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ABOUT SOME “BINNEWATER” FOLKS,WHO arc not bo Tile and stupid, hi Tbej3arre Been Bix%teU,Some imaginative person, whose effusionshows lie knows but very little about Ulster County and its people, recently sent a sketchto the New- York Herald about a ‘ * distinctiveclass ” of people, called “ Binnewaters,”That the writer is a plagiarist, there is not theleast doubt, as the wording of his sketch is taken largely from a magazine article in relation to the poor whites of North Carolina.“ The Binnewaters ” is a Low-Dutch namefor several ponds or small lakes, lying in thetown of Rosendale, Ulster County. Twentyor thirty years ago, there were some very illiterate people living on the borders of theselittle lakes or ponds, or near them, oq account of the cheapness of the land, and,sometimes, because they wished to live a retired life. There are and were no more distinctive traits or characteristics about them than there are about the illiterate or poorerclass in this or any other county or country.If they had lived in the South, they would b; the ‘* poor white trash.” If they had lived in the town of Lloyd, they would have been called ‘‘Pang Yangers,” or if they had lived in the town of Rochester orWnwarsiug, they would have beencalled “ Yahoos/5 There are not many, ifany, people living at or near the Biancwatcrs,who have any Gypscy or Indian features. There may be a few families living therewho are a mixture of Old Hurley coloredpeople, who were once slaves, and the descendants of very ordinary Caucasian types.As to the “bounty jumping” paragraph' anyone who lived “during the war/’ in theNorth, knows that the men who did the bounty-jumping were not men below the^ average scale of intelligence, but they were generally young men who learned their first lessons in crime in large and populous cities. Ulster Couuty, beside furnishing its full quota of patriots famished many bounty jumping substitutes for drafted men. It is also trde that many persons who deserted from the army took refuge in the -thinly-settled regions of Ulster County, among people whowere not celebrated for their patriotism orRepublican principles. There was a time, inUlster County, wher^ rough-looking people,and people who had riot much regard for theconventionalities of society, or character, qr the marriage tie, or even law and order, we' reproachfully termed by the general name “ Binnewaters,” but time, that changes .allHINOCar1cat ] 3 fat£cer*7IimsivWIjitytobelt;eaiWl.Piibejitsa viallis6T4 4 thethe-'ij-e inrve-nveeflytheat-Jer-Dmever-f to .75; 5 tois,van-dale is a yery smairwmr population. at ninelargely find employment in the manufacture of cement and the trade rind business^ .fusing “—^“im. The Binnewaters are riovjpsur- 1 by many finareaidences.-, on their borders are .quarried for cement. There was a lime when the Binnewaters were quite far from the most traveled roads. People who lived there were some distancefrom the busy haunts of men,” but they areSO no longer and the town of Rosendale is one of the most progressive in the State.The article in question is only one of the hundreds written which are insulting to Ulster Countv people. Such a state of affairs andsociety as described in the Herald article is not possible in a region so thickly settled andis not creditable to the intelligence of the news editor who allowed its publication in the columns of the Herald.3un-iiaveMINOR NOTES AROUND THE CITY
Newspaper Details
Kingston Weekly Freeman and Journal
Kingston, New York, US
Thu, Dec 23, 1886
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NY, USA 04 Dec 2022
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