In Sugar Loaf Valley, east of the mountain, John King settled soon after his marriage in 1784, upon a farm of two hundred acres. Among his neighbors were Cornelius Board and George Davis. Thomas Fitzgerald lived near the line of the town of Warwick. More recently in the community life of Sugar Loaf the following men may be mentioned: Joseph Cooper, Crinis Laroe, David Dyer, Lewis Rhodes, Jesse Wood, John D. Conklin, John Bertholf, Silas Rose, David W. Stevens, Charles Fitzgerald and Elisha Stevens.
Miss Martha Odell, of Chester, now ninety-four years of age, remembers the visits of "Frank Forrester" and his companion, "Tom Draw," passing through the village and over the hills to the valley and beyond for game and fish.
The school of Sugar Loaf village in the past century has educated many bright boys and girls. The old school-house stood on the road that leads from the village to the northwest. The house was on the westerly side of the road. Reeder Feagles and Lieutenant Wood were among the teachers in the early part of the nineteenth century.
The fact that men with patriotic zeal have been identified with Sugar Loaf may be summarized by the statement that in the home of Mrs. H. C. Baker are mementos of her husband's service in the Civil War, Jesse H. Knapp, who was an officer in the second war with England, and Caleb Knapp, who served in the American Revolution.
The Committee of Safety during the Revolutionary War included other patriots like Jacobus and Gillion Bertholf, David Rumsey, father of Royal Rumsey, and Captain Henry Wisner. Jacob, John and Josiah Feagles were patriotic citizens of this section during these times.
The interesting story is told of Hugh Dobbin, the pioneer of Sugar Loaf, that during the Revolution he was exempt from service, but pointed with pride to the fact that in 1757, in the struggle with the French and Indians, he assisted the Government by pasturing one hundred and fifteen horses belonging to Captain John Wisner's company.
We cannot turn from the story of this section without alluding to the loss of one of its interesting objects, now only a tradition. Mr. Thomas Burt, of Warwick, at the age of eighty-seven, remembers the time when on the side of Sugar Loaf Mountain there was an eminence upon which was the profile of a man with broad shoulders, narrow neck and enlarged head with hat on. This was called the "Old Giant," and near it was a fissure in the rock called the "Giant's Cellar." Tradition says that Claudius Smith, after his depredations through the county, hid in this cleft of the rock.
