He was deputed by John Lukens, surveyor general, to go into Northampton County on his first surveying tour, and received from him, by way of instruction, a narrative respecting the settlements of Minisink on the Delaware above the Kittany and Blue Mountain. This stated that John Lukens and Nicholas Scull--the latter a famous surveyor, and the former his apprentice--were sent to the Minisink region in 1730 for the government of Philadelphia; that the Minisink flats were then all settled by Hollanders; that they found there a grove of apple trees much larger than any near Philadelphia, and that they came to the conclusion that the first settlement of Hollanders in Minisink was many years older than William Penn's charter. Samuel Depuis, who was living there, told them that there was a good road to Esopus, near Kingston, about a hundred miles from the Mine holes, which was called the Mine road. Preston was charged by Lukens to learn more particulars about this Mine road, and obtained some from Nicholas Depuis, son of Samuel, who was living in great affluence in a spacious stone house. He had known the Mine road well, and before a boat channel was opened to Foul Rift, used to drive on it several times every winter with loads of wheat and cider to buy salt and other necessaries, as did also his neighbors. He repeated stories without dates that he had heard from older people. They said that in some former age a company of miners came there from Holland; that they worked two mines, and were very rich; that they built the Mine road with great labor, and hauled their ore over it; that they bought the improvements of the native Indians, the most of whom moved to the Susquehanna. [Illustration: The Colonel Ellison House, New Windsor] In 1789 Preston began to build a house in the Minisink and obtained more evidence from Gen. James Clinton, the father of Gov. Dewitt Clinton, and Christopher Tappan, Recorder of Ulster County, who came there on a surveying expedition. They both knew the Mine holes and the Mine road, and were of the opinion that they were worked while New York belonged to Holland, which was previous to 1664. Preston did not learn what kind of ore the mines produced, but concluded that it was silver. He went to the Paaquarry Mine holes, and found the mouths caved full and overgrown with bushes, but giving evidence of a great deal of labor done there in some former time.