General View of the County

Orange County is quite ancient, and among the earliest organized in the State. It is said to have been organized in 1683, by a law of the colony, which we have not been able to find in print, except in the appendix, page 6, of the Revised Laws of 1813. It was one of those formed also by the general act of organization in 1788, and contained the present county of Rockland, and described thereby as follow.:

“To beginne from the limitts or bounds of East and West Jersey on the west side of Hudson’s River, along the said river to the Murderer’s Creek, or bounds of the county of Ulster, and westward into the woods as far as Delaware River." According to this it contained 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. It remained unaltered in boundaries till the acts of 1798, when the county of Rockland was set off from it, and five towns from Ulster added, which made it of its present dimensions. In the records of Albany there is said to be a law passed in April, 1699, directing that courts of Sessions and Pleas be held in Orange that year. This we presume was not carried into operation for several years there-after; for, according to the records in the Clerk’s office in Goshen, which we have examined, the ordinance for keeping courts of Sessions and Pleas was granted on the 8th of March, 1702, at Fort Anne—present, his Excellency, Edward Viscount Cornbury, Wm. Smith, Peter Schuyler, and Sa. Th., Boughton, Esqrs., of Council; and the commissions to hold such courts of Sessions and Pleas was granted and signed April 5, 1703, by Queen Anne. Courts were first held in Goshien in 1727.

EXTRACTS FROM OLD COURT RECORDS—-Page 46 of the first Court Record of Orange County, 8th Sessions of Orange Co., Oct. 29th, 1705, held at Orangetown, Rockland—

"Upon ye presentment of Coonradt Hanson that George Jewel kept a dog which was injurious to many of the neighbors, it was ordered that the said Jewell should hang the said dog.”

This was the first capital punishment on record in the County, and the court, by its decision, seemed to think there was no other way to kill a dog than by choking.

To give some idea of the amount of taxes under Queen Anne, we make an extract from the “memorandum” in the:

“Register kept for Orange County, begun ye 5th day of Aprill, Ano. Dm.

1703 :”

That the Queen’s tax is	£22	10
The 1-2 of the Clerk’s salary	3	10
Toward payment of a book		6 6
Toward furnishing ye County Goal	2	10
pound for cattle	1	10
To be levied in all	£30	6 6

As the X has been the emblem of the Christian religion, it was formerly used in spelling the word Christian, as will seen in the following extract from the deed executed by the Indian owners of the Minisink* Patent, recorded in Records of Deeds in Goshen:-----

“To all Xtian People to whom these presents shall come or may concerns Know yee that wee, Rapingonick, Wawastawaw, Moghopuck, Comelwaw, Nanawitt, Ariwimack, Rumbout, Clauss, Chouckhass, Chingapaw, Oshasquemonus, and Quihspaw, native Indians,” &c.

The Indians made each a different mark. The six white Witnesses also made their marks.

The county was named after the Prince of Orange, who married Mary, and came to the throne of England in 1689 under the title of King William. William and Mary reigne jointly.

It is bounded on the east by the middle of Hudson’s River, north by Ulster, west by Sullivan, southwest by Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and southeast by Rockland; contains 760 square miles, or 486,400 acres, and is situated between

410 8’ N. and 410 38’ N. latitude—10' E. and 43’ W. longitude from the city of New York. By the State census of 1845, the population was 52,227, and sends three member to the State Legislature.

Since we are engaged in enumerating the names of all the places in the County, accompanied with a short note on each we cannot do less than take a general, though brief, survey of its external features, products and early settlement; to attempt more would be inconsistent with the design we have in view, exceed our present knowledge, and trench upon the time was have to spare. Few in the State contain as much rude, elevated and mountain land; no one so large an area of lands overflowed with water, and covered by recent alluvia carried down by rains from the surrounding hills and mountains to the low grounds and vallies. The thousands of acres what are commonly called the Drowned Lands, situate on the borders of the County and New Jersey, on the head waters of the Walkill River, constitute the principal measure of this description of land; they cover tip area of 17,000 acres in this county, and 3,500 in New Jersey. The owners have made great exertions, and large expenditures of money, on several occasions, to reduce the area of water which covered the meadows, and reclaim, if possible, some of the land along their shores, and devote it to agricultural purposes. In these laudable attempts they were at least partially successful; and the portions reclaimed, when thoroughly subdued and dried, on cultivation, yield large and profitable returns for the labor bestowed upon them. Upon lands thus submerged and saturated for centuries, the sun and air must act for a considerable length of time before they can become sufficiently warm and genial to produce abundantly. There are islands in this district which contain the finest quality of limestone, and noticed hereafter.

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Errata read Wawayanda

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