Francis Whiting Halsey

“ But on the Susquehanna was found a region entirely desolate. It virtually contained no inhabitants. Nature once more was in full possession of it. Something perhaps of what had been still remained, since clearings existed which the forest had not entirely reclaimed. Here and there stood the remains of log dwellings that might be reconstructed and made habitable. On the upper waters, lay one of the fairest portions of a fair valley, with fertile lands bordering the Great Island River. ”

“ When I look about me at these hills where I used to could count sometimes twenty smokes, curling over the tree tops from the Delaware camps, it raises mournful thoughts to think that not a red skin is left of them all, unless it be a drunken vagabond from the Oneidas, or them Yankee Indians who, they say, be moving up from the sea shore. ”

“ Men born to toil and veterans of war took up these new tasks in the wilderness. The first to enter the Susquehanna, came from the Mohawk and Schoharie. A number arrived between the surrender of Cornwallis and the conclusion of the treaty of peace, including Isaac Collier, who entered by Otsego Lake as early as 1782. Mr. Collier was of German descent and before the war had been a taxpayer in the Mohawk Valley. He was the father of Peter Collier. On the Susquehanna he opened a hotel, at the settlement since called after him, where pioneers long found food and shelter. ”