August 11, 1864, the present town was bonded for $25,000 to pay bounties for volunteers in the Civil War. It was paid off, principal and interest, in eight equal installments as they fell due.
Hulet Clark bought land in Minisink in 1828 in the present town of Minisink, where he died March 31, 1857. His son, William Harvey Clark, early gave evidence of the good judgment and business ability which his future life carried out. He married Emily Robertson of Wawayanda and they lived on the old homestead near Westtown, where he died in 1907. His son, Robert H. Clark, is the present supervisor of this town, resides on the old homestead, and is establishing a business reputation as popular and able as that which distinguished his father and which will make his name long remembered in local annals.
In March, 1799, the Legislature of the State passed an act for the gradual abolition of slavery. All slaves were to become free at a certain age. As an instance of its working, there was Frank Bounty, a colored man, for whom Joseph Davis of Wawayanda had traded a pair of oxen when Frank was a young man. When the time arrived at which the law gave Frank his liberty he was called up by Mr. Davis and told that he was then a free man. Frank asked him if he could not stay on with him, but Mr. Davis said he could not, for the reason that people would then say that he was being coerced. Mr. Davis gave him some money and told him he must go and do for himself, and Frank told the Writer that was one of the saddest days of his life.
Mr. Davis also gave him the use of a house and lot in Brookfield or Slate Hill which he might, and did, enjoy for life by paying the taxes on it. It was the last house on the west side of the street in the west end of the village at that time. There he raised a large family.
Not all Negroes were so lucky. Some of them were old and worn out and their masters were glad to get rid of caring for them.
In the early history of the town in all its farming communities, the farmers raised sheep, and made a double use of them. The rams were used to churn with on the big wheel and on endless chain churning machines then used, and the wool sheared from all the sheep was carded, sometimes by hand, at other times in factories, and woven or spun into stockings, mittens, and cloth, to furnish wearing apparel. Up to 1850, butter was the chief product of the dairies in the town. Then selling milk came into general practice, and making butter, milling flour for home use, and traveling on horseback went out of fashion.
The farmers universally kept sheep, raised the wool to make the clothes for the members of the family, and at the same time used the large sheep to churn with upon a tread or sweep power. Up to 1850 butter and hogs were the chief products. It is less than 200 years since the first squatters settled in the limits of the three towns of which we write. The first customs to pass away were their friendly associations with the few Indians who clung to their old hunting grounds with death-like tenacity. Then the hostilities engendered by the helplessness of the Indians and the consequent overbearing attitude of the settlers passed by, leaving a trail of traditions and savage memories. Then followed the old logging, stone picking, mowing, husking and quilting bees or frolics in which whiskey was used as a general beverage. Then came the passing of the use of whiskey for the universal medicine and social welcome. Next passed the days when women carded the wool and spun and wove it, and knit everywhere, knit, knit, knit. Next passed the days when the young ladies worked samplers, and helped in the harvest and hay fields, and grew up vigorous, stout and healthy. Next passed the fishing with fikes {sic} and racks and the hunting for wolves and foxes. Now have arrived the days when fish and game are about extinct.
Now are the days when the farmers sell their milk and buy their butter; when they sell little else than milk and have become a great generation of buyers; when social visits are about unknown; when the old time good-natured sports and merriment are frowned upon; when men no longer meet on the streets and argue politics, but bury themselves in a newspaper on the trains or in any resting place and read, read, read; when women no longer knit and spin; when the girls no longer will do outdoor work and dreadfully dislike to do indoor work; when, instead of the big boys and girls going to school a few months in the winter season, they all go away to boarding school. In noting these and other changes which have taken place in the towns as the years have fled, it is noticeable that the people generally live better, even luxuriously, compared with former years, but are their public and domestic relations happier?