Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/53

 DELAWARE COUNTY. 29 spread in every direction. The liappy hearths of the settlers became the scene of bloody assassinations. The unholy savage, with fiendish barbarity spared neither young nor old ; the innocent babe and the helpless female were alike sacrificed by the tomahawk or burned at the stake ; the well filled barns were given to the mercy of the flames ; the cattle butchered or driven away, to furnish sustenance and support to their enemies, presenting altogether a picture surpassing descrip- tion. The next settlement made within the limits of Tryon — and which literally speaking, formed the entrance-way to many of the early settlements in the present county of Delaware — was made in Cherry Yalley, Otsego county. Grlancing over the pages of an ably written work, Campbell's Annals of Tryon County," we note that in 1738, a patent of eight thousand acres of land was granted to J acob Lindesay, J acob Roseboom, Lendert G-anesvoort, and Sybrant Yan Schaick, the former of whom having obtained an assignment of the whole patent, the following summer laid the foundation of the future settlement. He was accompanied in the novel enterprise of founding a set- tlement far beyond the pale of civilization by his wife, father- in-law, and a few domestics only. The season had far advanced when they encamped for the first time upon the spot desig- nated to become their future home. They had scarcely suc- ceeded in constructing a rude tenement to shelter themselves from the storm, and to afibrd -protection during the inclemency of winter, ere the ice-bound monarch became their unwelcome guest. Imagine to yourselves what must have been the condition of this family, who were not only deprived of the little luxu- ries of life, but of neighbors and friends; in the midst of a howling wilderness, over which wild beasts and savage Indians disputed proprietorship, with a scanty supply of provisions, and the snow lying upon the ground full three feet deep.