that I might say with Micah, “We are made desolate;” and with Jeremiah, “A piteous wail may go forth in his distress.”  With Paul I say, “Brothers, pray for us.”  I have every evening, during a whole month, offered up prayers with the congregation, on the four points of our fort, under the blue sky....  Many heathen have been slain, and full twenty-two of our people have been delivered out of their hands by our arms.  The Lord our God will again bless our arms, and grant that the foxes who have endeavored to lay waste the vineyard of the Lord shall be destroyed.’

Among the prisoners were Catharine Le Fever, the wife of Louis Dubois, with three of their children.  These were Huguenots; and a friendly Indian gave information where they could be found.  The pursuers were directed to follow the Rondout, the Walkill, and then a third stream; and a small, bold band, with their knapsacks, rifles, and dogs, undertook the perilous journey.  Towards evening, Dubois, in advance of the party, discovered the Indians within a few feet of him, and one was in the act of drawing his bow, but, missing its string, from fear or surprise, the Huguenot sprang forward and killed him with his sword, but without any alarm.  The party then resolved to delay the attack until dark; at which hour the savages were preparing for slaughter one of their unfortunate captives, which was none other than the missing wife of Dubois himself.  She had already been placed upon the funeral pile, and at this trying moment was singing a martyr’s psalm, the strains of which had often cheered the pious Huguenots in days of the rack and bloody trials.  The sacred notes moved the Indians, and they made signs to continue them, which she did, fortunately, until the approach of her deliverers.  ‘White man’s dogs! white man’s dogs!’ was the first cry which alarmed the cruel foes.  They fled instantly, taking their prisoners with them.  Dubois calling his wife by name, she was soon restored to her anxious friends, with the other captives.  At the moment of their rescue, the prisoners were preparing for the bloody sacrifice to savage cruelty, and singing the beautiful psalm of the ’Babylonish Captives.’  Heaven heard those strains, and the deliverance came.  During this fearful expedition the Ulster Huguenots first discovered the rich lowlands of Paltz.

This was the section which they selected for their homes, distant some eighty-five miles from New York, along the west shores of the Hudson, and extending from six to ten miles in the interior.  It was called New Paltz, and its patent obtained from Gov.  Andreas; twelve of their brethren were religiously selected by the emigrants as the Patentees, and known by the appellation of the ‘Duzine,’ or the twelve patentees, and these were regarded as the patriarchs in this little Christian community.  A list of the original purchasers has been preserved, and were as follows:  Louis Dubois, Christian Dian, since Walter Deyo, Abraham Asbroucq, now spelt Hasbrouck, Andros Le Fever, often Le Febre and Le Febore, John Brook, said to have been changed into Hasbrouck, Peter Dian, or Deyo, Louis Bevier, Anthony Cuspell, Abraham Du Bois, Hugo Freir, Isaac Dubois, Simon Le Fever.