was plentiful. Wild native fruits were in abundance, as huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries, grapes and cranberries. Wild turkey abounded in flocks. Wild geese and ducks by the thousands, and pigeons in flocks to obscure the light, and here were also pheasants, partridge, quail, snipe. These, with the products of the soil made life worth living, and secured the settlers comfort and prosperity.

The Indians, friendly and helpful, taught the planting and the raising of Indian corn, their "gunney wheat" or "turkey wheat"—a native American food—the grinding and the cooking of it and the preparation of many kinds of most nutritious foods from it, samp porridge, suppawn, new samp, succotash, using their handmade mills, their stump and sapling mortar also. They had great fear however of windmills. They were also most helpful in killing, securing and preserving game and fish for winter use. In turn, they learned to secure wild honey. With wonder they called the bees "English flies"; called the maples "sugar trees" as they boiled the sap and gathered the sugar.

They joined in the winter sports and pastimes as fox hunting, squirrel killing, bear bayting, and for a generation lived most peaceably with the settlers.

For about sixty years, friendly and peaceable relations existed with the Indians. The French and Indian war beginning about 1755 changed this. The Indians under French influence withdrew from this region, became hostile, made life perilous—property uncertain, and committed many acts of treachery. Afterwards a few of them returned and remained in the valley until the revolution, when the absence of many of the men and the influence of the cunning Brandt turned them again to be enemies of the whites and led to the invasion of 1777 and 1779.

In 1777 the Committee of Safety directed that three forts be built in the "peenpack" neighborhood. The central one near the house of Ezekiel Gumaer was near by the Pioneer's knoll. Surrounding the stone house, on the open land a "picket fort" a stockade was built. Rows of tree trunks, stakes, etc., were planted upright enclosing several acres, an area sufficient to accommodate the nearby families. Around this fort with Capt. Abram Cuddeback in command, many exciting adventures occurred during the revolution. Gumaer states, "that the fort sheltered eleven families, aggregating one hundred and thirteen persons during the greater portion of the years 1778-9."

William Cuddeback, the father of Capt. Abram, was there with his family. He was an old man and died soon after the revolution. His son, Benjamin Cuddeback, was at Fort DeWitt, near the present Neversink highway bridge, at the time of the raid and was in charge of its defense. After the invasion, he returned to the "Cuddeback Stone House," "Fort Cuddeback," with his family, where he died about 1782 presumably of typhoid fever.

The upper was the neighborhood of Meckheckemeck, while the lower neighborhood embracing the valley from Huguenot, south to the Delaware river was called "Little Minisink Neighborhood." Its forts were—Westfall, Decker, near the Delaware and Van Auken, the latter being east of the Neversink where the stone houses afforded the protection.

After the revolution, more attention was paid to agriculture. The small farms were again cultivated to a greater extent. Timbers were rafted down the Neversink and Delaware to market. Saw mills and grist mills were built in the valley. The cultivation of flax and hemp constituted a large part of their labor. The manufacture of cloth and clothing was a household occupation and year end employment for both the men and the women of the families. The sowing, the cultivation, the gathering of the flax which must be pulled, dried and ripped and spread into a "stook" in the field. This was followed by the cleaning, the drying and the tying in bundles. The new grown hemp must be pounded, swingled, carded and dried, then swingled, pounded and hetcheled until the fibers were assorted, spread and drawn ready for spinning. The raising of sheep, the shearing, the assorting of fleeces, the carding of the wool—the colorings of "golden rod green"—the "pokeberry crimson"—the "sassafras orange yellow"—the hickory-oak bark or indigo as fancy may decide. The skeins bleached, washed, dyed and dried were wound on bobbins for the loom. Then came the knitting, the weaving, and the making of the clothing,—broom corn brooms supplanted birch splint brooms. Such constant employment invariably leads to habits of economy, to adaptability and resourcefulness which makes for independence and strength.

This mutual dependence and assistance resulting from their situation made a "neighborhood" feeling whereby each shared in the profits, the pleasures and the luxuries of the others. They joined together in their work and in generous welcome to the kinsfolks. With such environments, to a people, strong, vigorous, enterprising, voluntary exiles for conscience's and their religious sake, these develop strong characteristics in families, more marked in some individuals.

Gumaer notes this development in the earlier generation. He says, "religious reading meetings were held in the peenpack neighborhood," also "the services of an officer were unnecessary in that neighborhood during the first sixty or seventy years of the settlement. They had the honesty and the prudence to adjust all matters relating to their mutual dealings." When roused by fear and danger they became sturdy energetic soldiers who knew only independence and self-reliance. The extent of this is shown by the military records. In the second regiment of Ulster County militia, in the company of which Captain Abram Cuddeback commanded we find among the enlisted men six of the name of Cuddeback—William, Peter, James, Benjamin, Abraham, Sr., Abraham, Jr., five of the name of Swartwout and several names of each of the families of the region. With such inheritance, with such discipline, with such surroundings, with nature as a firm, kind, unyielding teacher, impress of character was early discernible with these people. These families developed traits of character and physical stature which has been most noticeable in members of succeeding generations.

"William Cuddeback, though uneducated, was versed in the scriptures, was characterized as a wise man in his time." Each succeeding generation developed its leaders in the religious, business and social matters of their day, of sterling uprightness and integrity, among a people gentle, modest, retiring, with strong religious convictions, with sympathy and helpfulness toward each other and a fidelity to duty.

Gumaer states, "I have sat many a long winter evening and many an hour in the day time to hear the conversations and arguments of a few of the individuals of the second generation. Many of these communications and remarks were entertaining and instructive as to what had transpired in this valley, and as to the lives of the people." Gumaer also states from knowledge gained in this way he considers "that Col. Peter Cuddeback had the general resemblance to the early members of the family." His picture herewith presented may be considered as indicative of the features and general physique of the family.

The family life was the community life of the early generations. Remnants of this have continued in some localities where the husking bee, the quilting party or the apple cut afford opportunities for the family to gather and to rehearse tales of the early trials, fortunes and successes. This family visiting, when all of the family were included, with its free hearty welcome, and its unreserved and unstinted hospitality indicated the fellowship of the family as a group and as the unit in the community and is in marked contrast to the twentieth century methods where the individual is the unit.

After the revolution, the state