From the length of time which intervened between the first settlement nearest at Peenpack and that made in the lower neighborhood, it appears probable that the latter was prevented by the Indian chief who resided on the land now of Levi or Thomas Van Etten, Esq.
[LONGEVITY OF THE FIRST AND SECOND GENERATIONS.]
The ages to which the first and second generations arrived, cannot all be correctly ascertained for want of records of the times of their several births and deaths. The only record of which the writer is in possession, is that of the families of the first and second Peter Gumaer, relative to the births of their respective children. These two records are a guide to get into the neighborhood of the times of the births of the members of the other families, and from what I have obtained from inscriptions on tombstones and the information I have had relative to the times to which some of them lived, I can correctly determine the ages of some of them and within a few years of others.
It was said of Jacob Cuddeback, by his grandson, Capt. Cuddeback, that he lived to the age of 100 years and retained his faculties good to the end of his life. In 1686, when Peter Gumaer was 20 years old, and he and Cuddeback had to leave France, the latter cannot have been less than 20 or 25 years of age. It appears he lived until after the inhabitants of this neighborhood had to buy some land out of Expense lot number two, in the Minisink patent, for a supply of fuel, rail timber, &c., which must have been about the year 1766. From all of which it appears that the age of Cuddeback cannot have been less than 100 years, and that the answer he made to his son William, heretofore mentioned, near the end of his life, shows that his intellect was yet good at that time.
AGES OF FIRST GENERATION.
FAMILY OF JACOB CUDDEBACK.
| Years. | ||
| Himself | 100 | |
| His sons | Benjamin | about 80 |
| William | " 74 | |
| James | " 30 | |
| Abraham | " 80 | |
| His wife, | Esther Swartwout | " 80 |
| Daughters | Maria | " 100 |
| Dinah | " 74 | |
| Eleanor | " 70 | |
| Else | " 70 | |
| Naomi | " 80 |
AGES OF THE SECOND GENERATION.
FAMILY OF WILLIAM CUDDEBACK.