Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/177

DELAWARE COUNTY. 153 of the way on snow-shoes^ amidst many privations and diffi- culties. At Pepacton they procured a guide by the name of Joseph - White, and by whose aid they marked a road over the Col- chester mountain, very near where the present road is laid; this road they afterward cut out and succeeded in getting their wagons across. From the overhanging summit of these moun- tains they caught the first view of the promised land. On the north and west side it appeared to be one dense mass of pines of gigantic growth, and as they descended the mountain and wound down the valley, grove after grove of these huge trees opened to their view, which drew forth from the party many an exclamation of wonder and amazement. At the base of Pine- hill, and near where now stands the beautiful mansion of White Grriswold, Esq., they found and immediately took pos- session of a small hut, in which they deposited their provisions and goods, and made themselves as comfortable as the circum- stances would admit of, and far happier than they had been since they left New York. This hut had been built the year before by some men from Neversink, who had come up to cut timber for masts and spars ; they had cut over about one acre, on what is now familiarly known as Pine-hill, slid the timber into the river and formed it into rafts, without even the assist- ance of a team. But little of the lumber, however, ever reached the market — as the rafts, not being suitably con- structed, were stove to pieces and lodged along the banks of the Delaware far below, and one large spar lay where it had lodged on an island, about nine miles below Walton, from which fact raftsmen gave it the appellation of Long Mast Island, which name it retains to the present day. After having spent the summer in making the necessary arrangements for their families, they returned in the latter part of autumn to conduct their families to their new homes. The second journey of our pioneer settlers with their fami-