One thing leads to another when rambling through records of the families in the valley. Bits & pieces of factoids litter the pathways one has ventured down for however brief a time. Such was the case which set me off on the track of the early settler family Van Fleet who originally traveled down the Old Mine Road before the Revolution as Van Vliets.
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A headstone for Thomas Van Fleet, born in 1788, led to working up a
family tree sketch which turned up The Evening Gazette column, That New Watering-Trough on the Huguenot Road -- A Permanent Thing -- The Lease, in April 1873. The article details the brothers
Solomon & Benjamin Van Fleet's grant of access to a Spring for
public use providing a watering trough is built and maintained. This in turn led to the search for a map. Van Fleet's Spring lies in about the middle of this clip from the Beers 1875 map
of Deerpark, Orange Co NY, just south of the Deer Park Trotting Ground. A trip is in
order, photos forthcoming, if the old trough is still standing.
Click on the image to enlarge.
B & S Van Fleet on the map is Benjamin & Solomon. M Van Fleet is Michael, their uncle. Michael died, age 92, as the Beers Atlas was going to press. He never married, leaving everything to his nephews & sister Clara.