As early as 1830 Henry William Herbert, an English gentleman and writer, better known as Frank Forester, visited the village and stopped at the old inn, known as Tom Ward's, now and then called the Wawayanda House. Forester has celebrated us in his famous book of sporting tales and adventures called "Warwick Woodlands," in which he tells many a quaint tale of the doings of himself and mine host Ward, (whom he cleverly calls Draw by simply inverting the letters of the name), and of many other sportsmen of that early day.
No one has ever paid our vale and village a higher tribute than Forester, when he said:
"In all the river counties of New York there is none to my mind which presents such a combination of all natural beauties, pastoral, rural, sylvan and at times almost sublime, as old Orange, nor any part of it to me so picturesque, or so much endeared by early recollections, as the fair vale of Warwick. . . . Throughout its length and breadth, it is one of the most fertile and beautiful, and the most Arcadian regions of the United States; poverty in its lower and more squalid aspects, if not in any real or tangible shape, is unknown within its precincts; its farmers, the genuine old solid yeoman of the land, the backbone and bulwark of the country, rich as their teeming pastures, hospitable as their warm hearts and ever open doors, stanch and firm as the everlasting hills among which in truly pleasant places their lines have fallen, would be the pride of any nation, kingdom or republic; its women are among the fairest daughters of a country where beauty is the rule rather than the exception. . . . Sweet vale of Warwick, sweet Warwick, loveliest village of the vale, it may be I shall never see you more, for the silver cord is loosened, the golden bowl is broken, which most attached me to your quiet and sequestered shades. . . . May blessings be about you, beautiful Warwick; may your fields be as green, your waters as bright, the cattle upon your hundred hills as fruitful, as in the days of old."
In 1883 the village voted the sum of $600 to lay the sidewalks over the Main street bridge. In 1886 the sum of $4,200 was voted by the tax-payers to buy the lot and build the brick building occupied by Excelsior Hose Company. In 1889 an application was made to the trustees for the organization of the Goodwill Hook and Ladder Company. In 1891 a truck was bought for said ladder company at a cost of $600. The system for working the village streets was changed in this year to the money system. In 1895 a number of the citizens contributed the sum of $433.03 for the purchase of a sprinkling cart, a proposition previously submitted to the taxpayers for the purchase of the same having been defeated at a special election. In 1896, Raymond Hose Company No. 2, to look after the interests of the village in the west end, was organized by consent of the trustees.
In 1897, the sum of $500 was voted for the purpose of a fire alarm. In this year the first and only franchise ever granted by the village was given to Sharp & Chapman for a term of fifty years, for an electric light plant.
These parties having failed to carry out their agreement, the village the next year granted a franchise for the same purpose to the Warwick Valley Light and Power Company, of the same duration.
Since 1898 the village has been lighted with electric light at a cost of about $2,000 per year, the present plant consisting of ninety-seven incandescent electric lights and six 2,000 candle power arc lamps.
In 1900 the taxpayers voted the sum of $1,600 for the purchase of a lot and the building of a hose house for the Raymond Hose Company.
In 1901 a proposition to reincorporate the village under the general village law was carried. A special election held the same year to vote upon the proposition of paving our streets with Telford pavement and asking for the sum of $10,000 for that purpose, was defeated by only three votes.
In 1902 the heirs of the late George W. Sanford donated the sum of $1,250 to the village for the purpose of a drinking fountain, which has been erected and is placed at Fountain Square, corner of Main and East Main streets.