At a special town meeting held August 9, 1864, and ratified on the twentieth of the same month, a tax of $37,000 was ordered for the payment of bounties at the rate of $800 per man. In February, 1865, another tax of $10,000 was authorized for a similar purpose. The town was afterward reimbursed by the Government for bounties paid to the amount of $11,400. In addition to this, voluntary subscriptions and contributions amounting to $913 were sent forward at different times. Of the Mount Hope soldiers four were reported killed in action. The record also contains the names of forty-one other men who enlisted during 1863 and 1864.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
TOWN OF NEWBURGH.
EARLY PATENTS.
While Newburgh is the most important and impressive place in Orange County, Newburgh Town, outside of the city, has its facts and points of interest.
After the annulment, in 1669, of the patent purchased of the Indians by Governor Dongan, and conveyed by him to Captain John Evans in 1684 in which patent was included the territory of the Newburgh precinct, the entire district was conveyed, between 1703 and 1705, in small patents, ten of which were in the Newburgh precinct, and a list of which is given in the chapter on Newburgh city.
All patents were conditioned upon a payment of quit-rent, sometimes in money, sometimes in wheat or other commodity.
The Palatine settlement, including a portion of the present city of Newburgh and a portion of the town, is elsewhere considered. So are the changes and troubles that followed the coming of the new Dutch and English settlers, resulting in a decision of the council which practically terminated "The Palatine Parish by Quassaick." Ruttenber says that when this decision was rendered the original members of the parish had long previously removed from it or been laid away in the quiet church-yard, and adds: "As a people they were earnest, good men and women. Wherever their neighbors of subsequent migrations are met, their record compares favorably with that of immigrants from any other country. No citizens of more substantial worth are found under the flag of this, their native land, than their descendants; no braver men were in the armies of the Revolution than Herkimer and Muhlenberg. Had they done nothing in the parish but made clearings in its forests and planted fields they would be entitled to grateful remembrance. They did more; they gave to it its first church and its first government; and in all subsequent history their descendants have had a part."
As to the other patents: The Baird patent included the settlement of Belknap's Ridge, later classed at Coldenham. It was issued to Alexander Baird, Abraham Van Vleque and Hermans Johnson, and was sold to Governor William Burnet. The Kipp patent included the district east, north and west of Orange Lake, and adjoined the Baird patent on the south. It was issued to Jacobus Kipp, John Conger, Philip Cortlandt, David Prevost, Oliver Schuyler and John Schuyler. It was divided into six parts, and these were subdivided into farms. About 1791 a company of Friends from Westchester County settled on the patent. They were Daniel, Zephaniah and Bazak Birdsall, John Sutton and John Thorne. The first purchasers on the Bradley patent are supposed to have been Johannes Snyder and John Crowell. The Wallace patent, issued to James Wallace alone, was afterwards purchased by John Penny, who sold 200 acres of it to Robert Ross, and settled, with his seven sons, upon the remainder. The Bradley patent was to Sarah, Catherine, George, Elizabeth and Mary Bradley, and was taken in their name by their father, Richard Bradley, who thus secured six tracts, of which that in Newburgh was one. The Harrison patent was to Francis Harrison, Mary Fatham, Thomas Brazier, James Graham and John Haskell. It included the present district of Middlehope, and its settlers were influential in the control of the town during its early history. The Spratt patent was in two parcels, 1,000 acres in Newburgh and 2,000 acres in Ulster. It was issued to Andrew Marschalk and John Spratt, the latter taking the Newburgh tract. This was purchased in 1760 by Joseph Gidney, and took the name of Gidneytown. The Gulch patent was to Melichor Gulch and his wife and children of the original company of Palatines. The Johnson or Jansen patent adjoined the Gulch patent, and was the first occupied land in the northwestern part of the town.
The settlement of these patents resulted in dividing the old precinct of the Highlands in 1762 into the precincts of Newburgh and New Windsor, the former embracing the towns of Marlborough and Plattekill in Ulster County with the present town and city of Newburgh, and the latter covering substantially the same territory as now.