My Valley
The big things are easy to recall; in the early manufacture of lumber there was much waste of this potential energy, not the least being the building of plank roads enabling tanners, lumbermen, farmers and others to send their products rolling to market as over a bridge floor. One notable example was the plank road from Mongaup Valley to Port Jervis 24 miles in length. A wonderful experiment to my childish imagination but which had been abandoned by the coming of the railroad. I never saw a plank road but often listened to the tales of my elders of the luxury of riding dry shod to one's destination. Little did they dream then of the day, when over smooth reinforced concrete roads, their descendants would ride in luxurious automobiles or trucks on business or pleasure.
Uncle Howard, manager and part-owner, had built a saw
mill and a grist mill known as the Tillotson Mills that operated by water power from the
dam just above the covered bridge. Wynkoop Kiersted, a heavy land owner, did a logging
business on the upper Mongaup. The logs were brought down to the stream, towed into the
mill pond and by an ingenious device, which produced a current, one log at a time was
drawn into the mill ahead of the saw. The logs were all held back from floating downstream
by a barrier called a boom, which provided safety in low water, but in time of flood the
pressure was terrific and the jostling logs sometimes broke the boom and headed straight
for the Tillotson Mills below. Giant virgin pines would churn themselves to splinters in a
few moments in the whirling force of the water. Logs that might escape the whirlpool under
the dam greatly endangered the mill as well as the bridge below. Uncle Howard and his men
often spent entire nights watching their property , but what they did to prevent the mill
and dam foundations from being torn out, I cannot now tell. In his time, however, the mill
still stood and it was years later that the dam went out and the Mongaup Creek reverted to
its original meandering. The loss of the mill pond detracted greatly from the scenic
beauty of the Valley. Folks driving in from Monticello way, had been met in previous
years, by a rare picture of lake and wooded shore as they topped the hill leading down
into the valley.
Besides the Tillotson lumber and flour mills, Kiersted
and Swan were owners of a large tannery also run by water power, located about a mile
below on the Mongaup Creek. This was one of the largest of many such tanneries in the
entire County. Hides imported in the rough from Brazil, S.A., the Basque country and even
from far off Australia were here converted into sole leather by means of hemlock bark
ground into a coarse powder which, with heated water, formed a liquor into which the hides
were put for curing. This was a long process employing about fifty men regularly and
during the bark peeling season about ninety additional. The Civil War is said to have been
fought on shoe leather tanned in Sullivan Co. Hauling the bark from the woods to the
tannery made work for farmers' team and men during the slack season. Long trains of bark
sleds were no unusual sight passing through the Valley, and the children availed
themselves of many a free ride as well as "the thrill of a lifetime" by hitching
their sled ropes to the rear bob, as the weary teams, horses or oxen, wended their way
slowly down the Plank Road to the tannery. The heavy stands of hemlock forest as well as
plenteous water power all over Sullivan County made possible hundreds of tanneries besides
the Kiersted business, as well as numerous saw mills for the conversion of timber into
lumber. So long as these original stands remained plentiful, the tanning and saw mill
businesses continued to be the main money making power.
The tannery of W. Kiersted & Co. with its hundred-odd employed men and fifteen double family houses, besides a large boarding house for single men, made up quite a village of itself. The population was largely Catholic Irish - the real "fighting Irish" I truly believe for one heard a great deal of the hard drinking that took place at weddings and wakes and on other occasions, when knockdowns were common and many bloody noses and black eyes gave evidence as to the so-called "'good times had by all". Among them were many good neighbors too, warm hearted folks, willing to do a good turn to those whom they liked and respected.
Children of the tannery families were not overlooked. A good sized school based on the public school system of that day afforded a means of education for the young Hickeys, Nolans, Murphys, Duffys and others, many of whom received their first as well as their last bits of "book l'arnin' " here. However, some few ambitious boys and girls went to higher schools and became more or less noted in the field of religion and medicine. At one time the school numbered well upwards of 40 or 50. On Sundays the school house became a chapel where 8 o'clock Mass was held by one Father Mc-Kenna, a priest from Monticello.
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