This 1951 photograph taken by E.J. Gold in late spring shows the full power of the famous triple falls.

Philip Bonesteel opened his tavern nearby on the Big Bend of the Sawkill, because of the large numbers of travelers who began coming up the valley, through Awaghkonk, today called "Zena", over Chestnut Hill, as well as local customers for his fine ale and lager.

There is a story about a tin-peddler who stopped at the inn with his wagonload of wares, tippled mightily and had to be helped onto his wagon by Bonesteel, who last saw his wagon hauled by the horses who were propelled by the sound of the clanging tin, heading toward the Village Green.

He must have ended up in a bog, too drunk to struggle to freedom, because neither he nor his horse-drawn cart were ever seen again.

Few roads in Woodstock were free from bog during rainy winter weather, but somehow settlers made their way along them to occupy homesteads along the waterways in the valley, then later up in the more remote hollows.

Among the early settlers in the area were Frederic Rowe, who operated a farm in Little Shandaken from about 1787; Robert R. Livingston and his mother, Margaret, who managed his farm for many years; John Carl or Carrol, Hendrik Haniger, Thomas Chadwick, James Rowe, Isaac Davis, Peter Short, Ed Short, Henry Shultis, Peter Miller, Jacob Dubois, Jan Crispel and others now very much associated with the village of Woodstock.

The farms were quite far apart and the roads were dark and dangerous at night, with wolves, bears and lynx on the prowl.

Some of the roadways were reputed to be haunted, and in the 1940's and 50's, children liked to scare each other with stories about Headless Hessians like the one in Tarrytown written about by Hudson River Valley author Washington Irving.