ELDRED, NY — John and Debra Conway of Barryville and The Delaware Company are trying to honor the names of some of the first to die for American independence in the place where they died—Minisink Ford.

Forty-six known members of a company of Orange and Sussex County’s militia died on July 22, 1779 after pursuing and engaging raiding British sponsored Mohawk Indians and Tory fighters in a fight, which has become known as the Battle of Minisink. Their names currently do not appear anywhere in battlefield memorials.

The Highland Town Board on August 9 approved a resolution supporting The Delaware Company in its search for grants to fund a monument at Sullivan County’s Battleground Park, which for the first time there would memorialize the names of dead.

The Minisink region of Orange County—Goshen—is where the militia set out from and probably gave rise to the name of the battle, as the Upper Delaware was largely wilderness in 1779, and remained so for several decades. Its remote nature prevented recovery of the remains of the battle dead for 43 years.

Remains were recovered and interred in Goshen in 1822. A monument there contains their names, but a more modest monument erected at the battlefield in 1879 does not.

The Delaware Company is a not-for-profit fostered by the Conways—he is the Sullivan County Historian and she is co-historian in Highland—promoting interest in things historical.

Debra Conway last week told the board that the company hopes to raise private donations for the monument from organizations including the Daughters of the American Revolution.

She anticipated that some $8,000 would be required for project, and if fundraising yields more than that, funds would go toward needed benches for the monument area.

She noted that the Sullivan County VFW had already pledged $500 for the project.

County VFW Commander Peter Carmeci again confirmed the pledge.

Conway also noted that research for the project had also uncovered a manuscript detailing the 1879 dedication of the local monument written by Highland’s first supervisor, John Willard Johnston.

Local donations would provide a match grant funding and a press release from the Delaware Company stated that checks payable to The Delaware Company and noted on the memo line as intended for the “Minisink Project” can be mailed to P.O. Box 88, Barryville NY 12719.

In other business, the town board, following brief resumption of a public hearing recessed last month, approved Local Law#2 of 2016 amending definitions in town zoning, specifically regarding parking and standing at the cul-de-sac on River Road; approved a letter supporting New York City’s providing an early warning dam-failure system involving the sounding of local fire sirens; noted that a 9/11 Memorial Blue Mass will be held at St. Anthony’s RC Church at 11:15 a.m. on September 11; introduced two newly hired town constables, Steve Milisauskas and John Arias; and heard councilmen Scott Hallock and Jim Hanson report on their weeding and cleanup of the curb planters at the Barryville corners.