The History of Orange County New York

by Unknown

The Methodist Church of Greenville was incorporated December 23rd, 1850. There had been preaching for about twenty years before that by ministers of the M. E. denomination. The church edifice was built before the church was incorporated. Rev. Henry Litts, who died a few years ago in Deckertown, was pastor there for some time, succeeding Revs. Andrews, Grace and Rusling.

Besides the cemeteries connected with the churches, there are a number of family burial places in the town; notably those of the Manning, Seybolt, Seeley, Courtright, Vanbuskirk, Mulock, Remey and Jenks families.

MISCELLANEOUS.

During the Civil War the town issued in August, 1864, bonds for $25,159; they were all paid by February 11th, 1871.

Its officials have from the formation of the town proved worthy men. It has been universally Democratic by a small majority.

Nathaniel Reeves Quick, justice of the peace from 1868 to 1873, was a tall pleasant man, a descendant of the Quick family of Pennsylvania. He was well posted on the history of the famous Tom Quick, who was a member of the same family. The traditions which Mr. Quick, of Greenville, had instilled into his mind from accounts handed down to him by his grandfather, no doubt truthful, were not altogether complimentary to the old Indian hunter. His grandfather said (told by Nathaniel R. himself), that Tom, when hard pressed for something to eat, would come to his house and stay till the good housewife would absolutely refuse to cook for him any longer, and his grandfather would inform Tom that he must either go to work or leave. That, he said, always started him, for if there was anything in this world that Tom hated it was to work. Then he would shoulder his gun and tramp off in the forest for two or three months before he ventured to show himself again at the house. In truth, his grandfather did not put much dependence on the stories told by Tom of his adventures, because he thought Tom was merely whiling the time away with something to wheedle him with, in fact, a sort of "stand off" for lodging.

The old Goshen and Minisink turnpike road of the last century, crossing Shawangunk Mountain just west of Greenville village, was changed by the State to a macadam road constructed or, nearly so, in 1907. It takes a new route across the mountain and has greatly reduced the grade. The Goshen end of the road to Dolsentown was completed a few years ago, and the one from Dolsentown through Wawayanda and Minisink to the State line about two years ago. The new road through Greenville connects with the Wawayanda line at Slate Hill.

Of the Tory element in the town during the Revolution, it is traditionally remembered that Brant is said to have, after his first raid in 1778, contemplated a more extensive one. For that purpose he came to Greenville secretly to get information of the surroundings. He hid himself in the Pakadasink swamp below Smith's Corners, and explored the vicinity by night. Certain Tories of the neighborhood were suspected at the time of furnishing food to some tramp in the swamp, and one of them was caught returning from the swamp where he had been to take a portion of a sheep which he had killed, as it was later found out. Excitement ran high at once and a party visited his premises and found that he had slaughtered a sheep and had taken a part of it to the swamp to feed a hidden Tory as was supposed. A committee improvised a fife and drum corps, wrapped the bloody sheepskin about him, and marched him at the point of a bayonet on foot to Goshen followed by the music of the fife and drum.

This was on a broiling hot day in summer, and, as may well be supposed, that march of sixteen miles, bothered as he was by the flies and the jokes of the people they met, made the victim very uncomfortable. Later when Brant swooped down on Minisink in 1779, he did not cross the mountain into the Greenville neighborhood as the settlers then thought he intended to do at first. Then they ascertained the kind of a tramp that the Tory had been furnishing with mutton in Pakadasink swamp, and rejoiced to think that their prompt action in treating their Tory neighbor to that arrest probably saved their homes from the invasion planned.

Before the days of railroads the people who lived in these neighborhoods generally went to Newburgh, and if they desired to go to New York took from thence passage on a sailing vessel for that place. Sometimes the passage occupied three or four days between those two cities, dependent on the weather. In windy weather the sloops often had to anchor under some protecting high shore, and in dark nights they generally anchored until daylight. A disaster which made a great sensation throughout the county and elsewhere, happened November 24th, 1824, to a sloop of this kind, near Pollopel's Island, in lower Newburgh bay. The sloop Neptune was on its way up the river under command of its first deck hand, John Decker, the captain (Halstead) having been left in New York sick. About twenty tons of plaster were in its hold and about twenty more tons piled on deck, together with eight or ten tons of other goods. There was a strong wind prevailing and the boat was coming up near the island with a double reef in the mainsail and all precautions taken for safety, when there came a sudden blast of wind which caused the sloop to dip and the plaster on deck to shift its weight. This shifting of the deck plaster caused the sloop to dip so violently that the water came pouring into the scuttle of the forecastle, and into the cabin where some ten or twelve women and a number of children were gathered. Besides the crew about twenty-six male passengers were on the deck. Instead of righting, the boat went right down without further warning. All in the cabin were drowned. It was about noon, and several boats that saw the sloop go down hurried to the scene, and were so successful as to rescue seventeen of the passengers.