THE EARLIEST DAYS.
The territory embraced in the town and city was a part of the lands purchased from the Indians by Governor Dongan in 1864, [sic] and conveyed by him to Captain John Evans in 1694. The conveying patent was annulled in 1699, and the district was afterward conveyed in small tracts at different periods, of which ten were included in the precinct of Newburgh as it was constituted in 1762. These were: No. 1, German patent, 2,190 acres, issued December 18, 1719; No. 2, Alexander Baird & Co., 6,000 acres, February 28, 1719; No. 3, Jacobus Kip & Co., 7000 acres, October 17, 1720; No. 4, Ricard Bradley and William Jamison, 1,800 acres, May 17, 1729; No. 5, James Wallace, 2,000 acres, January 25, 1732; No. 6, Bradley children, 817 acres, March 26, 1739; No. 7, Francis Harrison & Co., 5,600 acres, July 10, 1714; No. 8, John Spratt & Co., 1,000 acres, April 12, 1728; No. 9, Melchior Gulch 300 acres, October 8, 1719; No. 10, Peter Johnson, 300 acres, October 8, 1719.
The original settlement was in 1709 by a party of Germans from the Palatinate—a strip of German territory along the middle Rhine. In 1708 Louis XIV gave warning to the people of the Palatinate that it was to be devastated in order to cripple the enemies of France, and this caused a company of twelve families and two bachelors—fifty-three persons in all—to flee to London. Here Queen Anne interested herself in their welfare, and sent them to New York, with a guaranty of 9 pence each for twelve months, and of a grant of land on which to settle. From New York they were moved in the spring to "Quassaick Creek and Thau-hammer." Of the heads of families there were seven husbandmen, a minister, a stocking maker, a smith, a carpenter and a cloth weaver. One of the bachelors was a clerk and the other a husbandman. They were Protestants and of "good character." as certified by officials in the villages where they had lived. Their promised land patent was not issued until 1719, when it granted to each of the different families from 100 to 300 acres, with 500 acres set apart for the support of the minister. The settlement was generally called "The German Patent," but its official title was "The Glebe." The lands for each family extended from the Hudson River west one mile. No. 1 was bounded on the south by Quassaick Creek, and covered the present site of Newburgh.
The immigrants erected a church, cultivated portions of their lands and maintained their settlement several years. Then sales were made to newcomers, and there were changes in ownership and population. After twenty or thirty years the later Dutch and English comers were largely in the majority, and in 1747 elected trustees of the Glebe, closed the church to the Lutheran minister, and in 1752 obtained from the governor and council a new charter whereby the revenues might be applied to the support of a minister of the Church of England, with the title of "Palatine Parish of Quassaick" changed to "The Parish of Newburgh." At this time there were forty-three real estate lease holders in the settlement. Ruttenber characterizes as prominent among them the following: Alexander Colden, son of Lieutenant-Governor Colden; Duncan Alexander, brother of William Alexander, the Lord Sterling of the Revolution; James Denton, son of Daniel Denton, the first historian of New York; Jonathan Hasbrouck, from the Huguenot settlement of New Paltz. Colden, Denton and Hasbrouck erected grist mills, and in 1743 Colden obtained a charter for the Newburgh ferry. "The names of Hasbrouck and Colden have never been absent from the list of inhabitants since 1750," says Ruttenber.
The trustees elected in 1747 were Alexander Colden and Richard Albertson. When the first service was held after the Church of England was substituted, the Lutheran minister and his flock made public protest at the door, and afterward went away and had service in a private house. Tradition says that the Lutherans attempted a forcible entry, and there was a fight in which the church door was torn from its hinges and one Lutheran was killed. This was after the election of trustees in 1847, and previous to the receipt of the new charter.
The new trustees, Colden and Albertson, established a public landing, started agricultural fairs, took temporal charge of the church, erected a parsonage, a residence and school-house combined for the schoolmaster, and did much other work which contributed to the growth of the settlement.
In 1762 Newburgh was set off from the precinct of the Highlands and made a precinct by itself. In 1767 a petition was granted for licenses for more taverns, as being necessary "to accommodate the country people, travelers and passengers." In 1769 a petition asking for a charter of lands for the Newburgh mission, signed by missionary, vestrymen and wardens, was granted. In 1770 another petition to the governor for "a royal charter of incorporation of St. George's Church" was granted.
The old patent of the Highlands, after serving its purpose 50 years, had given way in 1762 to the precincts of Newburgh and New Windsor, the latter being constituted nearly as now, and the former embracing the towns of Marlborough and Plattekill in Ulster County as well as the present town and city of Newburgh.
In 1776 the Glebe hamlet comprised about a score of houses, and three boats owned in town made trips between it and New York.