NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 06252977 5 \ J /^V w 6- i^) HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF ' NEW WINDSOR Orange County, N. Y. Bv Ed\v^ard M. Ruttenber. NEWBURGH. N. Y. Printed for The Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands 1911. '^\\ THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRAI^Y 67354^ I >MMC»ATI»M9. 1914 . I NEWBURGH JOURNAL PRINT. NEWBURGH, N. Y. THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY A8TOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATION*. ''fp^'^^- -•^^ tOWARD M. RUTTENBER AUTHOR OF STANDARD INDIAN AND LOCAL HISTORItS PREFACE This volume is published by The Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands, from a manuscript which was given to it by Mr. Ed- ward M. Ruttenber, shortly before his death. The Society has so much faith in the accuracy of Air. Ruttenber's work along historical lines that no effort has been made to amend any of the statements contained in the manuscript except in those few in- stances in which the members of the publication committee has personal knowledge of some facts modifying Mr. Ruttenber's statements. To claim that any work of history is absolutely free from inaccuracies would be unwise. But we feel confident that out of the multiplicity of de- tails set forth in the following pages few errors will be discovered. It is, to be observed that the history is not intended to be brought up to the present day. It covers only the period from the earliest settle- ment of the Town of New Windsor to about the year 1870. With a deep sense of the gratitude due to Mr. Ruttenber for his pains- taking labors in ascertaining and perpetuating the facts connected with the early history of this section of the Empire State, we submit this vol- ume to the public with the hope that our work in editing it will not do dis- credit to the work of Mr. Ruttenber in gathering the materials. THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE OF HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF NEW- BURGH BAY AND THE HIGHLANDS. February i, 191 2. " YORK f 'jdlh. TILOEN OlD TOLL GATE FORMERLY STOOD ON NEWBUI^GH AND NEW WINDSOR TURNPIKE, VERY NEAR THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE TOWN OF NEW WINDSOR) Ifom ''' i^jcturesque America," by peimissiou or D. Appletou & Compauy History of the Town of New Windsor CHAPTER I. LOCATION—PHYSIOLOGY—NAME—ROADS—SCHOOLS, ETC. LOCATION. New Windsor, originally the extreme southeastern precinct and town of the county of Ulster, and, under the reorganization of the counties of Orange and Ulster in 1799, the central northeastern town of the county of Orange, is bounded on the north by the city and town of Newburgh and the town of Montgomery, on the west by Montgomery and Hamp' tonburgh, on the south by Blooming-Grove and Cornwall, and on the €ast by Hudson's river. Substantially in the same latitude, and of cor- responding elevation, its mean temperature may be accepted as the same as that of Newburgh, viz : 50 deg. 10 min. The surface of the town is rolling and hilly. The soil may be classed in four divisions. From the Hudson to Muchattoes hill it is gravelly ; more immediately adjoining the Hudson deposits of clay underlie the sand.* The southern spur of Muchattoes hill as far west as Vail's Gate, is rough and covered with boulders to an extent that makes its improvement difficult. West from this ridge and until within a mile of Rock Tavern, a rolling upland pre- vails. The extreme western part is more or less broken by slate ridges. There are many broad and fertile valleys, and there are also hills (so called locally) that are cultivated to their tops. Muchattoes hill, or Snake hill as it is more generally called, on its northern border, the only considerable elevation in the town, rises six hundred feet above tide water. The creeks and streams are Murderer's or Moodna, Silver Stream and Beaver-dam, Goldsmith and Colemantown creeks. Quas- saick creek constitutes a portion of the northern boundary of the town and gives to it several valuable mill privileges.** Its marsh or swamp "^Drift Deposits.—South of the Quassaick creek the deposits on the slate rock is first drift above of the Hudson river group boulders, pebbles, gravel, and claj^ ; this blue clay covered with gray clay, and above the whole sand and gravel. The height of these deposits is altogether about one hundred feet. The whole plateau adjoining the Hudson river presents a soil gravelly, sandy, clayey—a mixture forming a warm and fertile soil. —Geological Report. ** Hist. Orange Co. and Newburgh, 68, 69, etc. Quassaick is Indian, signify- is a tradition which has been ing stony brook ; Murderer's creek so called from woven upon the original Dutch title of Martelaer. Its Indian name is presumed to have been Waoraneck. History of The Town of New Windsor. land is the Big Swamp in the northwest part of the town. Washington! Lake, for many years known as Little Pond, lies midway on its northern border; it has an elevation of two hundred and thirty feet, and covers,, including overflowed swamp, an area of one hundred and seven acres. The Newburgh water-works take its waters, as well as the waters of Silver Stream. The principal agricultural products are rye, wheat, corn,, butter milk brick oats, hay, and ; paper and are the almost exclusive man- ufactures, although milling, cotton and woolen goods, snuff and tobacco, and iron implements and glass, have at different times been prosecuted with more or less success. The local divisions of the town are New Windsor village, Moodna or Orangeville, Vail's Gate or Mortonville,. Little the and Rock Tavern a division Britain, Square ; Hunting-Grove, so called in its early history, is now in Hamptonburgh. It has twelve school and joint school districts, and five churches. The Newburgh Branch of the Erie railroad, and the Newburgh and New York railroad, pass through the eastern part of the town. The town has an area of 20.871 acres, of which about 17,500 are improved. Its population in 1790 was 1,819; 1830, 2,310; 1865, 2,697; 1875, 2,455. CIVIL ORGANIZATION—NAME. The district of which the town now forms a part had its first local government under the patent to Captain John Evans, who, being vested with the privileges and powers pertaining to a lordship and manor, had authority to establish a manorial court. It is not probable, however, that during the continuance of his patent ( 1694 to 1699) any semblance of civil authority was exercised. After the vacation of his patent and with the advent of the Palatines at Newburgh in 1709, that portion of the Evans patent lying in the county of Ulster, embracing the district be- tween Murderer's creek and New Paltz, was organized as the Precinct of the Highlands, and attached to New Paltz. In this relation it remain- ed until 1743, when three full precincts, having all the officers of towns and exercising all their duties, were established by act of the colonial as- sembly. These precincts were known and called "by the name of the Wallkill Precinct, Shawangunk Precinct,* and Highland Precinct." The latter was more particularly described in the act as "bounded on the east by Hudson's river; on the south by the line dividing the coun- ties of Ulster and on the west the of Wallkill Orange ; by precincts and *Shawangunk Precinct an organization contemporary with the Precinct of the- Highlands, and in its original boundaries embraced the territory covered by the sub.sequent Precinct of Wallkill and Shawangunk. History of The Town of New Windsor. Shawangunk and the neighborhoods annexed to New Paltz, and on the north by the bounds or line of New Paltz town." The precinct meet- ings were to be held "at the house of John Humphrey, Jr., on the first Tuesday in April, annually, for the election of precinct officers." It con- tinued in existence until 1762, when it was divided into the precincts of Newburgh and New Windsor, "by a line beginning at the mouth of Ouassaick creek and running thence along the south bounds of a tract of land commonly called the German patent, to another tract granted to Alexander Baird & Co., and then along the southerly bounds of the last mentioned tract to the Wallkill precinct;" all the land theretofore comprehended "within the said Highland precinct lying to the south- ward of the said dividing line, to be called by the name of New Windsor Precinct." More clearly defined boundaries appear from those giving the limits of the Newburgh and Wallkill precincts, the latter being ex- tended on the south "to the north bounds of two thousand acres of land granted to Patrick Hume, by the north and west bounds of the lands granted to Cornelius Low and others, and by the northwest and south- west bounds of two thousand acres of land granted to Phineas Macin- tosh," while the bounds of Newburgh extended south to Ouassaick creek and thence west along the south line of the Baird patent. The latter line has never been the western changed ; line, however, was destroyed by the organization of the town of Hamptonburgh in 1830. The dis- trict remained under the title of "precinct" until 1788, when, under the general law of that year, it was constituted the "town" of New Windsor, and its boundaries defined as follows : "All that part of the said county of Orange bounded easterly by the middle of Hudson's river, southerly by an east and west line from the mouth of Murderer's creek,* and west- erly and northerly by a line beginning at the west side of Hudson's river at the mouth of Quassaick creek, and running from thence along the south bounds of a tract of land commonly called German patent and the southerly bounds of a tract of land granted to Alexander Baird and Com- pany to the east bounds of two thousand acres of land granted to Cad- wallader Colden, and then across the same to the most northerly corner of the land granted to Patrick Hume, and thence along the westerly bounds thereof to the lands granted to Patrick McKnight, and then along the same southwesterly to the southerly corner thereof, and then con- tinuing the last mentioned line to the town of Blooming-Grove so as to include the lands formerly of Fletcher Matthews."** * The line of the county of Orange prior to 1779.