USA > New York > Ulster County > History of Ulster County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers. Vol. I > Part 2
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II .- THIE HOLLANDERS.
The early settlers of Ulster County mostly came from Holland, and to the people of Holland more than to those of any other modern nation the people of this State are indebted for the wise system of laws under which they live, and the people of this nation for the liberties they enjoy. It is customary in some quarters to attribute the introdue- tion of the ideas which lie at the foundation of our repub- lican institutions in the New World to the Pilgrim Fathers of New England. But the Pilgrims took their first lessons in popular government during their stay in Holland. It was in Holland, then struggling for liberty against the mighty forces of Spain, that the Pilgrim Fathers first en- joyed the religious freedom for which they braved the dan- gers of the northern ocean and the greater dangers of the northern land on the wintry shores of New England. It was during their fieree struggles for liberty that the Dutch developed the activity which led them to eover the sea with their ships of war and commerce and to plant their colonies in the New World.
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HISTORY. OF ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.
"The Dutch republie," says Brodhead, "which for nearly a century after it first took its place in the rank of independent nations continued to sway the balance of Eu- ropean politics, owed its proud position to the moral quali- ties and free spirit of the people of the Netherlands; to the constitution of their government; to their geographical position ; their maritime power ; their liberal commercial policy ; their spirit of universal toleration ; and to the wise statesmanship which attracted to their shores a winnowed population from other lands."*
From the days of the universal sway of imperial Rome an indomitable spirit of civil liberty had animated the people who dwelt on the islands and lowlands at the mouths of the Rhine.
In the year 1426 the foudei sovereignty of the Nether- lands had centered in the house of Burgundy under Philip 1. But to Philip the Dutch yielded obedience only on condition that he should respect their fundamental principle of government, which was " taxation only by consent." During the short reign of Charles the Bold the liberties of the Dutch were encroachel upon, but, in the year 1447, Mary of Burgundy, the only child of Charles, granted, at the firin demand of the State>-General, patents of privileges for all the provinces of the Netherlands. These patents were connnooly known among the Hollanders as their " great charter." This charter among other things guaran- teed and confirmed the right of the towns at all times to confer with each other and with the States of the Nether- lands. It declared that no taxes should be imposed without the consent of the States and secured the freedom of trade and commere ..
These are the vital principles of popular self-goverment, and to these principles the Dutch ever afterwards clung with unabating temicity.
Charles V., Emperor of Germany, born in the year 1500, inherited the sovereignty of the Netherlands from his grand- mother, Mary of Burgnudy. Charles was brought up in the Low Countries, and always manifested so much partial- ity towards the Dutch that he caused much dissatisfaction to l.is Spanish subjects. At length, to the surprise of Eu- rope, in the year 1555, Charles abdicated his vast empire, and his son Philip H. became the ruler of the Low Coun- tries. But Philip was educated in Spain, and was essen- tially a Spanish monarch. He had none of the sympathy of his father for the Dutch people, and, disregarding the privileges granted to them by the house of Burgundy, at- tempted to rule them as a despot. The result was he drove them into a revolution which led to the declaration of their national independence. Then followed more than eighty years of constant strife, interrupted for only twelve years by the truce of 1609. But this long warfare was gloriously terminated by the full and absolute recognition of the sovereignty of the United Provinces. 1
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Ont of this scathing revolution in the Old World at the months of the Rhine came the early Datch settlers, who planted colonies in the New World in the valleys of the Hudson and Delaware, or, as they were then distin- quished, the " North River" and " the South River."
III .- THE HUGUENOTS.
Scarcely less prominent than the Dutch, and perhaps wielding quite as much influence in the settlement and de- velopment of Ulster County, stand the early Huguenot pioneers. Protestantism in France, with which the name IInguenot is almost synonymous, was not an offshoot from the movements in other parts of Europe headed by Luther and Calvin, but was a thing of independent contemporary growth, although its doctrines soon became imbued with the peculiar views of the great Geneva Reformer. This convergence of views led to an easy union in the New World of the Reformed Dutch with the French Huguenot Churches, and the two nationalities in consequence lived to- gether in peace in Ulster County, and we find their de- scendants to-day blended together iu fraternal concord. To- day the historian of Ulster County finds that the majority of the names most prominent in the history of Ulster are of Dutch and Huguenot origin.
IV .- SCOPE OF THE WORK.
In pursuing the history of this county through its more than two centuries of growth and development we shall see in carly settlement, as they successively spring up in the depths of the virgin wilderness, the first half-dozeu isolated log huts, each in the centre of its little clearing, bordered on either side by miles of almost pathless forests. We shall see at these rude pioneer homes the father, with his gun by his side, planting his corn among the blackened stumps and logs. We shall see the mother, surrounded by her infant children, busily plying her daily toil within the single room of her humble home, and often casting anxious glances into the shadowy woods which her imagination at all times peopled with hordes of wild beasts, and savage men more to be dreaded than the wild beasts. Yet in the daily struggle for the daily bread, in the hardships and dangers in the quiet religious lives of those early Dutch and Hn- guenot homes on the Isopus Kill and the Wall Kill, we shall also see what is better than all else,-the origin and the growth of those homely and sturdy virtues upon which the present prosperity of our country is surely bailded, and upon which the prosperity of great States stretching across the continent from sea to sea has since been so securely founded. And we shall follow the varying fortunes of these pioneers of the old wilderness through the long and Hooly Indian wars and the war of the Revolution, through the weary years it took to clear off the forests and prepare the soil for cultivation, and bring our story to its close in re- counting the wonderful progress of the last fruitful fifty years of our country's marvelous development.
But this attempt to write the history of Ulster County is not without wany and serious difficulties. A hundred years, even, in passing have taken, one by one, all the old settlers from us, and much that could once have accurately been learned from living lips, now that those lips are sealed1 forever, must be sought for in the all-too-meagre records left us by the fathers, or we must grope our way for it among the often conflicting stories of the fragmentary lore of uncertain tradition.
* Brodhead's Hist. of N. Y., vol. i. p. 135.
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CIVIL DIVISIONS.
CHAPTER IL.
CIVIL DIVISIONS-ORIGINAL COUNTIES- · TOWNS.
I .- EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES.
THE county of Ulster lies on the west bank of the Hud- son River, and is centrally distant sixty-eight miles from the capitol at Albany. It is bounded on the north by the counties of Delaware and Greene ; on the cast by the Hud- sun River, which separates it from the counties of Columbia and Dutchess ; ou the south by the counties of Orange and Sullivan ; and on the west by the counties of Sullivan and Delaware.
The county of Ulster is situate between latitude 412 30' and 42° 10' north, and longitude 2' 10' and 3º 5' east from Washington, which corresponds to 73' 55' and 749 50' west from Greenwich, England. Its extreme length from north to south is about forty quiles, and its greatest width from east to west is abou: forty-five miles. It con- tains ene thousand two hundred and four square miles, or seven hundred and sixty thousand five hundred and sixty acres.
Ulster County now (1880) forms a part of the Third Judicial District of the State, part of the 14th Senatorial and the 15th Congressional Districts. It is divided into three Assembly districts. At the last United States census, taken in 1870, its total population was eighty-four thousand and seventy-five. At the last State census, taken in 1875, its total population was eighty-eight thousand one hundred and twenty-four.
In the revised statutes of the State this county is do- scribed and its boundary lines defined as follows, to wit :*
" The county of Ulster shall contain all that part of this State bounded as follows : Bezinning in the mbidle of Hulson's River, op- posite to the worth en l of Wan'on Island, and running thebee in a direel hue to the said perth end : then north forty eight degrees west four hundred and forty-Sve chins, to the west bouwis of the parent granted to Johannes Hallengren ; then along the same south eight degrees west s .renty - De chains, to or near the end of a stone wall in the forks of the real between the houses, now or heretofore, of He- rekinh Wynkoop anl Daniel Drumond: then porth eighty-nine de- rues west eighty zeven chains, to stores near a chesnut-tree cornered and marked being the corner of lots number one and two, in the sub- division of great lot number twenty-six of the Ilardenburgh patent; then along the Jivi. ion line between sabi lots north fifty-nine degrees and thirty minutes west seventy-eight chains, to a rock-oak tree, bring the corner of the land, now or herelufore, of Gilbert E. Palen and Jonathan Palen : Iben south twenty-four degrees west four hun- red aul eleven chains, to the line run by Jacob Trumpbour, in the year one thousand eight hun fre l and eleven, for the division line be- tween the counties of Ulster and Greece; then along the said line until it intersects the northend lerly bounds of great lot number eight in stit patent ; then along said bounds to the easterly boun Is of the rom: ty of Delaware; then along the same southwesterly to the bonn Is of the county of sullivan : then southen-terly along the same to the county of Orange : then easterly along the northerly bounds of the Pourty of Orange to the middle of Ha bon's River: and then op along the same to the place of beginning."
II. - THE ORIGINAL COUNTIES OF THE STATE.
In the year 1653 the province of New York was first subdivided into counties. Previous to that time the only
" See Section 2, Title I .. Chapter II., Part I., New York Revised Staates.
civil divisions of the province were manors and towns or eities.
On the first day of November, 1683, the province of New York was divided into twelve counties by order of the Duke of York, then the sole proprietor of the province, who ascended the throne of Great Britain as James II. on the 6th day of February, 1685, and abilicated the sante in the English Revolution of 1638, to be succeeded by William of Orange and Mary. These twelve counties were all named in honor of James and his near relatives.
Thus the counties of New York and Albany were so ealled in honor of his twin titles, of the Duke of York in England and Duke of Albany in Scotland.
The counties of King's and Queen's (now Kings and Queens, without the possessive) were named in honor of the duke's royal brother, then King Charles IL., and his wife, Catharine of Braganza.
Duchess (now Dutchess), containing also what are now Columbia and Putuam Counties, complimented James' wife, Mary Hyde, Duchess of York.
Suffolk County was named after King Charles, in whom was then vested the title of Duke of Suffolk. This title was lost by Charles Grey, father of Lady Jane Grey, in consequence of her rebellion.
Richmond County was named in honor of Charles Lenox, Duke of Richmond. a natural son of Charles II. by a French woman, Louise de Querouaille. The royal duke- dom of Riebmond had descended from the brother of Henry Stuart, the father of James L., of England, and had become extinct on the death of James Stuart, son of the first cousin of Charles 1. It was then conferred by Charles II. upon the son of his favorite mistress above named, the ancestor of the present family of Richmond.
Orange County, then including Rockland County and all of the present county of Orange lying south of a line run -. ning west from the mouth of Murderer's Creek, was so called in honor of William, Prince of Orange, who, with his wife, Mary of England, the daughter of James, ascended the throne of England as William and Mary.
In 1683 the younger brother of King Charles had the Irish title of the Duke of Ulster, and Ulster County was mamed in his honor. Ulster County has since been divided, and from it taken the county of Sullivan, and parts of the counties of Greene, Delaware, and Orange.
On the death of the last Earl of Chester, the most im- portant of the peerages of the old Norman kings, the title became merged in the crown, but was always conferred upon the Prince of Wales. As Charles II. had no legiti- mate son, he himself retained the title, and it was also in his honor that the county of Westchester received its name.
But at the time of the division of Nov. 1, 1683, there were two other counties made out of what was then con- sidered the duke's province of New York, -- viz., the coun- ties of Duke's and Cornwall, -- and where are they ? The title of Duke of Cornwall also remains with the crown of England when there is no Prince of Wales to hold it, and the islands on the sea-coast of Maine, being claimed by Janves, were erected into the county of Cornwall. Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Islands, also claimed by him, were
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HISTORY OF ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.
set off as Duke's County. But Massachusetts, having the possession of all these islands, refused to give them up. James, therefore, yielded his claims, and Cornwall and Duke's became the lost counties of New York. Dukes is now one of the counties of the State of Massachusetts, and the islands that formed Cornwall now belong to the State of Maine.
ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION OF ULSTER COUNTY.
In its original charter the county of Ulster is deseribed as follows, to wit :
" Ulster County shall contain the towns of Kingston, Hurley, and Marbletown, Foxhall, and the New Paltz, and all villages, neighbor- hoods, and Christian habitations on the west side of the Hudson's River from the Murderer's Creek, near the Highlands, to the Sawyer's Creek."
In 1774 an act was passed to run and mark the bound- ary of Ulster and Orange Counties from cast of the Shaw- angunk Mountains to the Delaware River.
III .-- THE SECOND DIVISION INTO COUNTIES IN PROVINCIAL TIMES.
From the time of the first division of the State into counties, under Charles II., on the Ist day of November, in the year 1683, until the 24th day of March, 1772, all the territory lying northerly and westerly of what was then the county of Ulster was included in the county of Albany. Ou the 24th day of March, 1772, the vast county of Al- bany was divided, and two new counties set off,-namely, the counties of Tryon and Charlotte.
The county of Tryou included all that part of the State lying westerly of the aforesaid " established line," which rab from the Mohawk, as above set forth, to the Canada line, at a point near the present Indian village of St. Regis. Tryon County was thus nearly two hundred miles wide on its eastern border, and stretched out westward two hundred and seventy miles to the shores of Lake Erie. The shire- town of Tryon County was Johnstown, near the Mohawk, the residence of Sir William Johnson, Bart. It was named in honor of William Tryon, the last colonial Governor of the State.
The county of Charlotte, scarcely less in size than Tryon County, included within its boundaries all the northern part of the State that lay easterly of the " Tryon County line," and northerly of the present county of Saratoga and the Battenkill, in Washington County. Charlotte County also included the westerly half of what is now the State of Vermont, and was then the disputed territory known as the New Hampshire grants. The easterly half of Vermont, lying west of the Connecticut River, also claimed by New York, and since forming part of Albany County, was set off into two counties,-Cumberland in 1776, and Gloucester, 1.70.
Charlotte County was so named in honor of the Princess Charlotte, daughter of George III., or, as some say, of the Queen Consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The county-seat of Charlotte County was Fort Edward. The first court was held in that village on the 19th of Oc- tober, 1773, by Judge William Duer. The first clerk of the court was Daniel MeCrea, a brother of Jeanie MeCrea,
whose tragic death soon after occurred near where the cour: sat.
On the 2d day of April, 1784, the Legislature of the State passed the following act, to wit :
" From and after the passing of this act, the county of Tryon shall be called and known by the name of Montgomery, and the county of Charlotte by the name of Washington."
Thus these two counties, says Judge Gibson, in his " Beneh and Bar of Washington County," organized origi- nally by one legislative aet, and simultaneously named in compliment to royalty and its satellite by a subsequent leg- islative aet, after passing through a sea of fire and famine and desolation and war, were simultaneously born again in a baptism of blood, and one of them named after the greatest of its slaughtered heroes on the battle-field, Montgomery: and the other after the most distinguished of her living survivors, the immortal Washington.
IV .- PRESENT CIVIL DIVISIONS OF ULSTER COUNTY.
In the county of Ulster, as at present constituted, there are twenty separate towns and one city. which were organ- ized er incorporated respectively as follows :
KINGSTON received its first charter from Governor Stuy- vesant, May 16, 1661, under the name of " Wild-wyck." On the 19th day of May, 1667, it was incorporated by patent under its present name. On the Ist day of May. 1702. it was reorganized as a town. Esopus and Saugerties were taken off in 1811, and the town of Ulster in IS79.
NEW PALTZ was granted by patent from Governor An- dross on the 29th day of September, 1677. April 1, 1775, its bounds were enlarged, and a part of Hurley annexed Feb. 2, 1809: Lloyd was taken off in 1845. A part of Esopus was taken off in 1842, and a part of Rosendale in 1844, and a part of Gardner in 1853.
MARBLETOWN was formed by patent June 25, 1703. It was erected a town March 7, 1788. A part of Olive was taken off in 1823, and a part of Rosendale in 1844.
ROCHESTER was formed by patent June 25, 1703, and erected into a town March 7, 1788. A part of Middletown, in Delaware County, was taken off in 1789; Neversink, in Sullivan County, in 1789. Wawarsing was taken off in 1806, and part of Gardiner in 1853.
HURLEY was first settled as " Nieuw Dorp" in 1662. and a patent was granted Oct. 19, 1708. A part of the Hardenbergh patent was annexed March 3, 1789. A part of New Paltz was taken off in 1809, a part of Esopus in 1818, a part of Olive in 1823, a part of Rosendale in 1844, and a part of Woodstock in 1953.
SHAWANGENK was formed as a precinct Dee. 17, 1743, and as a town March 7, 1788. A part of Gardiner was taken off in 1853 ; a part was annexed to P'lattekill in 1846, and restored in 1818.
MARLBOROUGH was formed as a precinct from New- burgh precinct March 12, 1772, and as' a town March ", 1788; Plattekill was taken off in IS0n.
WOODSTOCK was formed April 11, 1757. A part of Middletown, Delaware Co., was taken off 1789, Windom, Greene Co., in 1789, and Shandaken in 1-04. A part of
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TOPOGRAPHY.
Olive was taken off and parts of Olive and Hurley were annexed Nov. 25, 1853.
PLATTEKILL was organized March 21, 1800. A part of Shawaugunk was annexed April 3, 1846, and restored March 28, 1818.
SHANDAKEN was formed April 9, 1804. A part was annexed from Neversiuk, Sullivan Co., in 1809. A part of Olive was taken off in 1823, Denning in 1849, and a part of Hardenburgh in 1859.
WAWARSING was formed March 14, 1806. A part was set off to Rochester in 1823.
Esopus was formed April 5, 1811. A part was set off to Kingston in 1818, and a part of Ilurley was annesed the same year. A part of New Paltz was annexed in 1842.
SAUGERTIES was formed April 5, 1811. The boundary was corrected June 6, 1812, and a part of Kingston was annexed April 2, 1832.
OLIVE was formed April 15, 1823. A part was an- nexed to Woodstock, and a part was taken off from Wood- stock in 1853.
ROSENDALE was formed April 26, 1844, from Marble- town, New Paltz, and IInrley.
LLOYD was formed from New Paltz, April 15, 1845.
DENNING was formed from Shandaken, March 6, 1849. A part of Ilardenborgh was taken off in 1850.
GARDINER was formed April 2, 1853, from Rochester, New Paltz, and Shawangonk.
HARDENBURGH was formed from Denning and Shan- daken, April 15, 1859.
ULSTER was formed from the town of Kingston in 1879. THE CITY OF KINGSTON Was incorporated 1872.
CHAPTER III.
TOPOGRAPHY. I .- MOUNTAINS.
SITUATE in the direct line of the great Appalachian Mountain cham, the surface of the county of Ulster is cx- tremely diversified. The reader will bear in mind that on the Atlantic Slope of the North American continent there are two great mountain systems, the Laurentian at the north, and the Appalachian at the south.
THE APPALACHIANS.
The mountains of Ulster County all belong to the great Appalachian system. The Appalachian Mountain system, which forms the back-bone of the Atlantic Slope of the continent, extends from Nova Scotia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the north in a southwesterly direction to the Gulf of Mexico on the south. The highest ranges of the Appalachian system in the United States are the White Mountains, in New Hampshire, rising to the height of six thousand two hnudred and eighty feet in Mount Wash- ington, and the Black Mountains in North Carolina, the highest peak of which is six thousand seven hundred and reven feet high, being the highest land east of the Missis- Hippi. The highest range of the Appalachian in the State
of New York is the Catskills, reaching an altitude of four thousand and fifty feet in Monut Hunter. The highest land in the State is the summit of Mount Marcy, the Indian Ta.hu-was of the Adirondacks, which is five thousand four hundred and two feet above tide-water. From springs on this dizzy height of old Ta-ha-was rise the head-waters of the Indson, which, in their course to the sea, wash for many a mile the castern border of Ulster County.
THE ADIRONDACKS.
Bat at one point only do the mountain ranges of the Laurentian system cross the St. Lawrence. That point is at the Thousand Islands. After crossing the St. Lawrence, and, in erossing it, forming the Thousand Islands, the Laurentides spread easterly to Lake Champlain, southerly to the Valley of the Mohawk, westerly to the Black River, and rise centrally into the great plateau of the Adirondack wilderness, with its thousand gleaming lakes and thousand monutain peaks.
There are five separate ranges of the Adirondacks,-the Palmertown, the Kayadrossera, the Scarron (Schroon), the Boquet, and the Adirondack range proper. The most easterly-the Palmnertown-range fills up the northern part of Washington County with its mountain masses, and, crossing the Hudson above Glen Falls, extends sontheriy, and ends at the upper part of the village of Saratoga Springs. The Adirondack ranges need not be described here .*
MOUNTAINS OF ULSTER COUNTY.
Ulster County is distinguished for the variety and grand- cur of its mountain scenery. Prominent among the moun- tain ranges of the State of New York stand the CATSKILLS, or " high Cats," mountains, as they were sometimes called by the old chroniclers. While the main range of the Cats- kills lies in the southern part of Greene County, yet the northwestern part of Ulster is filled with their rugged and broken meuntain masses. The Catskill ranges in their gen- eral contour differ considerably from the usual north-and- south trend of the ranges of the Appalachian system. Op- posite the village of Catskill, in Greene County, the Cats- kills range in a north-and-south direction, parallel with the Hudson, for the distance of about twelve miles only. From the north end of this range, which is about eight miles west of the river, a spur extends northwesterly in the gen- cral direction of the Helderbergs. From the south end of this range another spur extends southwesterly through the northern towns of Ulster County. The Catskills, like the Adirondacks, have a decided Alpine character, distinguished by many peaks considerably elevated above the general summits. The Catskills rise from three thousand to three thousand eight hundred feet above tide-water in the HIud- son at their base. These summits are broad, wild, and rocky, and their declivities often precipitons. In some places the ravines of the mountain streams are bordered by naked cliffs nearly perpendienlar, and rising to the dizzy heights of from one thousand to one thousand seven hun- dred feet above streams. These passes are locally known
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