Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-09-07
A SINGULAR PEOPLE.
ODD SPECIMENS OF HUMANITY ARE
RAMAPO MOUNTAINEERS.


People who have never been up in
the Ramapo mountains can have little
idea Of how strange a race of people
live back in those high and rocky hills,
miles from any village, and with not a
rod of road By which their huts may be
reached by wagons. In other words, it
is not generally known that within 30
miles of the heart of New York city
there is a community as curious almost
as can be found IN the remote mountain
recesses of Tennessee or North Carroll
ma. It is a sort of lost tribe, or, rather,
an amalgaIDation Of two lost tribes.
If one can imagine what sort of beings
would result from more than century
intermarrying Of American Indians and
Guinea negroes, with an occasional dash
of white blood added to the mixture, he
may form a notion of the people that
live back i'll 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 pic
ture some of the queer specimens of hu
mainly that have resulted from this
mixture.
Albinos OF tie milkiest haired and
pinkest eyed variety are common, and
the dime museums recruit their curio
halls in that line from among these
mountaineers, as did the great and only
Barnum before them.
Back III the last century and during
the first quarter of the present century
slaves were common in that part of
New York state and the adjacent region
OF New Jersey. These slaves were treat
ed no better by their old Dutch masters
than were their fellow bondsmen in the
south. They were worked leng and
hard. and the lash was not spared. Con-
sequently runaway slaves were many.
These runaways invariably sought tho
Businesses of the surrounding mountains.
1t is very difficult thing to make
ones way up and among tho Ramapo
mountains even at this day, and it was
almost an impossibility in the slavery
days. As result, when n negro once
succeeded in hiding there he was as safe
from recapture as IL he had gone to
Canada, although he might be within
sight and sound of his masters home.
Scores of runaways III timo peopled the
inaccessible hills, and in the spots
where they threw up their first shelter
ing huts of bark or fallen trees or found
refuge in caves their descendants dwell
today.
The woods had their Indian jewellers
already, ana the two races mingled.
These are the strange people who are
seen now and then III 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. y characteristic
of these people is that the names of the
old Dutch families in which the orig
inal blacks We're slaves have been re-
tanned by them, generation after gener-
alton. Tho most numerous family of
the race goes by the name of De Groat,
but there are De Freeses, Van Hoevens
and many other Des and Vans.
In the summer time you might climb
and Chamber and stumble up the steep
sides ard over the rocky SUBMITS of the
Ramapo mountains all day and not see
a solitary sign Of habitation, although
there would be many on all sides of
you. They are so deity tucked i'll
among the rocks and hidden by the trees
and foliage that only one acquainted
with the ways of tho mountaineers could
find them. In the fall, when the trees
are bare, the huts stand revealed to any
who may pass that way, and such arc
few. for although there is no better
ruffed grouse shooting anywhere than
in these mountain Businesses the weary
climbing necessary to get to the haunts
of these birds is more than the average
sportsman cares to undergo.
There is no ground that might grow
anything about any of these huts; not
chicken or a fowl of any kind; not
even pig. But there are dogs without
limit-mcngrel, wolfish looking dogs,
such as might hang about Indian camps
and always from one to half dozen
half naked, eerie, elfish looking chill
dren, who, at sight or sound of stran-
ger, scamper to cover in the hut, in the
brush or among the rocks, disappearing
as completely as startled brood of
young quail.
How do these people subsist? They
are the best hunters and fishermen i'll
the land, and game and trout are album
6ant 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 forest, streams and
berry patches these people obtain store
goods at the villages, both the Injuries
and the necessaries-the latter being
chiefly whisky and tobacco, the former
flour, meal and cheap dress goods For
their own home providing the possum
and the coon are plentiful at their very
doors. and the chicken coops Of the out
lying farms and villages are not entire
ly inaccessible. Now and then De
Groat or Van Somebody-or-otberw will
hire out to do work by the day, but he
Is looked upon by his fellow mountain
GERS As degenerate. Some of the female
children grow 70 be extremely handsome
and shapely young women, but it is
rare that there are any marriages among
these people outside Of their own race.
New York Sun.
Useful Caddie.
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