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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
HAINESVILLE, 4.2 miles (640 alt., 311 pop.), a dairying center, lies
about l00 yards (R) from the highway. A little town of mid-Victorian
houses, a white steepled church, and an inn from stagecoach days, it thins
out rapidly into scattered farms and barns along Beerskill River. This was
once part of the hunting grounds of the Minisink or Munsee Indians
(people of the stony land). They called themselves Brothers of the Wolf,
and wore wolfskins over their heads at ceremonies. Their descendants in
Oklahoma have a legend that, like the brothers who founded Rome, two
of their ancestors were nursed by a she-wolf. The babies' wails brought
hunters to their rescue.
At Hainesville the highway takes the route of the Minisink Trail, which
began on the Delaware River at Minisink Island and led to the seacoast
near Perth Amboy. Western Indians passed over the trail, carrying furs to
exchange for wampum and dried clams and fish from coastal tribes. One
band of 700, carrying 70,000 pelts, was reported at Minisink in 1694.
Arent Schuyler and other traders had posts on the trail. US 206 follows
the trail route southeast to Branchville, touching it again at several points
as far south as Stanhope. Heaps of shell, pottery, bones, and stone implements have been found along this route.
The highway, now two-lane concrete, rises steadily through hilly, rugged and thinly populated country. It follows, for 1.5 miles, the valley of
Little Flat Brook, a trout stream.
At 7.3 miles is the confluence of Big Flat Brook, another popular trout
stream, and Normanock Brook.
TUTTLES CORNER, 7.9 miles, is a hamlet of woodsmen.
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