Читать книгу The History of Orange County New York - Группа авторов - Страница 6

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Orange was one of the earliest counties of the State, dating back to 1683. when it was organized by a colony law. It was also one of those formed by a general act of organization in 1788, when it included the present county of Rockland, and was described as extending from the limits of East and West Jersey on the west side of the Hudson River along the river to Murderer's Creek, or the bounds of Ulster County, and westward into the woods as far as Delaware River—that is, all that part of the state south of an easterly and westerly line from the mouth of Murderer's Creek to the Delaware River or northerly line of Pennsylvania. In 1797 Rockland county was set off from it, and five towns from Ulster were added. Its boundaries were definitely fixed by an act of the New York legislature adopted April 3rd, 1801. The previous act of April 5th, 1797, provided that five towns, then a part of the County of Ulster, should be annexed to the county of Orange, and that the courts should hold their sessions alternately at Newburgh and Goshen. Two days afterward another act was passed defining the boundary lines of the towns composing the newly constructed county, and naming them as follows: Blooming Grove, Chesekook, Deer Park, Goshen, Minisink, Montgomery, New Windsor, Newburgh, Wallkill and Warwick. There were subsequent changes, and the following is a list of the present towns, with the years of their erection, and the territories from which they were taken:

Blooming Grove, 1799, taken from Cornwall; Cornwall, 1788, as New Cornwall, and changed to Cornwall in 1797; Chester, 1845, taken from Goshen, Warwick, Monroe and Blooming Grove; Crawford, 1823, taken from Montgomery; Deer Park, 1798, as a part of Ulster County and taken from Mamakating; Goshen, 1788; Hamptonburgh, 1830, taken from Wallkill, Goshen, Montgomery, Blooming Grove and New Windsor; Monroe, 1799, taken from Cornwall, original name Chesekook, changed to Southfield in 1802, and to Monroe in 1808, and divided in 1890 into Woodbury and Tuxedo; Montgomery, 1788; Mount Hope, 1825, taken from Wallkill, Deer Park and Minisink, original name Calhoun; Newburgh, 1788; New Windsor, 1788; Wallkill, 1788; Minisink, 1788.

There are three cities in Orange County, Newburgh in the town of Newburgh; Middletown, in the town of Wallkill, and Port Jervis, in the town of Deer Park. Newburgh was chartered as a city in 1865, Middletown in 1888, and Port Jervis in 1907.

The irregular county thus constituted is bounded on the northwest and north by Sullivan and Ulster Counties, on the east and southeast by the Hudson River and Rockland County, on the southwest and west by New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Sullivan County. It has nearly half a million square miles.

The towns along the northwestern and northern border are Deer Park, Mount Hope, Wallkill, Crawford, Montgomery and Newburgh.

Along the Hudson are Newburgh, New Windsor, Cornwall and Highlands.

Next to Rockland County are Highlands, Woodbury and Tuxedo.

On the New Jersey line are the point of Tuxedo, Warwick, Minisink, Greenville, and a section of Deer Park.

The most western town is Deer Park which lies along New Jersey, the Delaware River and Pennsylvania on the southwest and Sullivan County on the north.

In the interior are the towns of Wawayanda, Goshen, Hamptonburgh, Blooming Grove, Chester and Monroe.

The post offices of the county as distributed in the several towns are named as follows:

Blooming Grove: Salisbury's Mills, Washingtonville, Blooming Grove, Oxford Depot, Craigsville.

Chester: Chester, Greycourt, Sugar Loaf.

Cornwall: Cornwall, Cornwall-on-Hudson, Cornwall Landing, Idlewild, Mountainville, Orrs Mills, Meadowbrook, Firthcliffe.

Crawford: Bullville, Pine Bush, Thompson Ridge.

Deer Park: Cuddebackville, Godeffroy, Huguenot, Port Jervis, Rio, Sparrowbush.

Goshen: Goshen.

Greenville: Greenville.

Hamptonburgh: Campbell Hall, Burnside.

Highlands: Highland Falls, Fort Montgomery, West Point.

Middletown: Middletown.

Minisink: Minisink, Johnson, Westtown, Unionville.

Monroe: Monroe, Turner.

Montgomery: Walden, Montgomery, Maybrook.

Mount Hope: Otisville, Guymard.

Newburgh: Newburgh, Middle Hope, Liptondale. Cedarcliff, Cronomer Valley, Savilton, Orange Lake, Roseton.

New Windsor: Little Britain, Rocklet, Vail's Gate, Moodna.

Tuxedo: Arden, Southfields, Tuxedo Park.

Wallkill: Middletown, Circleville, Stony Ford, Howells, Crystalrun, Fair Oaks.

Warwick: Edenville, Warwick, Florida, Pine Island, New Milford, Wisner Lake, Bellvale, Greenwood Lake, Amity.

Wawayanda: New Hampton, Ridgebury, Slate Hill, South Centreville.

Woodbury: Woodbury Falls, Highland Mills, Central Valley.

To go back and particularize more fully: In 1686 the town of Orange was organized, and soon afterward adjoining patents were attached to it for jurisdiction and assessment. In 1719 the northern settlements were separated into the precinct of Orange, with Tappan as its center, and the precinct of Haverstraw, with "the Christian patented lands of Haverstraw" as its center. In 1714 the precinct of Goshen was organized, and included the entire county except the Orangetown and Haverstraw districts. In 1764 it was divided by a straight line, all the lands west of the line constituting the precinct of Goshen and all the lands east, the precinct of New Cornwall. The four precincts named were the political divisions of the county until after the Revolution. In 1788 the towns of Warwick and Minisink were erected from Goshen, and in 1791 the towns of Clarkstown and Ramapo were erected from Haverstraw. In 1797 the name of the town of New Cornwall was changed to Cornwall.

In the southern towns of the County of Ulster, afterward transferred to Orange, changes were made in 1709. The precincts of Highlands and Shawangunk were attached to New Paltz, and the present Orange County towns of Montgomery, Crawford and Wallkill were then embraced within its limits. These divisions continued until 1743, when they were changed to three precincts—Wallkill, Shawangunk and Highlands. There was also the precinct of Mamakating west of the precincts of Wallkill and Shawangunk, the northern part of which was made a part of Deer Park in 1798 by the law annexing the Ulster County towns. In 1762 the precinct of Highlands was divided into the precincts of Newburgh and New Windsor, and in 1772 the precinct of Newburgh was divided so as to form another precinct on the north, named New Marlborough. The same law divided the precinct of Wallkill so that its northern section became the precinct of Hanover. In 1782 the name of this precinct was changed to Montgomery by permission of the Provincial Convention of the State. By the general act of 1788 the Ulster County precincts which have been named were erected into the towns of Newburgh, New Windsor, New Marlborough, Shawangunk and Montgomery.

In the winter of 1797, after much opposition to plans for changing the boundaries of Orange and Ulster Counties, two bills were agreed upon by a Convention of Delegates from the several towns interested, and these were presented to the Legislature and passed. One of them set off from Orange the present County of Rockland, and the other annexed to Orange County the towns of New Windsor, Newburgh, Wallkill, Montgomery and Deer Park, then the southern section of the county of Ulster.

In 1801 a general law dividing the State into counties fixed the then somewhat undefined boundaries of Orange, and another law adopted the same year fixed the boundaries of its towns as they now are, with the exception of Woodbury and Tuxedo, into which Monroe was separated in 1890.

The first Board of Supervisors of the present county, which met in Goshen in 1798, was composed as follows: John Vail, Goshen; Francis Crawford, New Windsor; Reuben Tooker, Newburgh; Anselem Helme, Cornwall; Jacob Post, Warwick; Nathan Arnont, Minisink; James Finch, Deer Park; David Gallatin, Montgomery; Andrew McCord, Wallkill.

Since that time the three towns of Greenville, Wawayanda and Highlands have been erected.