All rivers and streams have formed the grade of their bottoms from their summits toward the ocean according to their magnitude, and the original formation of the respective districts of country through which they pass. The river flats, amounting to about three or four thousand acres, was nearly all the land in this town which the first pioneers considered to be of any value for agricultural purposes, the residue being generally mountainous, rough, stony land, was by them considered to be of no value for farming purposes. PLENTIFUL SUPPLY OF GAME, FISH, FRUIT, ETC. This district of territory which the small town of Deerpark now embraces, when the Indians were its sole proprietors, was a very plentiful place for Indian life when first discovered by Europeans. The fiats, covered with a tall grass from four to six feet high, and the same and surrounding woods, often burned over, abounded with numerous deer, bears, raccoons, and many smaller animals suitable for the sustenance of men, also with turkeys, ducks, partridges and other birds suitable for man's diet. Generally in the spring of the year vast numbers of pigeons passed over here to the northeast, vast flocks of which generally lighted on the trees and ground to get food, which gave opportunities of killing some of them. The rivers and brooks teemed with different kinds of fishes, such as trout, pike, chubs, suckers, sunfish, catfish and eels, and numerous shad in the spring season in both the Delaware and the Neversink rivers, in the latter of which they ran up about five miles, which distance then generally was deep water and extended to where David Swartwout now lives; [FN] these fish were caught by bush seines, and in the Delaware river were also many rockfish, which were taken in the fall of the year by means of eel-weirs and bush seines, some of which were the largest fish in this part of that river. Also, there were, and still are, different kinds of nuts, such as white walnuts, hickory nuts, chestnuts, butternuts, hazelnuts; also various kinds of fruit and berries, to wit: large and small grapes, plums, black and red wild cherries, huckleberries, strawberries, black and red raspberries, blackberries of two or more kinds, and wintergreen berries. Such was this district of country and its productions when our forefathers came here, so that they could obtain a plentiful supply of the best of wild meats of animals, fowls and fishes, and, by the cultivation of small portions of their lands, they could obtain a supply of grain, roots and other vegetables. They could not do much at farming before the children of these first families became able to assist in that business. At this early period of their settlement they pounded their grain for such bread, cakes and soups as they made in those times, for doing which they procured pounding stones from the Indians, who manufactured them, and made or obtained from the Indians