The History of Orange County New York

by Unknown

TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY.

Orange County is unsurpassed by any other in the Empire State in variety of surface features and picturesque beauty of scenery. It has mountain ranges and extended ridges, streams with wide and narrow valleys, and is dotted with lakes and ponds. Along the mountain lines are a few lofty peaks, and there are many isolated hills and rocky precipices. Parts of its boundaries are the Hudson River on the northeast, the Delaware and Mongaup Rivers on the west, and the Shawangunk Kill on the northwest. Near the center the Wallkill winds along its rich valley into Ulster County, and thence into the Hudson. Its principal tributary on the northwest is Rutgers Creek—which also has several tributaries—and others are Monhagen Creek, Mechanicstown Creek and Shawangunk Kill. On the southwest it gathers in the waters of Warwick Creek—which is swollen by smaller streams in its course—and also Quaker, Rio Grande, and Tin Brook Creeks. The Otter Kill flows easterly from Chester into the Hudson. The Neversink flows from Sullivan County through the town of Deer Park, and becomes a tributary of the Hudson. The course of the Ramapo is southerly from Round Pond in Monroe to Rockland County, and it is fed by several other ponds. Other streams, large and small, are numerous.

The central portion of the county consists of rolling uplands broken by deep valleys. The most prominent of the mountain ranges are the Highlands along its eastern border. Their loftiest peak, Butter Hill, is 1,524 feet high, precipitous on the river side, and sloping on the north. Another name given to it is Storm King, because clouds occasionally gather there from different directions and concentrate in storms of rain and lightning. Cro'-nest {sic} adjoins it on the south, and is 1,418 feet above the Hudson. Bare Mountain is next, with a height of 1,350 feet. Mount Independence, with Fort Putnam on its summit, is the background of the West Point plateau. Other well known hills are in this broken range, where Arnold, the traitor, conferred with Andre, the spy, and is more intimately identified with the military history of the country than any other mountain region. It has been written of Butter Hill and Cro'-nest that "they have a charm which might induce a man to live in their shadow for no other purpose than to have them always before him, day and night, to study their ever-changing beauty."

The Shawangunk Mountains are a spur of the Alleghenies stretching northeast across the western angle of the county. They are less broken than the Highlands, and not so high as the Catskills, but of the same general formation. The western side is precipitous, but the eastern is sloping, and some of its lands are very fertile, producing sweet grasses from which much of the famous Orange County butter has been made. The peaks rise from 1,400 to 1,800 feet above tide water. This range was the original dividing line between the Wawayanda and Chesekook patents.

The Schunnemunk range is on the dividing line of the towns of Monroe and Blooming Grove and a part of that of Blooming Grove and Cornwall. An accepted descriptive phrase for the range is, "the high hills west of the Highlands." North of it, in New Windsor and Newburgh, is Muchattoes hill, west of it Woodcock hill, and southwest of the latter are Round, Mosquito, Rainer's and Peddler's hills; also Torn Rocks, which rise in two rocky peaks 200 feet high. To the southwest, in the town of Warwick, are the Bellvale Mountains, and south of these the Sterling Mountains. Several other mountainous elevations in Warwick and Woodbury punctuate this part of the county and also the border country on the west. The feet of Pochuck Mountain are in the Drowned Lands, and northerly in Warwick are Mounts Adam and Eve, with Adam looking down from his superior height upon the longer Eve. Easterly, in Chester, is Sugar Loaf Mountain, and west of this is Mount Lookout, the principal elevation of Goshen. With the further mention of Mount William and Point Peter, looking down upon Port Jervis, let us clip the long list of Orange County elevations.

Valleys connect mountains and hills. That of the Delaware River, along the border of Deer Park, is narrow and irregular, being much broken by tributaries and mountains. The most of the cultivated lands of Deer Park are along the Neversink valley. The valley of the Wallkill is wide, fertile and beautiful its bottom lands are among the best in the State, and its farmers are prosperous and thrifty. Wide flats, gradual slopes and steep declivities give variety of soil and scenery to the Otterkill valley, and much of its scenery is charming. The same may be said of its tributary, Cromeline Creek. Sugar Loaf valley extends from Sugar Loaf Mountain to the village of Warwick, taking in Wickham Pond in its course, and extending into New Jersey. Smith's Clove, extending from Highland Mills to the Ramapo valley, should be mentioned because it was the birthplace of Chief Justice William Smith, his brother, John Hett Smith, and the notorious Tories, Claudius Smith and his two sons.

One cannot travel far in Orange County in most directions without coming upon a lake or a pond, and there are dozens of them in the southeastern section. These feed its many streams, and when Eager wrote his history he said there was not one town in the county that had not water power to some extent. Beginning in the northern part of the Highlands in Cornwall the lake-and-pond system extends through the towns of Highland and Monroe to Greenwood Lake, thence west and north to Big Meadow Pond in the Highlands. Greenwood Lake, in Warwick, is the largest body of water in the county. It is about nine miles long and one wide, is partly in New Jersey, and is a feeder for the Morris Canal. Sutherland's Pond, half a mile long, southeast from Cro'-nest Mountain, has an outlet which runs into Murderer's Creek. Big Meadow Pond, in Highlands, covers about 300 acres, and its outlet pours over the rocks of Buttermilk Falls. The waters of Round Pond flow into Long Pond under a natural bridge about 80 feet wide, but the stream is lost sight of until it emerges on the other side. This is similar to the outlet of Washington Lake in New Windsor, which emerges at Trout-hole and there becomes a fall of forty feet. Sterling Lake, at the beginning of the Warwick series, covers about sixty acres, and in 1751 iron works were established at its outlet. Round Pond, in Wawayanda, is in shape what its name implies, has no visible outlet, its water is clear, pure and deep, and it is about a mile in circumference. Thompson's Pond, in the northwestern part of Warwick, covers about 100 acres, feeds Quaker's Creek, and this outlet furnishes power for mills. Orange Lake, in Newburgh, covers about 100 acres. But all the lakes and ponds of Orange are too many to be named. They are almost as interesting a feature of the county as its streams.

Orange County is richer in alluviums than any other in the State, as they cover about 40,000 acres. The "Drowned Lands," as they were formerly called, include about forty square miles, and are partly in New Jersey, but mostly in New York, extending in Orange from Cheeunk Outlet in Goshen through Wawayanda and Minisink to the New Jersey line, and covering about 17,000 acres. They contain a number of fertile islands, and thousands of acres of the waste lands have been recovered by means of an artificial outlet, which, at first a mere ditch, has been deepened and widened by the flowing water until the principal flow is through it. These recovered lands are rich and productive. They are belted by the Wallkill and three creeks, and the Wallkill's course through them is long because so crooked. The Gray Court meadows extend from near Craigville in Blooming Grove into the northern part of Chester, and embrace about 500 acres, which are nearly all under cultivation and very productive. They are drained by Cromeline Creek. The Black Meadows, in Chester and Warwick, are about 1,000 acres in extent, and Black Meadow Creek flows through them. Long Swamp, in Warwick, also contains about 1,000 acres, and is drained into New Jersey. Great Pine Swamp extends northward from Howells on the Erie railroad seven miles in the town of Wallkill, and embraces many oases and cultivated farms. There are several other scattered areas of swamp lands. In the marl and peat beds in several localities many bones of the extinct mastodon have been found, including two complete skeletons. One of the latter was taken from a bed near Coldenham in 1845, and weighed 1,995 pounds, and the other from a bed in the town of Mt. Hope, and weighed 1,700 pounds.

The topography of the county has been changed somewhat by its railroads, of which there are 250 miles, not including double trackage or trolley roads. The following places in towns extending across the county have each direct railroad communication north, east, south and west: Port Jervis, Middletown, Campbell Hall, Goshen, Chester and Newburgh. The wagon roads are numerous, generally good, and are charming arteries for carriages and automobiles.