The family life was the community life of the early generations. Remnants of this have continued in some localities where the husking bee, the quilting party or the apple cut afford opportunities for the family to gather and to rehearse tales of the early trials, fortunes and successes. This family visiting, when all of the family were included, with its free hearty welcome, and its unreserved and unstinted hospitality indicated the fellowship of the family as a group and as the unit in the community and is in marked contrast to the twentieth century methods where the individual is the unit.
After the revolution, the state lands of Central New York were opened to settlers. Many of the younger men of the third generation emigrated to that portion of the state and became pioneers on the "Holland purchase" and the military lands of the state where their families have continued to reside.
Later the descendants in the fourth generation, farmers and those of allied pursuits, became owners of nearly all of the most fertile bottom lands in the valley. They were jealous of their ownership of these paternal farms, and guarded them from outside ownership and intrusion. This spirit developed also in the members of those families in western New York where they located. Near Skaneateles, through one section, farm after farm for miles in extent was the property of a Cuddeback, at Owasco, at Moravia. In Niles township, at Twelve Corners, the same conditions existed. Farm after farm was the property of a Van Etten, Westfall, Van Fleet or Cuddeback, or a relative of one of them in the third or fourth generation, from Deerpark ancestry.
Similar conditions to a limited extent existed in other sections as in Wayne County, N. Y., Seneca County, N. Y., Niagara County, N. Y., Wayne and Bradford Counties, Pa., near Adrian, Mich., and in Iowa.
In 1745 Roelof Elting bequeathed to his daughter, Jacomyntje Codebec, certain sums of money—to others lands, which if they sold, they must first offer to their brothers and sisters at the same price a stranger would pay.
In this development of families of succeeding generations in different localities we see illustrated the migratory element of our people.
These sturdy young emigrants of the middle of the seventeenth century settled and established their homes near Kingston, N. Y., about 1650 and reared their families there. As their children reached maturity and began life for themselves, some of them with others, later emigrants, sought adjacent locations for their homes. The Meckheckemeck settlement was formed just previous to 1700. Lands were purchased and the Cuddeback patent was obtained. Here a new generation grew to manhood. Youth again active, restless and alert sought other locations. From 1730 to 1750 the lands along the Delaware, both in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania were attractive. The younger of the families of Cuddeback, Depuy, Shimer and Hornbeck established homes there. Records show that some of the Swartwouts of the third generation, natives of Meckheckemeck, then called "Pin-peck," or "Peenpack," removed to this section.
As the next generation grew to manhood many of them seeking homes crossed over into the valley of Susquehanna into the southern central New York counties. This movement was quite extensive just after the revolution, when influenced by the DeWitts, surveyors, quite a colony from Peenpack established themselves in the "lake country" of central New York.
Again in each succeeding generation similar developments occurred. Soon after 1800 the active, restless young people from Central New York emigrated to Michigan and to Ohio accompanied by relatives and friends from the older settlements on the Delaware and Susquehanna.
These migrations have continued. The more alert or venturesome of each generation have sought new locations to establish their homes. They are now in every state of the Union some who are direct lineal descendants of the emigrant Jacques Caudebec and in the older locations the network of relationship is intricate and closely woven.