The records show that in 1714 the only freeholders in Maghaghkemek were Thomas Swartwout, Harmon Barentsen, Jacob Cuddeback, Peter Gumaer and Jacobus Swartwout. To these were added, fourteen years later, the names of John Van Vliet, Jr., Samuel Swartwout and Bernardus Swartwout, Jr. This would show a very small increase in 38 years, assuming that the settlement began in 1690. This town became important also because of the long dispute over the boundary line between the States of New York and New Jersey. The variance of this line over which the conflict arose was in this township. The owners of the Minisink and the 1,200 acre patents were much disturbed for years by the New Jersey State authorities, who claimed the line ran considerably farther north of the Delaware River than the Deer Park people had established it. The New Jersey people claimed a large portion of this 1,200 acre patent through which they insisted the line ran, they procured a colony title to this disputed portion of that patent. The precise location of the line being vague and uncertain, no action at law could be maintained by either side, but a bitter struggle ensued and lasted for many years. The trouble seems to have arisen over the meaning of the phrase "the northernmost branch of the Delaware River," which was the language used in the description of title. There was a big triangular gore of land in dispute. This conflict lasted nearly seventy-five years, and then it was finally settled by an equitable division of the land in question. Among the residents on this disputed land was Major Swartwout, and the Jersey claimants planned to oust him from the property by force. He was prepared for such an attack, but in spite of all his loaded guns it seems that about 1730 the Jerseyites routed him from the house and threw out all his goods. But with the assistance of friends in Goshen the major was reinstated, and he afterward successfully repelled another attack made about ten years later. He was, however, captured and imprisoned, together with Johannes Westbrook, another resident of the battleground, some time between 1764 and 1767, by a strong force of Jersey men who surrounded his church on the Sabbath, and seized the two men at the close of the service, after a fierce struggle. Soon after this a new line was agreed upon and the fight ended by the passage of a royal edict at the Court of St. James in September, 1773. Commissioners of the two States afterward ran the line in accordance with that agreement. In 1874, one hundred years later, commissioners representing the two States made a resurvey with the assistance of the United States Coast Survey officials, which finally settled the great controversy for all time.