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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
SUSSEX, 50.9 miles (450 alt., 1,415 pop.), a vigorous little town, is
one of the largest milk receiving stations in the State. It was originally
known as Deckertown for Peter Decker, a Hollander who built himself a
log cabin in 1734 and thereby provided latter-day historians with meat for
a dispute over just where the cabin stood. The visitor is offered his choice
of two sites: by a spring at Main and Spring Sts., where the grammar-school board has erected a marker; and the ground at 29 Hamburg Ave.,
where Fred W. Lawrence, owner of the property, recently found an oblong
stone engraved, "P. D. 1749." Since there were no police department
license plates at that time it is believed the stone came from above Decker's cabin door. Ralph Decker, a descendant of Peter, and president of the
Sussex County Historical Society, favors the latter site. Sussex's FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH (R), Main and E. Main Sts., organized in 1756, is a frame
structure with brownstone foundation.
At Sussex is the junction with State 8 N (see Tour 5).
Clove River crosses to the R. of the highway at 53 miles. Far off (R) at
this point the gleaming, silver-gray stone shaft of the monument at High
Point is visible.
At 53.4 miles is an old, one-and-a-half story stone and frame HOUSE (R)
guarded by a frightening totem pole. This structure was one of the Minisink forts, built as a dwelling at the turn of the eighteenth century by a
man named Titsworth, son of the founder of Port Jervis and later killed by
Indians. The place was 80 years old when Joseph Brant, the Indian chief
from the Mohawk Valley, attacked it in 1781 with a band of Indians and
British. It is known locally as Totem Pole; but the pole is probably not
authentic. The old house is today a handicraft shop.
The Clove district is excellent farm land, a high region of uprolling
pasture acres that fulfill in fertility the promise of the stubble fields at the
southern end of the Wallkill Valley. As in most sections where farming
has a long and satisfactory history, barns are solid and carefully built, often
ornamented with silver-painted roofs or gilt weather vanes and ventilators.
At 54.7 miles a large meadow (R) is the site of a projected High Point lake.
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