Greetings Sussex Researchers, I found Swayze's address "the salient points" printed in the Sussex Independent newspaper dated Fri, 4 Sep 1903. It is quite lengthy but I will type sections when I get the chance. The title of the address is: Sesqui-Centennial of Sussex County Great Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Settlement of the County at Newton, the County Seat, on Wednesday September 2d, 1903, Salient Points in the Address of Justice Francis J. Swayze, the Historian of the Occassion A Historic Day in the County, Incidents and Details of the Important Events The history of Sussex County covers a period of about 200 years. The imagination may indeed pierce the mists which obscure the early settlements, and we may conjecture with great probability that even during the Dutch occupation of New Netherlans, prior to 166?, miners had penetrated into the valley of the Delaware and fur traders rom Manhattan were dealing with the Indians then inhabiting the forest which covered the county. What is certain is that the earliest settlements were made along the Delaware by settlers following the valley of the Wallkill, from Esophus, now Kingston, on the Hudson, who penetrated the valley of the Delaware and followed it's course southward. Mining operations were certainly carried on at a very early period in what is now the township of Pahaquarry, in the present county of Warren, not far from the Sussex county line. In order to afford access to the mines, a road was constructed which was early known as the "Old Mine Road" one hundred miles in length leading through the Delaware Valley, across the county of Orange, and thence to the Hudson. This road is said to have been the first road constructed in the United States. The intercourse of the early settlers was with the people to the northward, like themselves, of Dutch descent, rather like the settlers of the lower Delaware, with whom they might have had a more ready communication by the river. Mr. Edsall quotes a tradition from Hazard's Register, based on letters of one Samuel Preston, dated in the year 1828, that in 1730 the government in Philadelphia, evidently meaning the proprietors of West Jersey, sent one Nicholas Sc?ll to investigate a settlement said to have been made in Meanesink. This agent is reported to have been hospitably entertained at the venerable Samuel Dupuis and to have admired a grove of apple trees of size far beyond any near Philadelphia. From this tradition, the inference is fairly drawn that there was a settlement at that point many years before 1730. We are assured on better testimony that the settlements of the Delaware Valley, then known as Minisink country, must have been of little consequence as late as 1694. In that year one Arent Schuyler was sent by the government of New York, to learn if the French, who controlled the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the region around the Great Lakes, or any of the Indians in alliance with them had been in the Minisink country. Captain Schuyler left New York Feb. 3, 1694, hired two men and a guide at Bergentown, now a part of Jersey City, stopped at Hackensack and went by way of an Indian place named Peekwes to Maggahkamieck, which is supposed to have be Port Jervis, and from thence to the Minisink. There he met two Indians sachems and two other Indians, of whom he inquired if the French or the French Indians had sent for them or been to Minisink country. Schuyler would hardly have sought this information from the Indians if there had been white settlements at which inquires might have been made. He was evidently pleased with the country; for on May 20, 1697, a patent for 1,00 acres of land was issued to him under authority of the Province of New York. The records of that period in the Minisink and Mackhackamack churches contain entries as early as 1716. In the years 1716, 1717 and 1718 there were twelve baptisms by the Rev. Petrus Vas, of Kingston. There is a gap in the records from 1716 to 1737 when Georg Wilhelm Mancuis became minister. From that date unter 1744, there are regular records of baptisms twice in each year upon the occassions when Dominie Mancuis was able to visit his distant congregarion. The number baptised was as high as 26 in the year 1739. The Wallpack church was organized in the same year as the Minisink church. The deed for the land bears date Feb. 1, 1737 and conveys land to the "inhabitants of Wallpack and the near inhabitants thereabouts." It contains a reference to the burying yard. Settlements must, therefore, have existed at Wallpack prior to the date of this deed. The population in the Delaware Valley had by the year 1737 become large enough to susjtain four churches, two of which, the one at Minisink and the one at Wallpack, were within the bounds of Sussex county; on was at Port Jervis and one at Smithfield. In 1741 the Rev. Johannes Casparas Fryenmuth (or Fryenmoot as the name is sometimes spelled) was regularly settled as pastor over there four churches at the age of twenty. He had been educated at the expense of the churches, who admidst the hardships of the wilderness and in great poverty, had sent him to Holland to be trained in the principles of the Dutch Church. There he was ordained by the class?s of Amsterdam. He returned as minister to a district which stretched fifty miles north to south. This district he served at a salary of seventy pounds per annum, of which wach church contributed one- fourth. Afterward, two churches together agreed to pay 40 pounds or 20 pounds each, but stipulated that they if he remained unmarried they should only be liable to pay him 35 pounds or 17 pounds, 10 shillings each. With the encouragement of the extra five pounds pay before him, he married Lena Vanetten July 23, 1742 and continued to minister his churches until the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1756. His congregation felt unable to support him as was "needful and necessary" and they petitioned the Board of Proprietors for a grant of land to assist them. This petition is without date but as it was addressed to the Proprietors of East Jersey, it was probably after 1743, when the line between East and West Jersey was run. The petition was successful and on May 24, 1752, James Alexander by direction of the Board of Proprietors, conveyed 210 acres in Sandyston to Abram Van Campen and Garret Brink for use of the Reformed Dutch Church of Wallpack and Pahaquarry professing doctrines of Calvin, the consideration was six pence and a pint of spring water yearly from the large spring on the premises, if demanded. And so ends the first paragraph of Swayze's address..... Happy Hunting, Cathy DiPietro, listowner NJSussex-L

<REALLY BIG SNIP> > And so ends the first paragraph of Swayze's address..... And people complain about the sound-bite... <<G>> Mark Daly Pittsburgh PA