed this one ans as the birthplace of DeWitt unfortified stone Clinton, Governor of New York house during and the chief figure in the develop- the 1778 ment of the Erie Canal. One was Peenpack Raid. the home of his maternal grandfa- ther, Egbert DeWitt, at Napanoch DEWITT Clinton House Gumaer Stone House Photo by Edward P. This article is written to Dougherty correct a misconception that the ca. 1940s Gumaer Stone House, located in Godeffroy, is the same building as Part of the original Fort Gumaer. At present, there are Fort DeWitt no physical remains of the origi- 1700s nal fort. Records state that the original Gumaer home was forti- fied with stockade fencing, just as the Depuy and DeWitt homes “At least parts of all three on militia duty at the frontier. In were. There were militia stationed of the Orange County houses still addition, there was the incident at Fort Gumaer and Fort DeWitt stand: his father’s in New Wind- of the early 1830s, when DeWitt, Unfortunately, Fort Depuy didn’t sor, his Grandfather Clinton’s in Jr., a member of the Army En- have any militia and was de- Little Britain and his Uncle Jacob gineer Corps, was surveying in stroyed. DeWitt’s home on the Neversink Deerpark. In a conversation with The original stone house, River in Godeffroy. (Cuddeback- William Rose of Rose’s Point on known as Fort Depuy in the 1700s, ville—editor’s note) … the build- the D & H Canal, he expressed a was built by Benjamin Depuy pri- ing was part of the stockaded wish to see his father’s birthplace or to the Revolutionary War. Jo- establishment of Captain Jacob in that neighborhood. He was di- seph Brant and his raiding party Rutsen DeWitt before and after rected to the former DeWitt prop- destroyed the house and burned the Revolution and Deerpark his- erty. …a grand niece of the Gov- the stockade and other buildings torians offer good evidence, if not ernor, possessor of many Clinton on October 14, 1778. The Depuy proof, that it was the birthplace of papers, was the authority for the household, fifteen persons in all, DeWitt Clinton… statement in a DeWitt Clinton was forced to take refuge in the “Family data agreed that High School publication of 1906 nearby Fort Gumaer. he was not born at his father’s that DeWitt Clinton was born at Depuy rebuilt on the old home in New Windsor. His son, the home of his uncle in Deer- site after the war and lived there George W. Clinton, wrote W. H. park.” Nearpass of Port Jervis in 1878 that he had often heard his father was born when Mrs. James Clin- ton was detained away from home by a snowstorm. Captain DeWitt’s daughter, wife of William Rose of Little Britain, was quoted as say- ing that because of the storm her Aunt Maria barely reached the DeWitt fort before the baby was born; and an Ulster historian, re- linquishing the Napanoch claim, explained Maria Clinton’s pres- GUMAER STONE HOUSE ence at Fort DeWitt at such a time by the fact that her husband was PHOTO CA.