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History of Orange County
Town of Newburgh
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EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN OF NEWBURGH.
From the evidence we have, the earliest settlement was on the German Patent, and on the present site of the Village of Newburgh. The first persons we trace there, were the nine Palatines, to whom the Patent was granted. The patent is dated in 1719, but the probabilities are, these individuals were there before that date. Its appears from the introductory part of the renewed Patent of which a copy is found in our paper—that while Lord Lovelace was Governor of the Province, he had promised a grant to nine Palatines of a tract of land above the Highlands, in pursuance of an instruction from Queen Anne, or letter from her Secretary of State. As they had the promise of Lovelace, Governor at the time, the fair presumption is, they were here at the date of the profuse. Lord Lovelace, it is true, lived but a short time in command of the province, (from December till the succeeding May,) after his arrival; yet this was in the year 1708. After his death the Government devolved upon Richard Ingoldsby, the Lieut. Governor, and it was not till 1710 that Governor Hunter, mentioned in the charter as having done nothing about it, arrived in the province. He left in 1719, and the command of the province devolved on Col. Peter Schuyler, who, as President of the Council, caused the patent to be issued. From this we conclude the Palatines were here as early at least as 1708, and that the true date of settlement was about this time. The names of these nine Palatines were George Lockstead, Michael Weigand, Herman Shoreman, Christian Henreiche, Cockertal, Burgher Mynders, Jacob Webber, Johannes Fisher, and Andreas VaIch. These men are called Palatines in the patent, and we think they came from the Palatinate of Newburgh in Germany. This presumption is strengthened by the fact, that they called the pace of the settlement Newburgh. It was very natural and common to call the place of settlement after a place of the same name where they came from in Europe. There are several places in Germany called Newburgh; one in the Palatinate of Newburgh on the Danube, which is said to have been a fortified town in the time of Julius Caesar. There is another on the East bank of the Rhine in Swabia, from which some are of opinion they came.— There is no certainty about it, and we incline to the opinion above expressed. At the time they came, and at the date of the Patent in 1719, the site of Newburgh, and indeed all the land covered by he Patent, was called Quassaick, from a tribe of Indians of that name, then residing there. What is now called Chambers’ Creek was then called Quassaick Creek.
There is no certainty how long the Palatines remained on the Patent - but they had sold out their grant, and departed in 1752, the date of the Patent renewed by Gov. Clinton.— They left between 1708 and 1752. While here, they made a settlement; designated a site of a village; called it Newburgh, and laid out, as we have always understood, but two streets only; one at the North, called South street, which runs up the Academy hill South of the Glebe; and the other at the South of time village, extending to the New Mills the West bounds of the Patent, and now occupied by the Newburgh and Cochecton Turnpike Road. These streets show the good sense and sagacity of those early settlers, for they anticipated the growth of a, large and busy city, and laid out their streets on a magnificent plan, eight rods or 132 feet wide.