This is an anniversary year - maybe

MILFORD — New Year’s Day rang in the 275th anniversary of the European settlement of the land that would later become known as Milford. Nearly three centuries ago, affluent Dutchman Thomas Quick Sr. became the first recorded white settler of the area, eventually building a home and mill. According to Pike County Historian George Fluhr, Quick relocated to the area to seize the opportunity of the new, fertile land. Quick’s ancestors have been traced back three generations to New York in the early 1600’s, where his family emigrated from Holland. That’s where agreement ends and the debate begins. As found with other early accounts about the New World, there are many discrepancies within conclusions offered by historians due to lack of sufficient documentation. The account of Milford’s early settlement that local history tends to follow is that of Calvin V. Crane, a 20th century historian from Port Jervis, N.Y. The account details Quick’s life first in New Jersey and later purchase of land on the Modder Kill, thought to be in close proximity to the mouth of present-day Vandermark Creek in Milford. Quick is said to have settled this land in 1733; thus the anniversary. This is the same story written about in “Heritage: 250,” a book sponsored by the Milford Borough Council that was published 25 years ago chronicling the history of the town. However, according to Vernon Leslie, the Wayne County historian and author of “The Tom Quick Legends,” the 1732 deed Crane uses to verify this claim actually shows that the land Quick purchased was in New Jersey and not Pennsylvania, south of the home of the former landowner, Solomon Davis. But a piece of evidence that cannot be reconciled with the deed, if Leslie is correct, is a map referred to in A.C. Quick’s A Genealogy of the Quick Family. This map was published by Lewis Evans, and depicted the area of the Minisink region, which included Milford. The map showed that the Quick mill, as Crane believed, was in fact, in Pennsylvania. As a result, some historians contend Quick moved his mill and residence from New Jersey to Pennsylvania sometime after the Davis deed was issued and before the Evans map was created. This theory would support both pieces of evidence as interpreted by Leslie. To this end, the precise year of Quick’s settlement in Milford would be in question. Fluhr said that Quick had properties in both states, and that although there is “no definitive historic proof” in regards to a specific date on any documentation, 1733 is the accepted “satisfactory” date of the first settlement of Milford. The naming of Milford adds additional fuel to the historical fire. Leslie writes that A.C. Quick commented on the significance of the name, perhaps a clue to this mystery. He posed the question, “Does not the name indicate the site of a ford (meaning a shallow area in a river) to a mill on the other side of the river?” Leslie suggests that if the mill were located in the same place as his residence, the area Quick settled would then be named “Millville” or “Quick’s Mill.” Since this was not the case, Leslie substantiates the claim that the mill was located in New Jersey. Those defending popular thought refute this idea by proposing, among other things, that the origin of the town’s name comes from Milford’s founder, John Biddis, who planned out the town and sold lots in Philadelphia in 1796. In his book, “Pike in Pennsylvania,” Fluhr notes that Biddis’ ancestral home was the Welsh village of Milford Haven. Fluhr wrote, “It is significant, however, that no reference has identified the town as Milford before John Biddis.” Even the notion that Tom Quick was the first settler became questionable as investigation into the matter continued. A fundamental challenge to the question of Milford’s settlement was made by Pike County Historical Society member Lori Strelecki, who commented, “To me, the first settlers were already there at the time of Quick.” She was referring to the aboriginal Lenni Lenape. “It’s not like they sprung up out of the Earth, they came from someplace else too,” she said, adding, “I don’t know why the Indian story is always forgotten when it comes to settlement … they’re the true settlers.” So what is certain? Quick was scalped and killed by Native Americans in 1756, an event that is said to have caused his son, also Tom, an infamous figure in history, to seek vengeance in later years. Based upon a newspaper account in the same year, Quick Sr.’s residence at his time of death was indeed in what was “North Hampton County, Pennsylvania,” which subsequent subdivisions - first Wayne County, then Pike from Wayne - became today’s Milford. When exactly the settlement occurred, where Quick’s mill was located, the origin of the town’s name, and whether Milford should recognize this anniversary at all seems to depend on whom one asks. As for the sign facing those entering the borough on East Hartford Street proclaiming 1733 as the date Milford was founded, 2008 will mark but another year in this town’s history - 275 years after Thomas Quick Sr. braved the wilderness to discover life on the new frontier.