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History of Orange County
Town of Montgomery
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Walkill River.—This stream has its rise in the Drowned Lands in New Jersey, of which it is the natural outlet, runs north through Montgomery, and enters the Hudson near Kingston. In Ulster county it is called the Paltz River, from a place of that name on the borders of Holland and Germany, from whence some of the Huguenots came; who located along this stream at an early period of the settlement of Orange and Ulster. We believe the Huguenots, Dutch and Germans were the first settlers upon the banks of this river throughout its whole course, except in the town of Walkill. The name Walkill is from the Dutch Walle, which means wall, as the side of a house—and kill, brook or stream. The true meaning of the word is, “A stream walled in by high banks.— Though this is not an accurate description of this river yet there is no doubt that the original Dutch settlers called it Walkill, after the name of a stream in the country they came from, of which the term was a good and appropriate description. If it had banks not one foot high it would have been called Walkill, in honor and dear remembrance of their father’s land. In this country a name is no description of the thing or object signified. This idea was not in all time thoughts of our ancestors. They never called any thing by a new name. There is a Wool river between the Meuse and Rhine in Holland.
We have heard of another derivation and explanation of this word Walkill. The Rev. James R. Wilson, D. D., formerly of this county, in some paper published by him, contended, if we recollect right, that it is a corruption of Wolloon’s kill. Some of the Huguenots who came to this country were called Wolloons in Germany, deriving their name from the district of country in which they lived, in time French and Austrian Netherlands, where there was a stream of water by the name of Wolloon’s kill, and settling on time banks of this river they called it, as in duty bound, Wolloon’s kill— home, dear home at the time being uppermost in their thoughts. If there had been no river in Europe of that name, they might have called it after themselves. Here then we have a case of doubt and uncertainty, where the writer is in a perfect fog of bewilderment, and where neither history nor etymology, single or combined, illumines his derivative pathway; and, as intimated in time introductory remarks, the authority and influence of the association are imperatively called upon to clear up the doubt, and fix the true etymological meaning. The whole case seems to be of Dutch origin, and it might be very proper to send the question to a committee of the society skilled in that language, before final action on the point. We have no faith in the suggestion that Walkill is a corruption of Wolloon’s kill. There is no tradition that it was so called, but, on the contrary, it was called Walkill from the earliest settlement.
We are of opinion that the Doctor's zeal for the honor and integrity of the Wolloons, who came at an early period to this and Ulster counties, after being persecuted at home for their Protestant faith, led him to suggest this etymology, without due reflection, and certainly without any historical, traditional or local knowledge to warrant it. Indeed, upon this supposition, from the time it might have been called Wolloon’s kill till we find it called Walkill, there was not sufficient time in which it could have been corrupted so as to change the word as he contends for. On the records of the towns at their first organizations, this stream was called Walkill, which we think conclusive on this point.
Indian Localities.—On the east bank of the Walkill, on the line between the towns of Montgomery and Walkill, and on the farm of Daniel Rogers, deceased, there was an Indian settlement. The land, at this location, and for some distance around, was cleared, and full grown apple trees flourishing when first visited by the white emigrants. Some of the trees were standing twenty-five or thirty years since. The name and history of the tribe are now lost.
On the flat, just above the bridge across the Walkill, near Mr. John Miller’s and below where the old Miller stone house stood, there was another settlement. They were there when Johannes Miller, the first settler, planted his shanty on the hill above them as previously mentioned. Of these there is no tradition worth recording, except that they were friendly, and not many years after the settlement began to leave, and were all gone several years before the war.
On the bank of the kill, and on or in the vicinity of the lands of Henry Crist, there was a small tribe some straggling members of which, Mr. Crist, when a lad, remembered to have seen. They owned the eel dam or wear at the place, as previously stated at the early settlement of the town.
On the farm of Mr. Stuffle Mould, on the main road from Montgomery to Albany, near the residence of Samuel Hunter, Esq., there was a fourth Indian location. This tribe was quite numerous. They broke up and left about the beginning of the old French war, which commenced in 1755, in which the Indians took sides with the English. A tradition of this tribe is, that some short time before they left the settlement, the tribe at Mr. Crist’s moved down and united themselves with this one. A squaw of this tribe, by association with the family of Mr. Mould, had become partially civilized and did not wish to go. She had made herself useful to the family in many ways, and they wished to keep her. To accomplish this, with the consent of Mr. Mould, she hid herself somewhere about the house. The Indians in looking over the members of the tribe missed this squaw, and knowing her intimacy with the family instantly suspected that she did not want to leave, and had secreted herself till the tribe should remove. To obtain her they surrounded the house for several nights in succession, made all kinds of hideous noise, demanding the absent squaw. At last Mr. Mould concluded that if she was not produced and given up, the Indians, as they were about to leave, would as soon break friendship for cause as not, and in the excitement of the moment might murder the family, he produced her, and this tribe left never to return.