Note the unnamed tavern in Millford [Milford] also functioned as a Post office, where Pursh addressed a letter to Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, his patron in 1805 and with whom he was working on a new flora of North America. His description of travels along the river road and up into the higher terrain with its many waterfalls between Milford and Dingmans on the Pennsylvania side are a delight. He would make a side trip into the lovely Flatbrook, aka the Flat Kill, valley which parallels the Delaware one ridge over in Sussex County. His actual route, in hyphens, fell short of his proposed route, highlighted in yellow, into Sandyston and Montague townships NJ perhaps due to the weather as noted in the journal.
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| Detail, the annotated Pursh map, 1806. American Philosophical Society Digital Library. |
Pursh's map of his route is an annotated copy which he terms the, old touren map, acquired on the journey (entry of June the 12th.) Given the placement of Seely's mill and Sheimer's mill, and surname variant of the latter, this is most likely after the Reading Howell map of 1792.
The Ennes Ferry House & Tavern on the east side of the river
View Minisink Valley Genealogy in a larger map
"...The house probably served the first of two ferries in the Dingmans
area, known as the Ennis Ferry. During the era of logging on the Upper
Delaware, it was a popular night stop for rafters, who brought the logs
to downriver markets." ~ page 10-I, US Department of the Interior,
National Park Service: National Register of Historic Places Inventory.
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| American Sycamore ~ Platanus occidentalis (center); Silver Maple ~ Acer saccharinum (right) |
*"Wesley Van Auken House, also known as the Ennis Ferry House," Sandyston Township, Old Mine Road Historic District, section (I), NPS, US Dept. of the Interior.
"Ferries on the Delaware River Between Easton, Pa., and Port Jervis, N.Y.," Dr. B. F. Fachenthal, Jr., 1908, p 166.