The history of Orange County, New York, Part 39

Author: Headley, Russel, b. 1852, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., Van Deusen and Elms
Number of Pages: 1342

USA > New York > Orange County > The history of Orange County, New York > Part 39

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(Scal.)

Trustees.

F. C. CARY, Clerk of the Corporation.

To which the mayor replied officially as follows:

BOROUGH OF WARWICK, TO-WIT :

At a meeting of the mayor, aldermen and councilors of the said borough in Coun- cil assembled, on the 13th day of July. 1906,

It was resolved: That the congratulatory address from the corporation of the village of Warwick, in the State of New York, United States of America, pre- sented to the mayor on the occasion of the recent Historical Pageant, be entered on the minutes of the Council, and that a cordial vote of thanks for their sym- pathetic greetings be accorded to the sister municipality with an earnest hope for its continued prosperity.

And that a copy of the resolution be sealed and transmitted to the president of the corporation.

THOMAS KEMP, Mayor,

BRABAZON CAMPBELL, Town Clerk ( Scal. )

During the present year ( 1907) the village has been the recipient of a fine town clock, presented by Mr. Pierson E. Sanford. The clock is sta- tioned in the tower of the Methodist church on Main street.

It a special election held this year the sum of $4.200 was voted to

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THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

purchase the building and lots formerly owned by John A. Dator and others, on Main street and Wheeler avenue. It is the purpose of the trustees to change the building, and adapt it for village purposes, such as a village hall, office for records, maps and files, and the rooms of Good- will Hook and Ladder Company.

New Milford.

The hamlet of New Milford lies southwest of Warwick, and forms a part of the boundary line between New York and New Jersey. It was formerly called Jockey Hollow. It comprises an area of a little more than 2,000 acres of the most fertile and well watered land in Warwick Valley. When the Wawayanda patent was deeded by the Indians to twelve white men in 1702, the twelfth part deed to Cornelius Christiance included what is now known as New Milford. Cornelius Christiance sold his share to Derrick Vanderburgh in 1704, and the latter sold to Everett & Glows, land speculators, in 1714, for a little more than $500. In 1724, the land was purchased by Thomas DeKay and Benjamin Aske. Settlers now began to come and they were quick to take advantage of the superior water facilities. The land was intersected by Wawayanda Creek, and flowing into this stream were four rushing mountain streams, all capable of furnishing fine water power, the largest of which was the Doublekill, so named because it is the outlet of Double Pond, or Wawayanda Lake. But not until about the year 1770 were any inills operated, excepting a saw mill and the forge on Wawayanda Creek on the farm recently owned by the Edward L. Davis heirs. During the year 1780, we find among the settlers the DeKays, the Davises, the Demarests, the Lazears, and Wood. The first excise money was paid into the treasury from the New Milford tavern in 1790 by Cornelius Lazear. A grist mill was built that year on the west side of the Doublekill, on the farm known as the Kiernan farm. and much further up the stream than the present mill. This mill was operated many years.

In 1802 John Lazear built a grist mill on the site of the present mill. In connection with the mill he had a factory for manufacturing axe and shovel handles. Between the years 1805 and 1825 New Milford was an exceedingly busy place. The original and only town at the time was where the post-office is at present.

There were six mills on the Doublekill, and four on the stream covered

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TOWN OF WARWICK.

by the arch bridge, near the post-office, known as Green Mine Brook. On the Doublekill there were the grist will, or axe handle factory, and tan- nery owned by S. W. Clason, now owned by E. M. Bahrmann; further down the stream a feed mill, a saw mill and a fulling or wool-carding mill. Then on the Green Mine stream there were a clover seed mill, plas- ter mill, cider mill with distillery, and about where William T. Van ler- vort's barn is located there was a large saw mill run by David Demarest. A very good schoolhouse was situated just west of the present Methodist church. A post-office was established in 1815-the first postmaster was Merritt Coleman. The turnpike running between New York and Port Jer- vis left the main road near the present home of Darius Fancher, crossed the E. L. Davis farm, continued northward over a bridge which was east of the present site of Borden's creamery, and up the hill to the road which now passes west of the house known as Peachblow. This was the main road to the northwest. Mr. E. L. Davis built a fulling and carding mill near the bridge and operated that as well as a saw mill.

Further down on Wawayanda Creek there were a saw mill, cider mill and distillery owned by John Ryerson. The "covered bridge" was built about 1830. In 1835, a boarding school for young ladies was opened in the house now occupied by John Lines. The principal, Charles G. Win- field, was a man of profound learning. Here the best people of Warwick and vicinity sent their daughters to be educated. It was a classical school of the highest order. The Methodist church was opened in 1838. In 1861, when there was a call for volunteers, New Milford, with a popu- lation of only 150 persons, responded with twenty-eight men.

With the growth of the dairy business in Orange County, less attention was paid to milling interests. In 1866. a factory for condensing milk was built where the Kiernan fulling and carding mill stood. This was aban- doned after the railroad was built in 1879. In 1898 a fire swept away the business portion of New Milford, and it has not been entirely rebuilt.

At present the town is regaining some of the business prosperity it enjoyed one hundred years ago. There are two grist mills and a saw mill, and one of the largest creameries for bottling and condensing milk in the county. owned by Borden's Milk Company, where 4.500 gallons of milk are received and shipped daily. There are several old cemeteries scattered throughout New Milford, where one may read the names of those who lived when the "years were young."

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THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

Pine Island.

Pine Island is a village lying two miles northwest of Amity at the ter- minus of the Goshen and Deckertown railroad, leased by the Erie. It has a public school, a hotel, a store and post-office.

Greenwood Lake and Sterling.

The Cheesecock's patent, confirmed by letters patent of Queen Anne, which embraced this district, was granted March 25, 1707, by Manngo- mack and other Indians, whose names are unpronounceable, and who signed by their marks, representatives of the sub-tribes of the Minsis, whose totem was the wolf, a branch of the Lenni-Lenapes, whose totem was the turkey, a branch of the great Algonkin or Algonquin tribe, or nation, which held sway over them.

This deed was dated December 30, 1702, and recorded in the Orange County clerk's office, June 1, 1736. The original patent, bearing Queen Anne's seal, is in the possession of the Sterling Iron and Railway Com- pany. Sterling and Greenwood Lake are now embraced in the sixth elec- tion district of the town of Warwick.

Charles Clinton surveyed this patent for the owners in common, be- ginning April 1, 1735, and ending December 13, 1749. He mentions in his field book, as early as 1745, that iron works were in operation at Sterling, but to what extent is not stated. The old furnace at Sterling, now in ruins, is said to have been built in 1751, and from it was drawn the iron from which the great chain was made to cross the Hudson River in Revolutionary days from West Point to Constitution Island. This chain was built by Abel Noble & Co., Peter Townsend signing the contract for said firm for its construction February 2, 1778, to be finished by April I, 1778. This chain was drawn across the river April 30, 1778. A bronze tablet commemorating the building of Sterling furnace was unveiled at the foot of the furnace on June 23. 1906. Iron mining is still in active operation, a shaft extending diagonally under Sterling Lake a distance of over 2,000 feet, but the ore is all shipped to other furnaces. The iron industry created a need for charcoal, and from Revolutionary times until about 1865 cutting wood and burning charcoal was an industry extending all over this section, and through the mountains of Greenwood Lake and Sterling is a network of wood roads and many foundations where for-

Frank Il Campbell

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TOWN OF WARWICK.

merly stood the dwellings of collieries. Sterling Mountain rises about 600 feet above the surface of Greenwood Lake, which is about nine miles long and 700 feet elevation above sea level.

The map of this section made by Robert Erskine for General Wash- ington gives it the name of Long Pond. About midway on the west side and about 300 feet from the shore of Greenwood Lake stands an old furnace on the furnace brook, which was built about seventy-five years ago by William Noble of Bellvale. The furnace was a failure from the start, as the stream of water furnished insufficient power for the blast. About 1845 Wanaque Creek. at the outlet of Greenwood Lake, was crossed by a dam, which raised the lake about eight feet, resulting in the overflow of about a mile of low land at both the north and south ends of the lake, forming a reservoir for the use of the Morris and Essex Canal, nine miles long and a mile wide. The New York and Greenwood Lake railroad reached here in 1876. The terminal station at the line be- tween New York and New Jersey on the east shore, called then "State Line" (now Sterling Forest ), was accessible by boats only, there being no public road until 1889, when one was built by the town of Warwick, the contract being taken by Conrad Diehl of Goshen. The steamboat Mont- clair, capable of carrying 400 passengers or more, was built and launched in 1876, to accommodate travelers from the railroad. Smaller boats had been previously built, first the Pioneer, a sail boat, then the Sylph. then the Montclair, and later the Anita, and at present several -mall steamers and naphtha launches without number are in use.

Prior to the completion of the railroad visitors reached here by stage from Monks on the south or from Monroe on the north. Religious ser- vices were held in a log schoolhouse one mile north of Greenwood Lake prior to 1850, when under the pastorate of Rev. J. H. Hauxhurst, the first Methodist church of Greenwood Lake was built, where services were regularly held until 1898, when the settlement concentrating about two miles farther south, it was deemed expedient to build a new Methodist Episcopal church on land donated for the purpose by M. P. Wilson, oppo- site the new schoolhouse, which for the same reason was built about two and one-quarter miles south of its former site, and now has an at- tendance of sixty-three pupils. The school at Sterling mines has about the same number of pupils, children of the miner-, religious services being held in the schoolhouse under Methodist supervision.

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THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

The new Methodist Episcopal church of Greenwood Lake was built under the supervision of Pastor Cranston, and now in 1907 Rev. J. H. Calyer is pastor. For fifty-seven years the church has never been without a pastor in charge of regular services.

In about the year 1880 a summer school of Christian philosophy, under the supervision of William O. McDowell, was begun in a fine auditorium erected for the purpose at Warwick Woodlands on the west shore of the lake, and, for the accommodation of visitors, an encampment hotel in connection with the Greenwood Lake Association clubhouse was under the supervision of Lyndon Y. Jenness. Dr. Charles H. Deems, Dr. Lyman Abbott and many other speakers on religious, social and philosophical themes, spoke to the assembled multitudes. This club house for a time was Greenwood Lake's center of interest, but for lack of support finan- cially it was finally adandoned to the uses and amusements of excursion- ists. In 1906 the dilapidated building was demolished.

About 1880 a movement took form to inaugurate a church on what was known as the lime rocks, and under the management of Rev. Mr. Bradford, of Montclair, assisted by local friends, a tent was erected here where services from time to time were held. Now a stone church occu- pying this most picturesque spot is under construction and the supervision of E. G. Lewis, of New York City, representing the Episcopal church.

Civilization's onward march is taking strong form here, and over the old Indian camping grounds, where numberless arrow heads, spear points, stone axes and beautifully ornamented fragments of pottery bear testi- mony to the race that has departed, leaving only here and there a name that claims relationship, stand to-day spacious hotels, towering churches, palatial homes, and the last society formed for their protection is the Pioneer Fire Company of Greenwood Lake, which was formed May 3, 1907.

Little York.

The hamlet of Little York is about a mile east from Pine Island, in the town of Warwick. The first settler, Conrad Luft, came from Russia and settled there in 1886. About five years later Henry Lust, another Russian, came and located. Then followed in 1897 Peter Miller, Conrad Schmick, and August Youngmann. The next year eight more families came from Russia, buying land and building homes. Their industry is

The William Wisner House, Wisner, Erected, 1770.

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TOWN OF WARWICK.

onion raising, for which the black meadow land which they cultivate is admirably adapted. They are Russians, but speak the German language and are Lutherans in religion. They are very industrious and thrifty, and nearly all have their homes and the land all paid for. In 1907 there were twenty-four houses, and one church, the Evangelical Lutheran, of which Rev. Gerhard Rademacher is the rector. There are about 200 in population, 100 communicant members of said church, and thirty-three voters.

A parochial school is maintained in connection with the church and has thirty-nine children in attendance. The church was built in 1898, finished in 1901. and incorporated in 1004. Rev. George Kaestner served the church until 1904. It was under his ministry that the church was begun and completed. He was followed by the present pastor, Rev. Gerhard Rademacher. during whose ministry the parsonage was built and the cemetery of three acres acquired.

Other Russians are expected the present year to come and settle here.

Amity.

Amity is the western portion of the town of Warwick, extending about three miles in radius from the Presbyterian church, the only house of worship in the village.

The church was organized by a committee of the Presbytery of Hudson on September 15, 1809, but the first building had been erected and dedi- cated thirteen years previous, August 1. 1796. The building stands on a lovely eminence 500 feet above sea level and commands a splendid view in every direction.

The two conical mountains, Adam and Eve, some four miles distant, stand to the northeast and are about Soo feet above the level of the sea. These granite mountains are rough and rocky, and are covered with im- penetrable brush and bramble.

The chief occupation of the people is extensive farming. Peach grow- ing, however, became a popular and profitable industry about 1885. and continued for twenty years, during which time all the principal farmers turned their best land into orchards, from which they shipped thousands of baskets of delicious fruit to New York City and other towns, where there was great demand and high prices.

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THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

It was not uncommon for a successful orchardist to realize from $5,000 to $10,000 for his crop in a single season. The land soon became exhausted, however, the San José scale attacked and killed the trees, and the business declined as rapidly as it had sprung up. About the present date (1907) a new find in the land is receiving much attention-limestone 'n unlimited quantity in most of the farms. Prospectors are finding zinc and other valuable minerals, which indicate wealth for those who still possess the soil.

Bellvale.

Bellvale village, known in Colonial times as Wawayanda, is situated on the lower rapids of Longhouse Creek, which here enters the mea lows and flows a mile and one-half to Stone Bridge station, where it enters the Wawayanda, which has its source in Clark's Lake, and then loses its name when merged in the smaller stream. Longhouse Creek has its source in a swamp in New Jersey a short distance east from Wawayanda Lake. It has a large watershed at an elevation above tide water of about 1,100 feet, and in its descent of six or seven miles runs through several fine storage basins and down numerous rapids and falls. For a distance of 500 feet options were taken on some of the storage basins by the Ramapo Water Company during its active days, with a view to conduct- ing the water into the headquarters of the Ramapo River.

This stream is well adapted for the generation of water power for elec- trical or manufacturing purposes, and we learn from colonial history, was utilized by Lawrence Scrauley in 1745 to operate a forge of tilt hammer for a plating and slitting mill. This was the only mill of this kind in the State of New York, and in 1750 was not in operation. Under the Crown we were not allowed to advance the manufacturing stage of iron beyond the pig and bar iron stages. It seems Scrauley took his chances in this secluded portion of the valley to furnish more convenient sizes of iron to meet the wants of the blacksmiths and builders of that day, and thus avoid paying tribute to the manufacturers of the mother country. The ruins of the hearth where the ore was melted, the race- way, and the pit for the wheel that operated the tilt-hammer, are still visible, as well as the mudsill of the foundation of the dam.

During the War of 1812, a Mr. Peck had an establishment upon the stream, near the home of William M. Mann, where he manufactured

CHIEF ENCINES W.F. D.

William C. Eager.

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TOWN OF WARWICK.

bridle-bits, stirrups, buckles and saddle trees for our cavalry. as well as agricultural implements generally.

The old forge site and the lands along the rapids up to the line of the Cheesecock patent were bought by Daniel Burt in 1700, and soon after he built a flouring mill and a saw mill, both of which were washed away by the breaking away of the dam during a very unusually heavy shower of rain. The present flouring mill is situated near the site of the earlier one. A saw mill was built in 1812, by John Bradner and Brower Robinson, and rebuilt by Thomas Burt, who operated it and a turning shop for about twenty years. The dam has been washed away and the mill is in ruins. . A wool carding factory was built by Nathaniel Jones about 1810, and sith- sequently enlarged for the manufacture of broadcloths by Joseph Brooks, but is not now in operation. James, the son of Daniel Burt, about 1812 settled three of his sons at Bellvale in the milling and mercantile busi- ness. They established shops for a blacksmith, carpenter, wagon-maker, cooper, tailor, shoemaker and the manufacture of red earthen pottery. Benjamin Bradner had a tannery before 1812 where the ruins of the old saw mill are situated. The vats were located where is now the old race- way, and the bark was ground in a circular curb upon the flat rock back of the saw mill by rolling a heavy mill-stone over the bark, as at one time apples were reduced to pumice by cider makers.

About 1808 the Bellvale and Monroe turnpike was built to make a shorter route to the markets along the Ramapo for the produce of the farmers of Warwick. It was nine miles long and shortened the distance previously traveled by about one-half.

The road was maintained above fifty years and the charter then sur- rendered to the State, and the road divided into district -- a fund on hand of about $500 was spent in putting the road in order before the charter was surrendered. The stockholders never received any money for their investment. The massive stone bridge over the channel at Bellvale was built in 1832, to take the place of the old wooden one then im-afe for travel. Recently the old bridge site, as well as nearly all the land along the Longhouse Creek for four or five miles, has passed into the hands of one owner, also all the mills and about 3.000 acres of land lying along the stream. The probable development of the water power for electrical purposes and an early completion of the State road from Pine Island to Tuxedo promises a brighter future. Tradition accounts

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THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

for the name of the stream from the long house that stood on its bank near the residence of the late C. R. Cline. The Indians that settled there built their houses end to end and, as their families became more numerous, a long house was built instead of the isolated circular wigwams of many tribes. That there was an Indian settlement at this place is highly prob- able from the nearby streams for fishing, swamp and mountain for hunt- ing, and the fertile prairie-like land for their crops of corn and tobacco. In the part where the land has been cultivated plenty of flint arrow heads and large chips of flint with sharp edges have been found. The flint chips were used by the squaws in cultivating corn and tobacco.

In 1841, in digging a cellar for an addition to the house, the skeleton of an Indian of immense size was found, if the writer mistakes not, in a sitting posture. This may have been only one of a great many buried there and might have been their chief.

Out of a population of only about 330, at the time of the Civil War, forty-two were enrolled from Bellvale and the immediate vicinity. In 1907 the population of the place is estimated at about 300.

Edenville.

Edenville, known in the early annals of local history as Postville, in honor of Colonel Jacobus Post, one of its pioneer settlers, enjoys a pic- turesque location three miles west of Warwick, with which place it is closely connected in its postal facilities and commercial interests.

Doubtless its early progenitors, because of the establishment of this little hamlet within a radius of great agricultural fertility, predicted its growth to be vastly greater than its actual development proved, but as one by one the railroads on either side were established Edenville was left to its primitive means of transportation.

Nearly north of the village of about one hundred inhabitants are located the isolated peaks of Mts. Adam and Eve, interest in the mineral deposits of which has increased with time. In the decades past, speci- mens of granite, syenite, granular quartz, hornblende, arsenical iron, and white limestone were gathered by the seeker of mineralogical specimens. Later the quarrying of granite was undertaken by the Orange County Granite Company and the Empire State Granite Company. The quality of the granite found within the mountain confines is of a high order, but the difficulty of transportation forbids an extensive output.

一二三

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TOWN OF WARWICK.

The oldest home of Postville, known as the "Shingle House," was built in 1734, and remained an object of much interest to visitors of the village until destroyed by fire in the winter of 1907.

This was the home of Col. Jacobus Post and is said to have been a haven for travelers on their early tours across the Netherland country.

The Edenville Methodist Church was organized on September 11th, 1822.

The school district known as Purling Brook district was organized in 1813.

Florida.

Probably no village of our county presents so great a contrast in its local interests of to-day as compared with the early incentives of its development, as does Florida, or Floridus, land of the red flowers, situated six miles south of Goshen, six miles north of Warwick, which points are connected by a recently constructed State road.

In records relating to the early settlement of the village in the latter part of the eighteenth century we find the names of Seward, Armstrong, Wisner, Carr, Poppino, Randall, Thompson and Roe as actively identified with its early interests.

Although in the heart of a prolific agricultural section, recently devel- oped to its full extent, political and scholastic ambition actuated the im- pulses of many of its earlier settlers, still to the steadfast, sterling qualities of those engaged in agricultural pursuits must be attributed its constant development.

During the governorship of George Clinton, 1777-1795. Florida was represented in the Legislature, and was prominent in the Revolutionary struggle. Later, in the political arena, we recall the career of William Il. Seward, elected as state senator in 1831. Governor in 1838, United States Senator in 1849, and appointed Secretary of State in 1861.

Florida to-day shows marked changes in its church history. The Meth- odist Church was established in 1868. As early as 1742 a Presbyterian Church was organized. In 1837 the church edifice was consumed by fire. The present structure was erected in June, 1838. In 1839 a second Pres- byterian Church was founded, but in 1878, the two churches were united. Two flourishing church organizations of the Catholic faith exist. St. Ed- wards and the St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church.

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The history of Orange County, New York, Part 39

Author: Headley, Russel, b. 1852, ed Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., Van Deusen and Elms Number of Pages: 1342

Author: Headley, Russel, b. 1852, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., Van Deusen and Elms
Number of Pages: 1342