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24 HISTORY OF CHAPTER III. New York in 1110 — Total population of the Colony at that period — Tryon and Charlotte counties erected — Their extent — Population of Tryon — First settlement German Palatines — Settlements made by them— Heldeburgh Hills — Origin of the name — Schoharie valley — Its settlement — Settlement at Cherry Valley — Privations of the set- tlers the first winter — Hair-breadth escape from starvation — Suc- cored by a friendly Indian — Nativity of the early settlers — Harper family — Settle in Cherry Valley — Their influence with the Indians — Harpers found a new settlement — Called Harpersfield — Obtain a Patent — Surveyed — Mrs. Harper, the first white woman in the town — Constructs a log-house with her own hands — The first house in Harpersfield — Privations the following winter — Providential re- lief from starvation — Slow progress of the settlement — Reception of new settlers — Settlement in Middletown, before the Revolution — Death of Dumond, by the Schoharie Guard — Brugher shot by the Indians while threshing buckwheat — His son taken prisoner — Re- lease and return of the son to Middletown — Drowned while cross- ing the Delaware some years after — Indian Villages on the East Branch — Milling stories — Indian hunting-grounds — Beaver ; pecu- liarities of the animal — Ancient Apple-trees; anecdotes concern- ing— Pakatakan, an Indian Village— Supposed signification of the name — Tribes of Indians who occupied — Papagouck and Pepacton, other Indian Villages— Historical communication of Dr. 0. M. Alla- ben. " The noblest men I know on earth, Are men whose hands are brown with toil ; Who, backed by no ancestral graves, Hew down the woods and till the soil. And win thereby a prouder fame Than follows kings and warriors' name," As we have stated in a previous chapter, in 1770, the tide of emigration received a sudden impetus, and the line of the