As the Revolutionary War approached in the 1770s, American colonists were a divided lot, and at least as many of them were inclined to remain part of the British empire as favored breaking away.

Although some modern historians estimate that the vast majority of Americans were ambivalent about independence—some say as many as 60 percent when the fighting began in April of 1775—virtually every community was torn apart by the choosing of sides, and Cushetunk, the first permanent settlement in the Upper Delaware River Valley, was no different.

As was the case in many communities, there were prominent families in Cushetunk on both sides of the argument. While founding families such as the Tylers and Thomases, for instance, were solidly behind the fight for independence, others in the settlement, including Justice of the Peace Robert Land and his family, chose to remain loyal to Great Britain.

In the case of the Skinner family, descendants of murdered Cushetunk founder Joseph Skinner, it was brother against brother, as Daniel Skinner and his brother Haggai were Tories, while their brother Abner, fought with the Continental Army.

Bezaleel Tyler and Moses Thomas were both killed while fighting for the American side at the Battle of Minisink. A younger Tyler, Nathaniel, joined the Continental Army as a drummer boy, and family tradition holds that he became the personal drummer for General George Washington before mustering out at the end of the war as a drum major.

Oliver Calkin, the son of John Calkin, the first medical doctor at Cushetunk, also fought for the Patriot side at Minisink, and was one of the few who survived the conflict.

After fighting for a time with the Mohawk Joseph Brant on behalf of the British, Robert Land became a notorious spy for the British Army, and his actions led directly to the destruction of his family’s Cushetunk home by a fire from which his family barely escaped.

The Land family paid dearly for their loyalty to the King, and there are numerous stories about their misadventures during the war. For his part, Robert Land was sentenced to be hanged as a spy at one point, only to have his life spared by a letter from George Washington himself. Saved from this ignominious end, Land managed to escape his captors, survived the war, and lived to a ripe old age in Canada.

The division in most communities was not just philosophical, either, as members of one side often attacked the other. Even women and children were drawn into the fray, sometimes tragically, as when the family of well-known Cushetunk Tory Bryant Kane were murdered in their home one night by the same men who set fire to the Land home.

It was this division in the settlement that led to its eventual demise, and Cushetunk, which had been established by a group of Connecticut farmers around 1755, was largely abandoned by 1785. Since the Patriots in the settlement were outnumbered by the Loyalists as the war broke out, most of them left to seek the safety of like-minded settlers in communities nearby, leaving Cushetunk in the hands of the Tories. When the war ended, those same Tories, finding themselves on the losing side, were forced to leave, with most fleeing to Canada.

This is a narrative told daily during the season at Fort Delaware Museum of Colonial History in Narrowsburg, but it isn’t necessary to wait until the Fort’s re-opening in the spring to learn more about it.

These stories, so similar to stories from communities throughout the colonies, will be the subject of a program this columnist, your Sullivan County Historian, will be presenting via ZOOM for Time and the Valleys Museum in Grahamsville on Sunday, February 2.

Admission to this virtual-only program is free for Time and the Valleys Museum members and $5 for non-members. To join the program, please register by email at info@timeandthevalleysmuseum.org and put “A Settlement Divided Talk” in the subject line, or call 845-985-7700. A link will be sent to you. Those who are not members of Time and the Valleys will be asked to first make a donation on the Museum’s website: www.timeandthevalleysmuseum. org.

Positioning itself as “the Catskills’ leading resource for exploring the history and future of access to clean water,” Time and the Valleys has proven to be much more than that since its founding in 2003, and its programs have typically been among the most interesting and innovative in the region.

The program, “A Settlement Divided” starts promptly at 2 p.m.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian and a founder and president of The Delaware Company. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.