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Town of Deposit
Indians first inhabited the land between the two rivers now known as the Susquehanna and the Delaware.

They named it Koo Koose, meaning The Place of Owls.

When the white man followed, he pronounced it The Cook House, and so it was called for many years. On April 5, 1811, the village was incorporated and given the name Deposit.

The lumber industry was the main occupation in the area. Logs were hauled, by sleighs during the winter, and deposited in great piles along the banks of the Delaware River - hence the name “Deposit.” The lumber was then put on huge rafts and floated down the river to as far away as Philadelphia.

Around 1900, the only bank in Deposit went under, dragging with it the fortunes of private citizens and businesses. Years later, the depression contributed further to the decline of Deposit.

In July of 2005 Deposit had a population of 1,636 and only small reminders of the logging industry remains. Other industry has settled in the area, but conditions are far from what they once were.


Village of Sherman
The small town of Sherman was also once a busy industrial center. By 1895, when the population had reached 300, there were two grocery stores, a post office, one sleigh and wagon repairing shop, two churches, one schoolhouse, one hotel, two chemical factories, several stone quarries, and “shoemakers too numerous to mention”.

One of the earliest industries was the stone quarries. Eventually many blocks of New York City streets were paved with blue flag stone from the Sherman quarries. Skilled stonemasons settled in the area and built, among other things, numerous stone arch bridges, many of which are still intact today, more than 100 years after their construction.

On July 13th 1889, a severe rainstorm flooded and devastated Sherman. In 2 ½ hours more than 6 inches of rain fell. Bridges were washed out, and lost manufacturing goods were found all along the road to Hale Eddy.

After the flood disaster, many people moved away, and - like Deposit - Sherman never returned to its past role as a busy industrial center.