Fehérgyarmat, the centre of the area called Erőhát(Back of Forest), is a small town with 9 thousand inhabitants in the north-east corner of the country.The second part of its name refers to the historical fact that the conquering Gyarmat tribe partly settled down here in the triangle taken by rivers Tisza, Szamos and Túr in the tenth century. The Garmath placename can be read in a document from the fifteenth century, which means that our ancestors considered this area  long-standing quarters. It shows the rank of the settlement that it is mentioned in another document from 1387. This time it is called Germad, while a document from 1403 mentions as Jarmath. Since the end of the 18th century more and more documents have spoken about the history of the settlement. One from 1810 says that there were 315 houses in the country town, 254 of them were owned by noblemen. The best-known families from that time were Bakó, Kalydy, Fábián, Bartha, Korponay, Csoknyay and others. The number of inhabitans continuously increased however, in 1834 the plague and in 1836 the cholera again killed people.  Fényes Elek, the Hungarian father of statistics, called Fehérgyarmat a populous country town in his book, where 2470 people lived at that time and according to him the main source of income was producing wheat and tobacco. The town had a court in the begining of the 19th century. Although it is certified by the oral tradition, Kossuth Lajos might have turned up in Fehérgyarmat in 1848 and he made a speech in the square named after him now, near the protestant church. That part of the town was like a forum because the fairs were taken place there ( the markets were held there even in  the 1950ies) in that  part of the street between the protestant church and Jékey-castle. Until 1967 the dry mill of the protestant churh stood in front of the church. In the turning of the century the greatest landowners of the are area are the Károlyies, Jékey Sándor and senior Spitz Adolf. By that time Fehérgyarmat was an industrializing country town, since the Bach age it was the centre of the region. According to the Monograph of Szatmár County by Dr. Borovszky Samu there were 741 houses in the settlement ( in spite of that fire destroyed the town in 1872, 1895 and 1900, when even the catholic church and the town hall burnt down too) and 4220 inhabitants lived there. Two cylindrical steam mills and a vinegar factory worked in the town; two savings banks, a public hospital, the land-register authority, tax office, a post office and a railway station ensured the country town character; the signs of urbanization were the casino and the civil reading circle. Beside the catholic and the protestant schools students could attend jesiva as well in Fehérgyarmat. Only more populous orthodox jewish communities kept up such rabbi training institutions.   During the centuries the settlemet, which is richly surrounded by rivers, was destroyed by floods several times. The biggest one destroyed the town in 1899. After the Trianon Treaty in 1920 the importance and the competence of Fehérgyarmat significantly changed. It became a border settlement and couldn't play that transmission role it played before between Beregszász and Szatmárnémeti.