( DELAWARE COUNTY. 165 and took up the lot on which the present village is principally built, but after examining the lot, he concluded to abandon his contract, and the same year returned to Orange county. In 1813, Henry Drinkert caused the village to be surveyed, and sold lots (as appears from an old record of the matter, which has fallen under our observation,) to the amount of $844, and which lots have since increased in value over five hundred per cent. ; and the succeeding year, Silas Crandall, William Wheeler and William Butler, purchased lot No. 43, of the Evans patent, adjoining the above, and. caused it to be laid oif into lots, which they offered for sale upon reasonable terms, to those disposed to build upon the same. Among the many inconveniences to which the early settlers were obliged to submit, was their great distance from median- ics and tradesmen, being compelled to endure a journey to Minisink, to purchase even the smallest article of merchandise. The journey usually employed a week. The first merchants in Deposit were Captain Conrad Edict and Captain John Parker • the next store was owned and occupied by Henry M. Gregory and Abel Downs, (afterward of Colchester ;) and the third was owned by Silas Crandall and Peter Butts, as the firm of " Crandall & Butts. This latter store is still stand- ing; it is owned and occupied by M. B. Hulse, Esq., near the Deposit bridge. The first school established in Deposit was in 1794, in which a few urchins wer^ instilled in the rudiments of a com- mon education, by Hugh Compton. The school-house is said to have been constructed of slabs, in the most uncouth manner. who had cooked his provisions there. It has been stated to me, as part of the tradition, that the hut remained many years as a resting- place to the weary traveller, and that the rude cooking utensils were permitted to remain, as consecrated to the use of succeeding sojourn- ers.' Gen. Root went to reside in Delaware county, in 1796."
