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History of Orange County
Town of New Windsor
Page 2
We have made diligent enquiry and have learned, that the snakes which frequented this locality, were the Pilot and long thin black snake. The latter is of a harmless character, but the former is very venomous, and its bite deadly, as that urn of the Rattle Snake, and is sometimes called the bastard Rattle Snake. This snake prevailed from the Dans Kamer to Butter Hill, and is still found on farms within that distance. The Rattle Snake infests the hills and mountains on the east side of the river, as if these two most venomous reptiles could not share the same dominion. Independent of the tradition, we should be slow to believe the truthfulness of the name. The hill is granite and very slightly stratified-the east part almost perpendicular, the west covered with timber, and we do not see where snakes could burrow and hide them selves during winter. If this hill was lime stone, open and cavernous, as the hills along the river, in the vicinity of Hampton are, our difficulty would be obviated; still the tradition is, that in early times the place was notorious for snakes. Though the oldest living inhabitant has seen no more snakes there, than elsewhere, yet we have been told, that an old resident of the last generation was known to kill fifty a day at the proper season, on the farm now owned by Mr. Eli Hasbrouck, lying between Dubois' Mills and the hill. Such facts from creditable men, with good memories, are well calculated to upset all our speculations, and we may as well yield gracefully, to the force of tradition, especially when the lapse of time has erected such a public and durable monument to its truth. We believe it is the disposition and habit of the Pilot, spring and fall, to leave his den and visit the meadows and low grounds in the vicinity, and in this, differs from the Rattle Snake, which generally keeps close in his mountain home, having little inclination to run at large.-- This habit of the Pilot insures his destruction sooner or later, for the incroachments of husbandry, and its train of disturbing and ruthless agents, will either confine him to narrow limits or work his ruin when he wanders abroad. During the Revolution and while head quarters were in Newburgh, a portion of the troops were stationed in the vicinity of the hill. This, with the early settlement of the lands around it, and other facts, have ever made the locality of interest in this part of the county.
The land of this town fronting on the river, is interesting in a geological point of view, as is all the western shore from Butter Hill to the village of Newburgh, and extending back to Snake Hill, which partakes of the same general physical character. In some places the banks are from 100 to 150 feet high, composed of strata of sand, clay, loam, fine and coarse gravel varying in thickness from two feet to the eighth of an inch. The thin layers are of the finest materials. The strata have a regular dip of a few degrees towards the north east, though in some cases where they are thin, they are quite horizontal, the whole formation having the appearance of having been deposited by the agency of water. The stones, varying in size from coarse gravel to that of the human fist, are generally rounded.
A large part of the farm of Mr. Philip Verplanck, at Plum Point, in this town, is of the same description, and the beautiful lawn around his mansion, is an is at high water, 118 feet above the water in the river. When digging his well some 12 or 15 years since, which he sank 110 feet, a bone was found in pure sand, in good preservation, 40 feet below the surface. This, at the time, was to be the leg bone of a fox, but when examined in New York was pronounced the leg, bone of an unknown animal.