A feature of the towns of Minisink and Wawayanda is the Drowned Lands. These comprise the valley of the Wallkill, or, as named by the Indians, the "Twischsawkin," extending from Hamburg, N. J., to Denton in this State. The westerly part of that valley is the part of it in the territory of which we write. When the Wallings, who, so far as we can ascertain were the first permanent settlers at the head and on the west shore of these drowned lands, located here, they found them covered with water the greater part of each year, and of little value except for grazing purposes, and for the wood upon them. Their total acreage was about 40,000 acres, of which 10,000 acres were in New Jersey. From the high grounds of the west shore to the river the distance will average about half a mile. The great Cedar Swamp on the eastern shore of the lands comprised about 15,000 acres. It was covered with water more or less the year round, and, when the ice was strong enough in winter, farmers drove for many miles to it to get a supply of rails and wood. In spring floods the water was often from eight to twenty feet deep over the entire drowned lands. They were the homes of innumerable flocks of wild geese and ducks, and the flocks were often composed of thousands of members. They raised their young by thousands in the great swamps. Fish were also very abundant.
In 1804 the farmers who owned lands along this vast morass, as well as the rich speculators who had bought, for a trifle, huge tracts of it, agitated the plan for a drainage. They got up petitions and appealed to the legislature for help so persistently, that, in 1807, that body passed an act authorizing money to be raised to drain the drowned lands. The act empowered five commissioners to be elected annually in Goshen. They were to assess property owners along the drowned lands for expenses.
A large ditch was dug by them from Turtle Bay (a wide and deep place in the river opposite the present farm of Reeves B. Wickham and the former Van Bomel farm), to the junction of Rutger's Creek with the Wallkill, a distance of about two miles in a direct line up stream. The intention was for this ditch to carry the river's water mainly, especially at high tides. Other work was done, so that in nineteen years it is estimated that $40,000 had been expended. Little good resulted from it, for the ditches rapidly filled with mud. The ruins of this ditch are easily traced at this time.
Gabriel N. Phillips was then the owner of the great woolen factory and an immense dam at what is now called New Hampton, but which was then called Phillipses'.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The Erie Railroad, completed through New Hampton in 1835, caused that village to become a business place. Many farmers who then brought their produce to Goshen for shipment, changed to New Hampton and some large business houses started up. The large manufactories which soon started in Middletown and the completion of railroads from Sussex County, N. J., to New York, drew off trade and New Hampton is to-day of less importance than it was in former days.
Denton, named from the family that founded it, has been subject to much the same influences as New Hampton. It is about three-quarters of a mile southwest of the latter place. Once there were drug stores, hotels and a vigorous church there. Under the local option law there have been no licenses for hotels issued in Wawayanda for the past twenty-five years. The business of Denton has, like other villages, drifted away from it.
Centerville, now called South Centerville, was named from its central location in the old town of Minisink. Its trade has, much like that of other villages in proximity to Middletown, very much lessened of late years.
Slate Hill is one of the very early settled places in this town. It was before the days of post-offices called Brookfield. Some say that this name was adapted from the circumstance of a brook winding around the village.
Ridgeberry, named from the high ridge east of it, famous for berries, was an early settled place and once had two hotels, two stores, two churches and was quite a business place. Owing to the same causes which have taken away the trade of many other villages, Ridgeberry has now only one good store.