Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/175

DELAWARE COUNTY. 151 Based upon these high-colored descriptions, given of this seemingly El Dorado of the Delaware, a river supposed at least to be navigable for sloops, an effort was made, which proved partially successful, to organize accompany to emigrate and form a colony or settlement upon the patent. Those who had property, converted it into money as fast as they could, even though at a sacrifice, being desirous of being among the first that moved, in order to secure a choice location upon the patent, while others, more prudent perhaps, chose to send on persons to make a more careful examination, the result of which was that out of a company of about thirty persons, only four or five families concluded to remove ] these had all suf- fered by the war, and were consequently peculiarly calculated to become the hardy pioneers of a new soil, having become accustomed to hardships and privations during that ordeal that "tried men's souls.'^ They were principally natives of Long Island, but some of them had resided in Westchester county previous to the Revolution, during which they had been driven from place to place ; but at the ratification of the treaty of peace with Great Britain, they returned and gathered up the fragments of their fortunes, and assembled the scattered members of their fami- lies, and many of them houseless and homeless, prepared to emigrate to new sections of the country. We shall not, in this place, attempt to follow the minia- ture colony through all their preliminary arrangements, how- ever replete they may be with interest to the reader, or dwell upon their varied hopes and fears. The parting of friends, and the final adieus are exchanged — they arrive in New York, and take passage on board of an Esopus sloop, which weighed anchor from the foot of Peck Slip, and were soon, with a favorable wind, rapidly making sail up the Hudson. They left New York about the first of March, 1785, rounded the battery just as the luminous orb of day was sink-