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History of Orange County
Town of New Windsor
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AGRICULTURAL PREMIUMS.
1820. Ezra Palmer, best gelding. $12 00
1822. Abraham B. Rapaljee, procured the greatest quantity of hay and grain without the use of ardent spirits. $15 00
John Nicoll exhibited a sample of cotton raised the county nearly equal to Southern cotton.
Formerly near the mouth of Murderer's creek, there was a saw mill, owned by Mr. Thorn--afterwards by Samuel Sacket, and still later by Van Buren. The site has been occupied lately by a cotton factory, owned by Mr. Leonard Nicoll and brother, which, in September last, was destroyed by fire, since which it has not been rebuilt.
July 1803, Samuel Bayard of New Windsor made 20 good substantial flour barrels and dressed all the stuff from the rough in one day, from 4 o'clock A.M. to 8 P.M.
Feb. 1824. A wild cat was killed on the farm of John Nicoll, Esq., by William Monell, his farmer, with a pitch fork. This was the first animal of the kind seen in the town in forty years. It had been killing sheep and was tracked by Mr. Monell a short distance, when he found it beside a stone wall. He hit it a blow with his fork and the animal sprang upon the fence with a horrid yell. Monell more frightened than the cat, screamed out most lustily, and plied his fork so well that in a few moments he laid the enemy low, and bore it off in triumph as evidence of his fright and valor.
1816. Died, John Gray in falling a tree was accidentally hit by a limb which fractured his skull. He lingered three or four days when he died, leaving a widow and one child.
Feb. 1826. About 3 o'clock in the morning the house of William Kernoghan was discovered by the family to be on fire, and consumed in a short time with all its furniture. What made the calamity more dreadful, was Mrs. Kernoghan, the mother of the owner, was burned up, except some of the extremities. Loss $3,500.