Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/174

150 HISTORY OF political affairs of this town and region, the life and character of Sluman Wattles are deserving the careful attention of every resident of the town — his own and the early history of our town being most deeply and intimately interwoven. He was in many respects a remarkable man — kind-hearted and benevolent — a popular man — an ingenious man — emphati- cally a man for the times — a genuine specimen of a back- woodsman, or one who in case of necessity could turn his head and hands to almost anything — from the business of a cobbler (which an old resident has informed the writer he took up himself, being a very ingenious man,'^) or when in his seat upon the judge's bench — in all stations, at all times and in all places, he was '^at home" — in action believing that " Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honour lies." For the following information the author is indebt6d to J oshua Pine, and others, of Walton : In the year 1784, Piatt Townsend, a surgeon in the army of the Revolution, contracted with Mr. Walton, the owner of a large tract of land, granted by letters-patent in 1770. The country had been recently explored and the boundaries fixed, extending from the Cooquago, or West Branch of the Delaware river, to near the Susquehanna, and containing several thou- sand acres. Those persons who had been sent out with the surveyors to spy out and examine the land, had returned with a most favorable report. They stated that the flats or bottom lands, where now stands the village of Walton, were, they should judge, about four miles wide and comparatively free from timber of heavy growth, and indeed nothing, excepting now and then perhaps a thorn-bush; also, that they thought it would be dangerous to build within at least two miles of the river, on account of the annual inundations of its banks, simi^ lar, indeed, to the far-famed inundations of the Nile.