USA > New York > Ulster County > The history of Ulster County, New York > Part 7
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In September, 1669, after making personal inspection of affairs at Esopus, Governor Lovelace, the successor of Governor Nicolls, directed the dismissal of the garrison at Rondout, and the granting to the dis- banded soldiers of lands on which to establish homes, and appointed a commission, consisting of Ralph Whitfield as President, and Captain John Manning, Captain Jaques Cortelyou, Captain Thomas Chambers,
* Schoonmaker was a native of Hamburg, Germany. He came to this country in the military service of the West India Company, about 1654, and was stationed at Esopus with his company 'in 1660, and settled there on the expiration of his term of enlistment. He died about 1681. His descendants are still numerous in Ulster County, and are widely scattered over the country.
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William Beeckman, Schout, Henry Pawling, and Christopher Berrisford, to regulate affairs at Wildwijk, and Nieuw Dorp. The action of this commission has been stated in part in connection with the change in the name of Wildwijk to Kingston, and of Nieuw Dorp to Hurley, and the organization of the new town of Marbletown. In addition, the commis- sion abrogated the laws and customs of Holland, and proclaimed the "Duke's Laws" which had been promulgated at Hempstead, L. I., March I, 1665, by Governor Nicolls. In general terms this code was very good, and remained, with some amendments, as the laws of the Province of New York until the rebellion of 1776, and the adoption of the State Constitution of 1777. As the code required the placing of towns under the care of commissioners, Christopher Beresford was appointed Chief Magistrate of Hurley and Marbletown; Henry Pawling officer over the Indians; Louis du Bois and Albert Heymans, overseers of Hurley ; John Biggs and Frederick Hussey, overseers of Marbletown, and Thomas Chambers and William Beeckman overseers for Kingston. Justices of the Peace appointed by the Governor and continuing during his pleasure, and constables to execute public whippings, apprehend thieves and drunken men, vagrants, Sabbath breakers, and other offenders, make up assessment rolls for confirmation by the overseers, and do a great many other things for the promotion of good order and good government were introduced and continued after the inchoate towns had been organ- ized under trustees. Beresford, who was appointed Chief Magistrate of Hurley and Marbletown, was ranked by the commissioners as "above a High Constable and short of a Justice of the Peace."
The proceedings of the commissioners as stated of record are of no little interest to students of the civil history of the county. Order was brought out of the chaos which had grown out of the conditions under which the settlements had been laboring; a military system established; provision made for the opening and repair of roads, and English laws and customs introduced though not fully proclaimed until 1673. The Chief Magistrates were required to give speedy decision in all cases coming before them, "not regarding parties but ye merritt of ye cause"; to see that the overseers of the towns performed their duties; to preserve the peace as much as possible between individuals; to remove all obstruc- tions from trade or correspondence with the Indians, and permission given to freely debate anything that might conduce to the advantage of
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the public. The towns were given up to the newly constituted authorities April 11th, 1669.
Under "An Act to divide this Province into Shires and Countyes," passed by the Governor and his Council, November 1, 1683, the County of Ulster came into being in the terms of the act described, "the County of Ulster to contayn the towns of Kingston, Hurley and Marbletowne, Fox Hall and the New Paltz, and all the villages, neighborhoods, and Christian habitacions on the west side of Hudson's River from the Murderers Creeke neare the high lands to the Sawyers Creeke." There may have been at that date (1683) settlements and habitations north of New Paltz and west of Marbletown, but further than is shown in the list of patents they are not of record. South of the south line of the New Paltz patent the only one known of about that time was that of Captain Patrick MacGregorie at the mouth of Murderers' Creek. Substantially the district was Ghittatawagh, the Great Wilderness.
The prior organization of the towns included in the county is suf- ficiently stated in the list of patents in a previous chapter. In 1684-5, as has been stated, Governor Dongan purchased from the Indians the lands lying south of the line of the New Paltz Patent, including the lands of the Murderers' Creek Indians and as far south as Haverstraw. In 1694 the entire district was covered by patent granted by Governor Love- lace to Captain John Evans. In 1698 the Assembly abrogated this grant, but as the act required the approval of the Queen, which was not given until 1709, the district was not opened for settlement at an earlier date. On the approval of the act by the Queen came into being the settlement at the mouth of Quassaick Creek, a few miles north of the mouth of Murderers' Creek, the south bound of the county, by a company of immi- grants from the Palatinate of the Rhine, and the establishment by order of the Court, of the Precinct of the Highlands, with territory extending from Murderers' Creek to the New Paltz line at Juffrouw's Hook on the Hudson, and west to the Shawangunk range of hills, a dependency of New Paltz to which it was attached for government. About the same time, and by similar order the Precinct of Shawangunk was created and attached to New Paltz. From the Precinct of the Highlands was evolved the precincts of New Windsor, Newburgh, Marlborough, Hanover and Wallkill now including the towns and cities of Newburgh, New Windsor, Crawford, Wallkill, Middletown, Marlborough and Plattekill, the two last
Jacob Rice.
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named now in the county of Ulster, the others now in Orange, the whole forming a group of settlements that gave honor in the sons to Ulster County for nearly a century, and whose connection with the parent stem in the colonial and revolutionary eras cannot be eliminated by boundary lines or passing notice. As well eliminate the name of Washington of Virginia from the history of the nation, as that of George Clinton of New Windsor from the history of Ulster County.
The act of the Legislature passed April 3d, 1801, gave the bounds of the county as south by the north bounds of the county of Orange, easterly by the middle of Hudson's River, west by the Delaware River at the most southerly corner of lot number twenty-eight in the sub-division of great lot number two in the Hardenbergh patent; north, sixty-two degrees east, to the southwesterly bounds of great lot number eight in said patent, east to the north end of Schoon Lake (now in the town of Wood- stock), continuing east along the northwest line of the town of Kingston to Hudson's River; thence due east to the middle of said river, the land limit now forming the northeast corner of the town of Saugerties. The south line of the county has not been changed since 1798. The line - the north line of Orange County-was very irregular from its bounds on the north by the lines of certain patents. Very few know precisely its point of beginning on Hudson's River, and fewer still could possibly trace it its entire length. The description of it in the act reads: "From a point in the middle of Hudson's River, opposite the northeast corner of a tract of land granted to Francis Harrison and Company (now the north- east corner of the town of Newburgh) ; thence westerly along the north bounds of said tract and the north bounds of another tract granted to the said Francis Harrison to the tract of land commonly called Wallace's tract, then along the same northerly and westerly to the northeasterly bounds of a tract of land granted to Jacobus Kip, John Cruger and others, then westerly along the northeasterly and northerly bounds there- of to the northwest corner thereof, and then westerly to the northeast corner of a tract granted to Rip van Dam and others, thence southerly along the same to the northeast corner of a tract granted to Henry Wileman, thence along the north bounds thereof to Paltz River, then southerly up the said river to the southeast corner of a tract granted to Gerardus Beekman and others, then westerly and northerly along the southerly and westerly bounds thereof to the northeast corner thereof,
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then northwesterly and westerly along the north bounds of the land granted to Jeremiah Schuyler and Company to the Shawangunk Kill, thence southerly along said Kill to the north part of the farm now or late in the occupation of Joseph Wood, junior, thence west to the river Mongaap." Though now not easily traced, there is a volume of local history along that old boundary line. By the erection of Sullivan County in 1809, the Mongaap River is now the boundary between Sulli- van and Orange counties. It has a beautiful Dutch name, primarily the name of the mouth of the stream.
The act of 1801, defining the bounds of the county also defined the limits of the several towns which were included in those bounds, viz: Marlborough, Plattekill, Shawangunk, Kingston, Marbletown, New Paltz, Woodstock, Mamakating, Neversink, Lumberland and Rochester. From the original county (1798) had then been taken part of Orange County, part of Delaware County (1797), and the towns of Mamakating, Neversink and Lumberland went off into Sullivan County, November 27, 1809. As now constituted the county is divided in the town and city of Kingston, the towns of Denning, Esopus, Gardiner, Hardenbergh, Hurley, Lloyd, Marbletown, Marlborough, New Paltz, Olive, Plattekill, Rochester, Rosendale, Saugerties, Shandaken, Shawangunk, Wawarsing, and Woodstock-18.
By the general law of 1683, the judicial arrangement of 1669, was changed by the organization of four distinct Courts, viz: Town Courts for the trial of small causes, to be held each month; County Courts, or Courts of Sessions, to be held at certain times, quarterly or half yearly ; Courts of Oyer and Terminer, with original and appellate jurisdiction, to sit twice in every year in each county, and a Court of Chancery, to be the "Supreme Court of the Province," composed of the Governor and Council, with power in the Governor to depute a Chancellor in his stead, and appoint clerks and other officers. The Court of Oyer and Terminer replaced more particularly the Court of Assizes as known under Dutch laws. This system continued until 1691, when courts of Justices of the Peace were organized in every town, and one of Common Pleas in every county. Of the first Court of Common Pleas of Ulster County, Thomas Garton was appointed Judge, February 27, 1692. He seems to have been a resident of Marbletown, as he was one of the signers of the petition for
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a patent for that town in 1703. Of early date (1677) John Garton of Marbletown, asked permission to build a house on his lot there.
Some changes necessarily followed in the classification of the duties of Sheriffs and of Constables. Every county had its High Sheriff and every town its High Constable. A recapitulation of those changes is not necessary. The first Sheriff of record after the organization of the county was William Ashfordby, who, like Judge Garton, appears in the record of patents. In the matter of granting probates of wills, the law of Nov. II, 1692, directed that all probates and letters of administration should thenceforth be granted by the Governor or his delegate, and that two freeholders should be elected or appointed in each town to have charge of the estates of intestates, which duty had been performed by the Con- stables, Overseers, and Justices. All wills relating to estates in New York, Orange, Richmond, Westchester, and Kings, were to be proved in New York; in more remote counties, the Court of Common Pleas was author- ized to take the proof and transmit the papers to the record office for probate. Subsequently, under the law of 1750, Surrogates with limited powers were appointed. Of Surrogates the first appointee of record was John Elting, of the early New Paltz stock of Eltings, March 14th, 1760.
In 1701, the General Assembly, by act of October 18, provided that the Justices of the Peace of the several counties, "or any five or more of them, two to be a quorum," should, once in each year, at a court of general or special sessions, "supervise, examine and allow the public and necessary charge of their respective county, and of every town thereof," including the "allowance made by law to their representative or representatives," i. e., in the General Assembly who drew their pay from the counties. For the assessment and collection of the accounts allowed by them they were "empowered to issue their warrant to the several towns for the election of two assessors and one collector in each town." The act further provided that the "Justices at the representative general sessions," should, "once in the year, make provision for main- tenance and support of the poor" in their several towns or precincts.
This law continued in force until June, 1703, when it was enacted , that there should be "elected and chosen, once every year, in each town, by the freeholders and inhabitants thereof, one of their freeholders and inhabitants to compute, ascertain, examine, oversee and allow the con- tingent public and necessary charge of each county, and that each and
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every inhabitant, being a freeholder in any manor, liberty, jurisdiction, precinct, and out-plantation" should "have liberty to join his or her vote with the next adjacent town in the county, where such inhabitants shall dwell, for the choice of a supervisor." The law further authorized the election in each town or precinct of "two assessors and one collector." In general terms, the law constituted what is now, with some modifications, the present Board of Supervisors. It was a more democratic law than that which now prevails, in this, that it provided for minority representation, and gave to females the right to vote as the representatives of property. The noble old principle of "no taxation without representation" was firmly intrenched in the hearts of the Dutch.
Representation in the General Assembly did not come to the county under its organization in 1683. The Duke of York, bound hand and foot to the prerogatives of royalty, would only permit a council of advisors to the person whom he should appoint as Deputy Governor. His determina- tion was not satisfactory. In 1669, the taxation of the people was decreed to pay the expense of repairing the palisades of Fort James (Fort Am- sterdam) at New York. Several towns on Long Island refused to respond, substantially because under the British Constitution no taxes could be levied on them except by their own Representatives. The tem- porary reoccupancy of the Province by the Dutch, in 1673, carried the question over to 1680, when several merchants in New York refused to pay customs duties. The collector of the port of New York was arrested for detaining goods on which duties had not been paid, and sent over to England for trial. Coming directly under the eyes of the Duke of York, he sent Colonel Thomas Dongan over as Deputy Governor with instructions to convene a General Assembly, in which Esopus was given two representatives. The Assembly met at Fort James, New York, Octo- ber 17, 1683. The accession of the Duke of York to the throne of his brother James, led him to reconsider the proposition for a General Assembly, and in its stead to authorize the Deputy Governor, with the advice and consent of his council, to enact such laws as he deemed best, and to forward them to England. This arbitrary form of government continued until June 9, 1689, when Captain Jacob Leisler seized the Fort in the name of William and Mary, and, as acting governor, directed the election of Members of Assembly. This assembly held two sessions. Governor Sloughter came over in 1691, drove Leisler out and hung him.
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The representative Assembly which had been proposed by Governor Dongan was brought together. In that Assembly, the first representative Assembly in the Province, April 9th, 1691, Ulster and Duchess, the latter then being attached to Ulster, was represented by Henry Beekman, Wil- liam de Mire, and Thomas Garton, whose names as settlers in Ulster have already been met. The issue, "No taxation without representation," was carried forward for a hundred years, and became, at the opening of the Revolution, the "Battle Cry of Freedom." What connection the peo- ple of Ulster County had with the issue which had been raised cannot be stated; what connection they had with its final determination is not uncertain. Baptized with the best blood of pioneers and sons of liberty, they stand before us to-day not wholly demoralized by the conditions by which they are surrounded.
The organization of the village of Wildwijk, under the patent given to it by Director Stuyvesant, May 16th, 1661, providing, among other things, for the holding there once in every two weeks of a Court of Justice, the jurisdiction of which extended over "all the inhabitants of Esopus," gave it, substantially, the rank of the county seat, a relation which has not been taken from it. The holding of the court and the detention of prisoners implies a place for the holding of the court and a place for the detention of prisoners. Where the latter was is not clear; the former was pretty certainly the building called "the Dominie's house and lot," assigned to lot No. 4 in the first allotment. In the instructions issued to the Commis- sioners appointed by Governor Lovelace, September 11th, 1669, "that they take some order for ye reparation of ye house next to Mr. Beek- man's, called ye Dominie's or ye State House," reference was made to this building. It had been erected by Director Stuyvesant, and final bills rendered in 1662; was apparently a stone structure of two stories with a tile roof, a description inferable from the bills rendered * and from the reply to the Commissioners that they "would retile the house when wanted," and particularly from their reference to its location under the Governor's instruction "to impale the place for Burryal, as likewise the place for a Towne-House," which the Commissioners "conceived to be
* The building was erected under an ordinance of Director S'uyvesant, and its cost paid by a land tax on the town. Its cost was 3,007.8 florins, or something over twelve hundred dollars of our present standard. The bills included 5,000 brick, tiles, lime, boards, wainscoting, slating, iron, hinges, locks, and nails, and wages of carpenters, masons, and hod-carriers. It was a sub- stantial and for its times a very fine building. It was literally the Town-House, paid for by the town.
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a mistake," as they had a Town-House already standing conveniently within the town," i. e. within the palisade; that it was "absolutely nec- essary" that it should be kept in good repair from its frequent use "both for religious duties and civil affairs," and that they would proceed with the work as "soon as pan-tiles and other materials" could be procured. In stating a fact in regard to the house, they seem to have misunderstood the Governor's instructions in the matter of "impaleing" the burial ground and the place reserved for a town-house, which obviously referred to lots 21 and 23 of the second allotment which had not been palisaded or "paled" as had been ordered by Director Stuyvesant.
Possibly a jail was built soon after the house was repaired. The only trace that we have of it is in an act of the General Assembly of 1715 requiring the Justices of the County to repair "the County-House and Prison in the said county of Ulster now being." In 1732, the Assembly authorized "the Justices of the Peace of the county of Ulster" to build "a Court House and Prison and to sell the old one. The new building on a new site was repaired in 1745, 1750, 1765, 1773 and 1775, and in 1777 it was burned by the invading army of England under Vaughan and Wallace, and soon after a lottery was granted to provide two thousand pounds for rebuilding on the site occupied by the structure of 1732. It is said that the building of 1782, was "set back in the lot about the same dis- tance of the present one," and that in front of it "were the public stocks and whipping post," the latter especially an ancient method, for the pun- ishment of minor offenses, in those times very often employed for the whipping of slaves, and in a few instances for the whipping of white men as well as women. Primarily the constable was the whipping master. The old court house was the scene of many famous trials and rang with many eloquent appeals in the early days of the Revolution; the old jail was crowded with political prisoners-King's men-"Tories," as they were called. It was a cold bleak prison, the annals of which await the pen of an ABBOT. Compared with the "Old Sugar-House," New York, in which the British confined their prisoners, the latter was a palace. The existing Court House, a spacious and handsome edifice, of fine Co- lonial design, was erected upon the site of the ancient building in 1818, and was greatly enlarged in 1898. In addition to the Court and Jury rooms, the building contains the chambers of the resident Justice of the Supreme Court, those of the County Judge, the offices of the District
WY Ender NY
David Kennedy MD,
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CIVIL ORGANIZATIONS AND DIVISIONS.
Attorney, the County Treasurer, the Sheriff, Clerk of the Board of Su- pervisors, and the Supervisors' assembly room. Its walls are adorned with the portraits of those Justices of the Supreme Court who have been residents of the County and with the portraits of the County Judges from an early period. A unique and remarkable feature of the Court House is the cornice of its northern façade which is classical in design, of carved wood, and is regarded as the finest cornice of any public build- ing in America. It frequently has been copied by architects who have in part reproduced it in public buildings, in different parts of the Union.
At the time of the enlargement of the Court House in 1898, the County erected a large and thoroughly modern jail which has served as a model. for similar structures in various counties in the State.
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CHAPTER VI.
COLONIAL MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS.
T HE military organizations of the county had their beginning in the appointment by Director Stuyvesant (April 23d, 1660) of Thomas Chambers as Captain of the inchoate militia - the Trainband of Wildwijk and Esopus; Hendrick Jochem Schoonmaker, Lieutenant, and Roelof Swartwout, Hendrick Jansen, Cornelius Barent- sen Slecht, and Peter Jacobsen, minor officers. As noted in another con- nection, Schoonmaker had had some previous military training. In official signatures his name is written Hendrick Jochemsen. The officers named evidently understood their responsibilities, but seem to have aroused some opposition from the wording of the Ordinance which they adopted January 2d, 1663, posted it on the door of the Town House in Wildwijk, and had the mortification of seeing it torn down by order of the Court at Wildwijk because therein was not acknowledged the au- thority of the Magistrates. The authority of the Court must be respected even in those primitive times. The real "hitch," however, seems to have . been that any one appearing on parade with borrowed fire-arms should forfeit the same and also be liable to a fine of twelve guilders. The Ordinance recited several facts that are of interest aside from its general purpose. It reads :
"I. Whoever appears for training at the appointed place of gathering without proper side and handarms, powder and lead, shall be fined and pay the first time twelve guilders, the second time double that sum, and the third time he shall be punished according to the judgment of the court-martial. Everybody must be pro- vided with at least ten charges of powder, and lead, in the cartridge box besides his full side and handarms.
"2. Whoever does not appear unless excused, or comes too late, shall pay a fine of two guilders; who remains away from contumacy or willfullness without suffici- ent excuse, shall be fined and corrected arbitrarily by the court-martial in addition to the above fine of two guilders.
"3. Sergeants, corporals and lancepesades (privates), who are too late or remain away, shall pay a double fine.
"4. In case of alarm of fire the members of the Captain's squad shall assemble at the place near Barent Gerritsen, the brandy distiller; the members of the Lieu- tenant's squad near the wheelwright's Albert Gysbertson; the third squad under Pieter Jacobsen Molenear at Hendrick Jochemsen's under a penalty of five and twenty guilders.
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