{Transcriber's Note: Comments surrounded by braces "{}" are by the transcriber. Those surrounded by brackets "[]" or parentheses "()" are by the original, anonymous editor except that the transcriber has changed footnote symbols to the notation "[FN]" and moved all footnotes so they immediately follow the paragraphs referencing them.} {Frontispiece: Peter E. Gumaer} A HISTORY OF DEERPARK IN ORANGE COUNTY, N. Y. By PETER E. GUMAER [Illustration: Seal of Minisink Valley Historical Society] WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR AND CUT OF HOUSE IN WHICH HE LIVED. * * * * * PUBLISHED BY THE MINISINK VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1890 * * * * * PORT JERVIS UNION PRINT {?} PREFACE. Having been solicited by certain individuals of the first settlers in the neighborhood of my residence, in the town of Deerpark, for a written information in relation to their respective ancestry, both of those who now reside in this town and of those residing in other parts of our country, and feeling desirous to gratify their wishes and save from oblivion the knowledge I possess relative to their forefathers, I have thought proper to make out a small work of the same and get it printed, so that all who shall be desirous of such information can obtain the same, which undoubtedly must be a great satisfaction to many who have not had the opportunity of becoming informed in relation thereto, especially the descendants of those whose parents at an early day of the settlement of our western country emigrated into it. The general topics of conversation have changed much in this vicinity within my time of life. At the termination of the Revolutionary war this change commenced. The attention of the young people was generally directed towards the passing scenes of their time, and they remained ignorant of what had transpired during the lives of their forefathers. In the early part of my life some of the old people, whenever they came together, generally introduced the occurrences of former times, in relation to the ancient inhabitants of this valley, who inhabited it for a distance of eighty miles. From these discourses and my own observations and researches, I have become enabled to write this history. Capt. Cuddeback, Esq., Depuy and my own mother were the greatest historians. Of what had materially transpired throughout this valley from the first and last of these I have had my greatest source of information. INTRODUCTION.