Oradell by Nick D

Oradell, New Jersey
1650
The British Colonists just recently settled around a reservoir. I was part of the first colonists to explore and settle this reservoir. We named our settlement Oradell, in reference to the many different ores and rocks we found along the banks of the reservoir and the small wooded valley surrounding the reservoir. We left our last settlement due to food shortages and disease; relative to where we came from, this is a paradise.
We built many small houses on the bank of one side of the reservoir surrounded by a wall of pointed trees. The trees we cleared away were the same ones we used to build the houses and the wall. The wall resembled a picket fence, just much taller. The pickets of the fence would be abreast to each other as oppose to being separated and connected by the fence itself. We built the wall in response to the many problems with the Indians our fellow settlers in the south were experiencing. We certainly never had any problems, but with the supply of food we found in the reservoir, the wall also kept out thieves from the settlement which we came from. The small houses we built were also made of wood and pasted together so as to not let in drafts for the upcoming winter. We used leaves and wood planks to build an insulating roof on each house. I came up with the idea to use water from the reservoir to dampen the paste used to glue the wood logs together on the houses.
The reservoir must have once been part of the Garden of Eden because it is absolutely magnificent. It is shaped like an ellipse, where the east and west banks are much closer than the north and south banks. The water flows from north to south. We are situated on the east bank. There is an island situated almost in the direct center of the reservoir that is filled with trees. The dell surrounds the reservoir on all sides, and at some places is so thick that you could hardly see through. Sometimes we see the Indian fires on the west bank, but we have yet to see or hear any Indians themselves. There seems to be an endless supply of fish in the reservoir, so much so that sometimes it seems that the fish are practically overflowing onto the shore. There are very few natural predators in the area and the land we settled has a good flat area for farming. We had to chop down many trees in order to clear this land, but it has all been used in either making the wall and houses or being saved to be burned in the winter.
The Indians have recently been getting closer to our settlement. The first couple of weeks there would only be one fire on the far west bank, about half a mile away, and only about once a week. Then it started occurring much more often. Three, four, five, sometimes even six times a week we would see the smoke. Then it slowly started crawling up and down the north and south bank. Each night more fires would get lit. It has grown to the point where now we can see twenty different fires burning every night up and down the entirety of the west bank. We don’t know what the Indians are planning, but we have heard reports of them taking hostages in exchange for money and land. We fear for our lives every night. Maybe this reservoir didn’t come from Eden; maybe it came from Hell.