The second grant lay partly in Wallkill, partly in Hamptonburgh, divided unevenly by the Wallkill River, William Bull, Esq., the great-great-grandson of the first one of the name here, lives upon the western portion, and the stone house known as Hill-Hold on the eastern part, belongs to the descendants of the third son of William Bull—Thomas Bull, Robert McLeod Jackson and Margaret Eleanor Jackson and their mother, Margaret Crawford Jackson, wife of Robert McDowell Jackson, son of William Wickham Jackson.
The stones in the house were cut in the fields by the builder, Thomas Bull, as he had time for the work between planting and reaping. It was years before he was ready to build. Paneling was brought from England for the east and west sides of the two large first-floor rooms. Also solid mahogany balls for the newels and mahogany balusters. The walls are two feet thick, with open fireplaces throughout the house and massive chimney stacks on the east and west. This house also stands on a rock, is in good repair and has a beautiful situation on a hill.
Thirty years ago Mr. Charles Backman bought the road house by Stony Ford bridge, known as the Sutton House, with race track, and began to improve Orange County's fine trotting stock. Little by little he bought the adjoining farm land until he owned 640 acres and remade the mile of road from Stony Ford to La Grange into as fine a highway as are the best State roads to-day.
His house was visited by many noted people, among them General Grant when President, and General Benjamin F. Tracy, now ex-Secretary of the Navy. Mr. J. Howard Force now owns the place. General Tracy owned for a few years a farm in Goosetown or LaGrange, which he named Marshland and greatly improved. This also was a stock farm for fine horses; it is now in other hands. Mr. Backman bought part of the Valentine Hill farm originally belonging to Andrew Wilson, who was a private in Colonel James McClaughrey's regiment of Little Britain. In October, 1777, he was one of the hundred men sent out from Fort Montgomery to intercept the British, who were 5,000 strong and commanded by Sir Henry Clinton in person.
Here is a dispatch from Governor Clinton, dated October 7, 1777, the day after the fort was taken: "We received intelligence that the enemy were advancing on the west side of the mountain with design to attack us in the rear. Upon this ordered out Colonels Bruyer and McClaughrey with upwards of 100 men towards Doodletown with a brass field piece, with a detachment of sixty men on every advantageous post on the road to the furnace. They were not long out before they were attacked by the enemy with their whole force; our people behaved with spirit and must have made great slaughter of the enemy."
Andrew Wilson was here taken prisoner and when an English soldier ordered him to take off his silver shoe buckles he refused and was knocked down by the butt of a musket and his buckles taken. He lay on the sugar hulk for two years and believed he was treated with greater indignity than others because of his refusal.
After his release he lived on the farm mentioned on the east bank of the Wallkill. His son James died first, he himself in 1804. He left two sons and a daughter. John lived and died in Goshen. His son, Andrew, raised two companies in 1812, the first he turned over to his intimate friend, Burnett of Little Britain, that they might not be separated; the second gave him a commission as lieutenant in the regular army. Afterwards he became captain and was in charge at Governor's Island. He married a daughter of William Bull, of Wallkill, Milinda Ann, and made a home in Goshen. He was sent to the Legislature from there in 1819. He was prominent in the temperance movement, also the Bible society and the church life of Hamptonburgh.
The first pastor settled at Hamptonburgh was the Rev. James R. Johnson, formerly of Goshen. The tide of prosperity in the town was expected to set to the east, about the new church, but the hopes were not fulfilled, and little by little Campbell Hall became the established center. The Rev. Slater C. Hepburn was called after Mr. Johnson and was installed July 2, 1850, and died in Campbell Hall after serving his people forty-five years.
Able B. Watkins was an early settler near the Denns and had a family of ten children.