The only part of the present county which is claimed to have been occupied by white settlers at a date prior to the Fort Stanwix treaty is a small settlement on the East branch of the Delaware river in the present town of Middletown. In the year 1762 or 1763 a small band of adventurers of Dutch extraction set out from Hurley in Ulster county to explore the lands on the East branch of the Delaware. They ascended Shandaken creek, crossed over the mountains forming the divide between the tributaries of the Hudson river and the Delaware, and found themselves in the beautiful valley of the East branch. To their great surprise they found here evidences of a deserted Indian village, which they afterwards learned was called Pakatakan; and even traces of European settlements at several places. These latter were doubtless left by the hardy trappers and traders who had forced their way hither in search of beaver skins, and had found at least two homes of the beaver near this place. The hardy adventurers from Hurley took up farms along this valley, and having made some hasty preparations went back for their families. They obtained warranty deeds for the land from Chancellor Livingston one of the heirs of Johannes Hardenbergh the owner of this tract. The price paid was twenty shillings an acre; and the deeds bear the date of 1763. The names of these first settlers, so far as they have come down to us, were the brothers Harmanus and Peter Dumond, Johannes Van Waggoner, Peter Hendricks, Peter Brugher, and Messrs. Kittle, Yaple, Sloughter (now named Sliter), Hinebagh, Green and Bierch. Their farms were chosen along the banks of the East branch, and the vicinity. The settlers were driven off by the Indians in the Revolutionary war (1778), and the buildings and improvements were destroyed. But soon after the war they returned and resumed their abandoned farms. The first settlements in both Sidey and Harpersfield took place about the year 1770; and both in like manner were interrupted by the disturbances of the Revolutionary war, which shortly followed. The pioneer of the former of these settlements was Rev. William Johnston a Presbyterian clergyman born in Ireland, and who had resided several years previous to his removal to the Susquehanna valley in the neighborhood of Albany. Mr. Johnston and his son Witter Johnston journeyed by Otsego lake and thence down the Susquehanna, stopping finally at the beautiful flats which are now called Sidney. Here they found a few scattered but friendly Indians, belonging to the Housatonick tribe, which at this time were subject and tributary to the Six Nations. They selected a farm of 520 acres bordering on the river, which was a part of a land-patent belonging to Banyar and Wallace, of which they bought the fee-simple. In the Revolutionary troubles which soon came on Wallace took the tory side, and his property which the Johnstons had bought, but had not paid for, was confiscated and became the property of the State. On the recommendation of the governor, however, the Johnstons on payment of the balance still due were confirmed in the title to the land they had bought. The Johnston family occupied their new home in the year 1773, and were followed by other families who soon made a thriving and attractive neighborhood. They were named Sliter, Carr, Woodcock, and Dingman. The Sliters inter-married with the Johnstons and in the troubles of the Revolutionary war took with them the patriotic side. But the others became tories and are lost sight of, except that Carr afterward is said to have erected the first grist-mill in this vicinity, upon Carr's brook which empties into the Susquehanna a few miles above the Johnston settlement. In 1777 during the Revolutionary war the Johnston settlement received a visit from Brant and a band of Iroquois Indians. The Susquehanna valley was a frequent resort of these fierce warriors; and all the scattered Indians of other tribes which wandered through the region between the Susquehanna and the Hudson were tributary to the Iroquois. Brant and all the Six Nations had made a treaty with the British through Sir William Johnson and had embraced the tory side in the pending controversy. He came with a band of about eighty men. The white settlers held a conference with the redoubtable chief, who announced to them his ultimatum. He gave them eight days in which to leave their homes, after which everything would be at the mercy of his followers. If any of the families chose to declare themselves British partisans, he promised them protection and permission to remain in their homes. Under this urgent alternative Mr. Johnston and the other whig families took leave of their little possessions and hurried to Chery Valley. They were there when the little village was burnt by the Indians in 1778; but the family escaped in time from the massacre, and one of the sons was in the fort which withstood the efforts of the savages to burn or take it. After the war was over the fugitive families returned in 1784 to their homes at Sidney, and resumed the peaceful and prosperous life which has made Sidney one of the most attractive of all the towns in the county. It remains to say something about Harpersfield, which is the only other part of the county which was settled by white people before the Revolutionary war. The founders of Harpersfield were a family of Harpers, whose ancestor James Harper migrated from Ireland to Maine in 1720. After successive migrations of the family John, a grandson of the Irish emigrant, settled in 1754 at Cherry Valley in New York. A son of this John named John, jr.,............. There is a footnote that says: I am indebted to a communication from Dr. O. M. Allaben, in Gould's History of Delaware County, for this account of the Middletown pioneers.

A copy of these pages were obtained from Gary and Joyce Sliter of Guys Mills PA on January 3rd, 1997. They had spent a week in Binghamton NY doing genealogy study of the Sliters. Joyce says that their branch of the Sliter family settled in Bainbridge NY, a beautiful small town with very friendly people. Their correspondance included a map highlighting Sliters Corner located about 15 miles South East of Albany, NY at the intersection of highways 150 and 50. Other Historical articles may be found at these websites: