The year just passed has witnessed the organization of a City Improvement Association composed of ladies, the object of which is sufficiently indicated by its name. It has an active corps of officers and members animated by a praiseworthy spirit of civic pride. Mrs. Maria B. Van Etten is the president.
PLACES OF SPECIAL NOTE.
Tri-States Rock, situated at the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink Rivers, at which the boundary lines of three States—New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey—intersect, is one of the show places of the town. The rock is at the extreme point of the narrow tongue of land lying between the two rivers and at the mouth of the Neversink. The geological formation is rocky and will stand the wear of the floods for centuries to come as it has for centuries past. A small monument now marks the spot.
The site of the old Dutch church on the Van Inwegen land directly opposite the old Machackemech cemetery on Main street is suggestive of historic memories. Here assembled for worship in the old log "meeting house" of 1743 the pioneer families of this section. The house was burned by Brandt and his savages in the historic raid of July, 1779.
The Van Etten schoolhouse, from which the teacher, Jeremiah Van Auken, was taken out and cruelly murdered in the same raid, was located on the old Levi Van Etten farm, afterwards owned by Mark Van Etten, on the east side of the Neversink River about one-fourth of a mile north of Black Rock cut on the Erie.
The forts mentioned in the early annals gather about themselves most of the traditions of Indian attack. In the upper neighborhood there was one at the house of Jacob Rutsen De Witt. This was near Cuddebackville, on the west side of the Neversink. Another fort was at the Gumaer place, now the Godeffroy estate. The old stone building is still standing and in excellent preservation.
In the accounts of incidents occurring during the old French War, it is stated that on one occasion the Indians lay in ambush "to take the lower fort at Mr. Westfall's." This was probably the old stone house at Germantown. A local writer says: "The present structure, rebuilt in 1793, occupied the site of a fort or blockhouse built anterior to the Revolution and occupied as a dwelling and trading post by a family of the name of Haynes, who carried on a thriving trade with the Indians for many years." Captain Westfall, who married one of Mr. Haynes's daughters, lived in the house during the Brandt invasion of 1779. He was away on a scouting expedition at the time, and a trusty Negro buried the valuables and assisted the escape of the captain's wife to the high hills of the Jersey shore near Carpenter's point.
It is said that Brandt's expedition first attacked "the fort at Major Decker's." This was on the old George Cuddeback place on the east side of the Neversink River, about three miles from Port Jervis. Another fort was near the residence of the late James D. Swartwout. Still another is mentioned by Peter E. Gumaer "at the house of Peter Coykendall, in the present village of Port Jervis."