History of the Town of Esopus
Ulster County, New York
Geology:
The terrain is partly that of the Shawungunk mountain chain. There is a spine of three high ridges or hills that run down the middle of the town.
1) Hussey Hill (elevation 1005 feet) is the northernmost part of the ridge.
2) Shaupeneak Mountain is the hill immediately south; and
3) another hill, west of the Payne lands.
The land to the west of these hills is drained by the Wallkill and Rondout, while the land to the east is drained by the Black Creek.
The Rondout Creek and the Wallkill River form Esopus’s northern and western boundaries, while the Hudson forms the eastern boundary. Huzzy’s Hill and the Shawpeneak Ridge divide the town between east and west.
Villages/Sites along Rondout Creek:
Sleightsburgh
Connelly
New Salem
Villages/Sites along the Wallkill River:
Rifton (Sturgeon Pond here)
Dashville (where Perrine's covered bridge is located)
Villages/Sites along or near the Hudson River:
Port Ewen
Ulster Park
Esopus
West Park
Geology:
The terrain is partly that of the Shawungunk mountain chain. There is a spine of three high ridges or hills that run down the middle of the town.
1) Hussey Hill (elevation 1005 feet) is the northernmost part of the ridge.
2) Shaupeneak Mountain is the hill immediately south; and
3) another hill, west of the Payne lands.
The land to the west of these hills is drained by the Wallkill and Rondout, while the land to the east is drained by the Black Creek.
History:
pre-colonial – the Esopus Indians lived in the area. Esopus means "place of the small river or wellspring of creation."
1540 – a French trading post constructed south of Albany.
1608 – Henry Hudson explores the area.
1615 – the New Netherland Company officially received its charter.
1646 – the VanAkens settle in the larger area. Two of their houses (c.1660 and 1690) still stand.
1652 or 1653 – settlers from the Manor of Rensselaerswyck (including Rensselaer, Columbia and Albany except Fort Orange) made the first settlement, a trading post, in Ulster County at Esopus. The actual first settler was Christoffel "Kit" Davis.
1652 – Jan Van Vliet received a land grant from King William of Holland.
1652 – the British take over. Patents were granted for New-Paltz and Kingston, and later for Hurley, Marbletown, and Rochester.
1660 – Aert Jacobsen Van Wagenen settled in Wagendal.
1681 – Fischer’s Patent granted.
1682 – the Mogowasinck Patent, adjacent to Fischer’s Patent, purchased from the Indians by Henry Beekman.
1690 – Hardenburg Patent.
1709 – Willem Smit comes to work on the Hardenburg Patent and builds what is now one of the oldest homes in Esopus (on Church Hill Road in Rifton).
1745 -- St. Remy first settled by Isaac Van Wagenen Jr. of Wagendale.
1745 – one of the earliest extant houses in Esopus was built by Ysaak Van Wagenen.
c. 1745 – construction of the Freer-Delamater millhouse.
1745 -- stone house built that later became the core of the Rosemount Mansion of Judge Alton B. Parker.
no later than 1745 – Gerrit Isaac Freer builds a farmhouse in Freerville.
c. 1750 – Isaac DeLaMater and Gerrit I. Freer build a gristmill on the Dwarfskill.
1762 -- the first three settlers of St. Remy now joined by brothers Jan and Gideon VanAken.
1767 – a Van Vliet home became the Jug Tavern.
Revolutionary War – the population of Esopus was 740.
Revolutionary War – British officers partied the night before the burning of Kingston at the stone house that later became the Rosemount Mansion of Judge Alton B. Parker. During the burning of Kingston, the American crew of the Martha Washington scuttled their ship and are said to have sought refuge in the Gerrit Isaac Freer farmhouse in Freerville. From Hussey Hill the locals watched the British burn down Kingston.
1796 – John Armstrong and James Grier built a splitting and rolling mill to make such items as nails at the Eddyville-St. Remy Falls.
1797 -- Isabella Baumfree (a.k.a., Sojourner Truth) born at the Johannes Hardenburgh house and farm complex on the Swartekill Creek in Swartekill.
1797 – the first church in Esopus (the Low Dutch Church of Klyne Esopus) built in Ulster Park. (Klyne = little)
1797 – the will of this year of Ysaac Van Wagenen passed the old stone house to son David. (David in turn willed it to his son Isaac D.)
1800s -- apples known as Jonathans were developed in Esopus.
first half of the 19th century – Robert Livingston Pell developed a process of preserving apples which enabled him to ship them to Europe, where they became popular.
1801 – Thomas Tillotson bought the land around the Eddyville-St. Remy Falls.
1806 -- the future Sojourner Truth auctioned off to John Neeley for $100 dollars.
1810 – Benjamin S. Van Wagenen (the brother of Isaac D.) builds a house and barn.
Before 1811 – Benjamin VanAken established a ferry on Rondout Creek between St. Remy and Creek Locks.
1811 (April 5) – Esopus formed from Kingston. It became a favorite spot for country homes for people of means from New York and Brooklyn.
by 1824 -- in Dashville, Ezekiel Eltinge built a gristmill, sawmill and fulling and carding mill.
1834 -- Perinne's covered bridge in Dashville built.
c. 1840 -- Abram B. Hasbrouck named the hamlet of St. Remy after a town in France.
1849 – French immigrant James Perrine, for whom Perrine’s Bridge is named, dies.
1851 – Port Ewen, near the mouth of the Rondout, was founded by the Pennsylvania Coal Company as a coal depot. Ulster Park, north of the village of Esopus, is the center of the fruit district. Rosemount, the former home of Alton B. Parker, once a candidate for President of the US, lies near Ulster Park. West Park lies directly across the Hudson from Hyde Park; a corresponding village directly east of Hyde Park along route 9-G is named East Park.
1858 – the population of Esopus was 4,700.
1861 -- Jeremiah W. Dimick purchased the mill at Arnoldton. He had an estate known as Woodcrest. Today it is owned by the Hutterian Society of Brothers.
1870s -- ice harvesting on Dimond's Pond in St. Remy.
1871 -- Alton B. Parker of Cortland, New York came to Ulster County to teach school. He was to rise to become Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals.
1873-1921 -- naturalist writer John Burroughs lived at his home, known as Riverby, in West Park. His friend Walt Whitman was one of the many people who visited him in West Park.
1877 -- the Hussey Hill Gold Mine established. It closed after 18 months.
1880s to c. 1920 -- a stagecoach bus ran from Rifton to Rondout, passing through St. Remy, Freerville, and Eddyville.
1881 – the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway was built as a rival to the New York Central.
1884 – the railway went bankrupt and was swallowed by the New York Central.
1887 – Edgar Ellsworth applied to open a post office in St. Remy. (Until 1888 the Fly Mountain postal district served Eddyville and Greenkill in the Town of Ulster and St. Remy and New Salem in the Town of Esopus.)
c. 1890 -- the Raynor tourist and boardinghouse built in Rifton. It is now a private home.
1890s -- hundreds of canal boats were in the Sleightsburgh area.
1895 -- John Burroughs builds the Slabsides cottage.
1901 -- Rifton became an official village. It was composed of the hamlets of Swartekill, Rifton Glen, and Dashville, as well as the communities of Saltpeterville, Arnoldton and Pearrine's Bridge. Rifton, on the Wallkill, was the site of a large cotton mill.
1904 -- Judge Alton B. Parker was the Democratic presidential candidate running against Theodore Roosevelt. His Rosemount estate was once part of a hug patent owned by loyalist Thomas Jones who was stripped of his land after the Revolutionary War.
1904-1907 -- the Redemptorist Brothers built a seminary on the site of Robert Livingston Pell's mansion.
1910 – the great flood of January 1910 destroys the Eddyville-New Salem Bridge over Rondout Creek.
1910 -- during the winter, the famous steamboat, Mary Powell and the steamboat Albany, docked just east of the present boat launch and fishing pier at the "Sunflower Dock" in Sleightsburgh.
1917 – death of wealthy businessman Oliver Hazard Payne. In his later years he summered at his Hudson River estate at Esopus. He left his Esopus estate to one of his two favorite nephews, Harry Payne Bingham.
1919 -- after the closure of the mills, Rifton was officially dissolved.
1922 – the first bridge over the Rondout on Route 9W constructed.
1959 – across Rondout Creek, Schumann’s Hotel in Eddyville (closely tied to New Salem and St. Remy) was razed.
Sources:
Karl R. Wick and Susan B. Wick. 2003. Images of America: Esopus. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Press.
Early Esopus History and Geography; http://ecommerce.marist.edu/foy/esopus/esop01.htm