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Page 27 text:
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'uf :id .., . -m.1, The Esopus River
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Page 26 text:
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The Esopus River The Algonquin Indians who lived here called it Little River . They used it as a travel route for their canoes. If we go back only three hundred years-a very short time as compared with the span of men's existence on this earth-we find rather large numbers of Indians living along our now placid Esopus. Here they lived during the greater portion of the year in rather large villages. They were more agricultural in their pursuits than their enemies, the Iroquois, who lived farther up-state. Large acreages of land were annually planted to corn, beans, squash, and pumpkin. When these were harvested they were buried in pits in the ground below the frost line. QThe early white settlers here buried portions of their harvest in the same way.j These local Algonquin Indians, known as Esopus Indians, caught many fish, chiefly trout and shad. The richness of the soil at that time along the river banks was evidently great since it was the alluvial deposit of the periodic freshets that overflowed the normal channels. No doubt the use of fish as fer- tilizer in stimulating their crops was more than normally employed here since fish, chiefly shad, were available in such great number. The availability of vegetables and fish in such unusual quantities evi- dently contributed to a different type of attitude toward life including such matters as settling for a long time in one place, and interest in conflict, be- cause history records that the Iroquois defeated these prosperous Esopus Indians and made them pay an- nual tribute. If we may be permitted a tangent thought at this point, let us pause to consider how dangerous it is to any people in any time to become prosperous, particularly if that prosperity leads to L22 any tendency to relax in the matter of keeping alert physically, mentally, socially. Toynbee, the great English historian, points out that only those civilizations that were compelled to struggle for existence against odds were able to compete against their seemingly less favored neigh- bors. In the early days of Saugerties the Esopus was perhaps two things, chiefly, to Saugertiesians: a source of water power, and a nuisance to travel, since it was dillicult to cross at high water periods. Today it is an incidental matter in the thinking of local people who use it very little for water power, and find bridging it no great problem. It' is interesting to note that the Esopus Hows north during the last three miles or so of its course before turning east to empty its waters into the Hudsonl ,-X fff ,AYQ 1 Q' If -c...'4-f.,-N X' X: f' 71 X l .ugflk Sl . f 'f'-aj s ,' S ffryzgzfe 'X of ,411 Q qv. f ll! uf IN VVJ?l f bi Isl' - 0 J fl. I l -:Ty . ,yd 4 ff- fe I 6 15:3 I -:Q -H-. 1 - -- I -g-A 'i -.-fe-? .i-, -- -4:-'Q-,EA ij
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