Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1898-05-13
A STRANGE RACE.
THE RAMAPO MOUNTAlNEERS AND
THEIR PECULIAR TRAITS.

Are the Red Indians.
People who have never been up in
the Ramapo Mountains. in New York,
can have little idea of how strange a
race of people live back in those high
and rocky hills, miles from any viii
lage, and with not rod of road by
which there huts may be reached by
wagon. In other words, it is not gem
orally known that within thirty-fve
miles of Broadway, New York City,
there is a community, as curious, al
most, as can be found in the remote
mountain recesses of Tennessee or
North Carolina. 1t is a sort of lost
tribe, or rather, an amalgamation of
two lost tribes. If one can imagine
what sort of beings would result from
more than a century of intermarrying
of American Indians and Guinea ne
groes, with an occasional dash of
white blood added to the mixture, he
may form notion of the people that
live back in the rugged hills that rise
about Suffern, Ramapo, Sloatsburg,
WoOdbOurne, Tuxedo, and other places
in the Ramapo Valley. But it would
take a pretty brisk Imagination to
picture some of the queer specimens
of humanity that have resulted from
this mixture. Albinos of the milkest
haired and pinkest eyed variety are
common, and the dime museums re-
cruit their curio halls in that line from
among these mountaineers, as did the
great and only Barnum before them.
Back in the last century and during
the first quarter of the present CEN
fury slaves were common in that part
of New York State and the adjacent
region of New Jersey. These slaves
We're treated no better by their old
Dutch masters than were their fellow
bondsmen in the South. They were
worked long and hard, and the lash
was not spared. Consequently runa-
way slaves were many. These run
aways invariably sought the Businesses
of the surrounding mountains. 1t is
a very difficult thing to make ones
way up and among the RamapO Noun
most an impossibility in the slavery
days. AS a result, when a negro once
succeeded in hiding there he was as
safe from recapture as if he had gone
to Canada, although he might be with
in sight and sound of his masters
home. Scores of runaways in time
peopled the inaccessible hills, and in
: h.
first sheltering huts of bark or fallen
trees or found refuge in caves their
descendants dwell to-day.
The woods had their Indian dwell
ers already and the two races mingled.
These are the strange people who are
seen now and then in the little villages
along the Erie Railway in ROckland
and the adjoining towns of Bergen
and Orange counties, and whose homes
are far back in the hills A charac-
teristic of these people is that the
names of the old Dutch families in
which the original blacks were slaves
have been retained by them, genera
ton after generation. The most nu-
merous family of the race goes by the
name of De Groat, but there are De
Presses, Van HOevens and many 9TH
er Des and Vans.
In the summer time you might
climb and Chamber and stumble up the
steep sides and over the rocky sum-
mits of the Ramapo Mountains all day
and not see solitary sign of habita-
ton, although there would be many on
all sides of you. They are so deity
tucked in among the rocks and hidden
by the trees and foliage that only one
acquainted with the ways of the noun
ta.neers could find them. In the fall,
when the trees are bare, the huts stand
revealed to any one who may pass that
way, and such are few, for although
there is no better ruffed grouse shoot
ing anywhere than in these mountain
Businesses, the weary climbing neces-
sary to get to the haunts of these
birds is more than the average sports
man cares to undergo. There is no
ground that might grow anything
about any of these huts; not chicken
nor a fowl of any kind; not even a
pig. But there are dogs without limit
mongrel, wolfsh-looking dogs, such as
might hang about Indian camps, and
always from one to half a dozen half
naked, aerie, elfsh-looking children,
who, at sight or sound of stranger,
scamper to cover in the hut, in the
brush or among the rocks, disappear
ing as completely as a startled brood
of young quail,
How do these people subsist? They
are the best hunters and fishermen in
the land, and game and trout are
abundant all about them. They hunt
and snare grouse and rabbits and
catch trout for the market during the
season. The women and children pick
berries. For the products of the for
est, streams and berry patches these
people obtain store goods at the viii
lagos, both the luXuries and the neces-