Timeline

Pre-1540 The Native Americans {Lenape) live in the area. Esopus means “land of flowing water and high banks.” White settlers of all denominations agreed that the natives were “godless”. As a Penninsula, the area now known as the Town of Esopus had widespread native settlement. Known sites include areas of South Rondout (Connelly), Sleightsburgh, River Road in Port Ewen, Rifton, St Remy, New Salem (May Park & Freerville)

1540, the French construct a trading post south of Albany.

1609 – Henry Hudson sails up the Hudson River. In his Captain’s log he describes the Esopus area as “faire” land.

1614 – The Dutch East India Co established a trading post at the mouth of the Rondout Creek

1621 – The Dutch West India Company is incorporated and receives its official charter.

1623 – Colonization of New Netherland is encouraged by the Dutch West India Co. New Amsterdam, Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck are settled.

1625/6 - The first enslaved laborers arrived in New Netherland and soon after European families began to settle in the colony. Most often slaves were imported in small groups. Many of them were brought to the colony by Dutch or French privateers who had taken these enslaved men, women, and children from the Portuguese or Spanish ships that they had captured in the Western hemisphere. From the New Netherland Institute website.

1630 – Map created by Peter Minuit “shows the north side of the mouth of the Rondout Creek marked with the name ‘Groote’ or Great Esopus. On this map, on the east side of the Hudson in Vanderburgh Cove, the name Esopus still remains, in the form of kleyne (or cleyne) Esopus or little Esopus, and this retention of the name at that locality as late as 1630 gives further support to the contention that the location of the name there on the 1616 map was not an error. The prefixed adjectives groote and kleyne seem to have come into use as a means of distinguishing the new west-side location from the original east-side location bearing the name Esopus.” P. 14, The Early History of Kingston by Marc Fried. “The slow expansion of New Netherlands, however, caused conflicts with both English colonists and Native Americans in the region. In the 1630s, the new Director General Wouter van Twiller sent an expedition out from New Amsterdam up to the Connecticut River into lands claimed by English settlers. Faced with the prospect of armed conflict, Twiller was forced to back down and recall the expedition, losing any claims to the Connecticut Valley. In the upper reaches of the Hudson Valley around Fort Orange, (present-day Albany) where the needs of the profitable fur trade required a careful policy of appeasement with the Iroquois Confederacy, the Dutch authorities maintained peace but corruption and lax trading policies plagued the area. In the lower Hudson Valley, where more colonists were setting up small farms, Native Americans came to be viewed as obstacles to European settlement. In the 1630s and early 1640s, the Dutch Director Generals carried on a brutal series of campaigns against the area’s Native Americans, largely succeeding in crushing the strength of the ‘River Indians,’ but also managing to create a bitter atmosphere of tension and suspicion between European settlers and Native Americans.” http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/kingston/colonization.htm

1647 – Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, encouraged settlement of the Esopus area. Kit Davis is among the explorers and reportedly the first white settler in Klyne Esopus

1650s - New Netherland's slave trade changed significantly in the mid 1650s with the end of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654) and the Dutch loss of Brazil to Portugal (1654). The Dutch island of Curaçao soon became the Company's slave entrepot in the Caribbean, supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. Several small cargoes of slaves not sent to the Spanish were sent from Curaçao to Manhattan. The slaves who arrived in the colony would become Company slaves or they were sold to local farmers or merchants. At times, some slaves would be transported to other colonies like Virginia or Maryland. On a number of occasions, the Company sold slaves at public auction. These auctions usually occurred in New Amsterdam, but in 1659 a public slave sale took place in Beverwijck (present-day Albany). New Netherland’s slaveholders often resold their slaves outside of the public auctions, which led to additional exchanges of enslaved people in the colony. - From the New Netherland Institute website.

1651 – The area south of the Rondout Creek is first called Klyne Esopus, Dutch for “Little” Esopus. A trapper named Kit Davis lives in what is now the hamlet of Connelly along the Rondout Creek. He trades with the Esopus Indians.

1652 – Jan Van Vliet receives a land grant from King William of Holland. The frame house on the corner of Route 9W & Ice House Lane may be one of the first houses constructed and reportedly site of the earliest marriage in town. June 5, 1652 – Thomas Chambers acquires property from the Native Americans. Patent records 76 acres (a tract of thirty eight morgans). He is the earliest recorded white settler.

1657 – Seeing the strategic practicality of a fort located halfway between New Amsterdam and Fort Orange, Director General Stuyvesant sends soldiers up from New Amsterdam to crush the Esopus Indians and helps build a stockade with 40 houses for the settlers in present-day Kingston.

1660 – Settlers from Holland receive “patents” from the Dutch rulers for land in the area.

1664 – “The Dutch lost New Netherlands to the English during the Second Anglo – Dutch War in 1664, only a few years after the establishment of Wiltwyck. Along the West Coast of Africa, British charter companies clashed with the forces of the Dutch West India Company over rights to slaves, ivory, and gold in 1663. Less about slaves or ivory, the Anglo-Dutch Wars were actually more about who would be the dominant European naval power. By 1664, both the Dutch and English were preparing for war and King Charles of England granted his brother, James, Duke of York, vast American territories that included all of New Netherlands. James immediately raised a small fleet and sent it to New Amsterdam. Director General Stuyvesant, (statue image, left) without a fleet or any real army to defend the colony, was forced to surrender the colony to the English war fleet without a struggle. In September of 1664, New York was born, effectively ending the Netherlands’ direct involvement in North America although in places like Kingston, the influences of Dutch architecture, planning and folk life can still be quite clearly seen.” https://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/kingston/colonization.htm. May 19, 1664 – Dutch grant for Wiltwyck/Kingston

May 28, 1677 – New Paltz Patent granted Hurley patent by Gov Peter Stuyvesant

1681 – Fischer’s patent is granted by the English

1682 – The Mogowasinck Patent for land purchased from the Indians by Henry Beekman is granted.

1683 – Ulster County is organized, extending from the present village of Saugerties to the present city of Newburgh. Klyne Esopus is considered part of the Town of Kingston. Kingston Commons required new deeds of ownership.

March 18, 1685 – Deed from Thomas Dongan, Lt. Gov & Vice Admiral of NY under James II to Frederick Hussey, Edward Whittaker, John Ward and Michel DeMott Survey of 2960 acres between Rondout kill and Kleine Esopus and known by the name Hussey’s Hill, including Kleine Esopus fly and sunken fly at the mouth of Rondout kill with two lakes laid out for Frederick Hussey and others by Philip Welles, Surveyor

February 13, 1688 – The Trustees of Kingston granted unto Claes Westphalen and Abel Westphalen a tract of land on Hudson’s River to the Northward of the Kallikoon Hook, and so along said river to the bounds of Capt. John Sprague.

April 21, 1688 – Land grant from Aveneek, Crawam, Rawicktons, Actackenett to Thomas Randall (merchant of City of New York) and Michiel DeMott of Kingston land of Frederick Hussey in Company Esward Widdighard to the small (Klyne or Kleine) Esopus Creek (now Black Creek or Swartekill)

1699 – The Hardenburg Patent is granted.

1700’s – Building starts on permanent homesteads using field stone found in abundance in Ulster County. Many of these early houses are still standing today. The Van Vliet Homestead, at the corner of River Road and Broadway, is built in 1767. The Van Aken Homestead, near to where the train tracks cross Clay Road, is built c1696. The Lowe (Louw) family builds a house which is destroyed by fire in the early 19th Century. A newer homestead on Wildflower Drive, running along Hussey Hill, is built in 1840. Willem Smit works for the Hardenburgs and builds a home on what today is Church Hill Road in Rifton. It is among the oldest houses in Esopus. The Houghtaling homestead located on New Salem Rd.

1709 – Willem Smit comes to work on the Hardenburg Patent and builds what is now one of the oldest homes in Esopus (on Church Hill Road in Rifton).

1729 – The first Kingston-Newburgh Highway is planned.

1745 -- St. Remy first settled by Isaac Van Wagenen Jr. of Wagendale. The younger Isaac Van Wagenen of Wagendal settles St. Remy. The Freer-Delamater Mill House is constructed. one of the earliest extant houses in Esopus was built by Isaak Van Wagenen. Stone house built that later became the core of the Rosemount Mansion of Judge Alton B. Parker. Gerrit Isaac Freer builds a farmhouse in Freerville.

c. 1750 – Isaac DeLaMater and Gerrit I. Freer build a gristmill on the Dwarfskill.

1762 -- the first three settlers of St. Remy now joined by brothers Jan and Gideon VanAken.

1767 – A Van Vliet home became the "Jug Tavern"

1769 – John Sleight born at #46 North Broadway, Sleightsburg in the family homestead.

1776 – 1783 – A stone house, built above what will become Elmore’s Landing on the Hudson River, becomes an Inn. During the American War for Independence British officers party there prior to burning Kingston. The property is part of a patent owned by loyalist Thomas Jones ?? (verify this if possible). He is stripped of his land after the Revolutionary War. The stone house forms the center of Alton B. Parker’s Rosemont Mansion.

1777 – New York State is formed. Kingston served as its first capital. First school is built on Clay Road in Port Ewen; Fleet Prison ships, Camden and Hudson, anchor in the Rondout Creek just off Port Ewen to house British POW’s. The ships were scuttled in the Rondout Creek by the Americans when they learned that the British were on their way to burn Kingston. October 15, 1777 – British General John Vaughn and his fleet anchors off Esopus Island as they proceed to burn Kingston. Revolutionary War – the population of Esopus was 740. Reportedly, General George Washington stopped at the former Freer house, once located near what is now Hercules Drive, and at the Jug Tavern, on River Road. LaFayette is reputed to have stopped at the old stone house where Old Post Road meets Swartekill Road in West Esopus. British officers partied the night before the burning of Kingston at the stone house that later became the Rosemount Mansion of Judge Alton B. Parker. During the burning of Kingston, the American crew of the Martha Washington scuttled their ship and are said to have sought refuge in the Gerrit Isaac Freer farmhouse in Freerville. From Hussey Hill the locals watched the British burn down Kingston. According to the late Miss Hester Marsh, John Sleight as a boy and his father watched the burning of Kingston from the rooftop. Miss Marsh stated the the Sleight farm originally extended from what is now Lampman Ave in Port Ewen north to the Creek and from the Mill Brook in Connelly east to the River. (P 62 ToES).

1791 – 93 inhabitants petitioned the Classis to form a church. It was instituted by Rev Goetchius and a committee of elders of the church of New Paltz. P 248 Clearwater. The population of Klyne Esopus has grown so much that members of the Reformed Church petition the Classis of Ulster County for a church of their own.

1792 – First church building erected in Ulster Park about 1000 ft to the north of the current building(Pulpit from this church is at Klyne Esopus Historical Society Museum).

1796 – James Grier and his partner John Armstrong build a factory to make metal items such as nails at the Eddyville-St. Remy Falls. Lewis Mosier settles the farm at what later became Hermance Lane

1797 – Isabella Baumfree, who became known as Sojourner Truth, is born at the Johannes Hardenburgh house and farm on the Swartekill Creek. Hardenburgh was a rather large slave holder. The Klyne Esopus Low Dutch Church is formed and a stone church is built near the southern intersection of River Road and 9W.

1800s -- apples known as Jonathans were developed in Esopus; Robert Livingston Pell developed a process of preserving apples which enabled him to ship them to Europe, where they became popular.

1801 – Thomas Tillotson bought the land around the Eddyville-St. Remy Falls.

1804 – Strife between two political factions (Federalists and the Republicans) result in an end to the old Federalist Board of Trustees and the election of the Republicans. The sale of lands held by the Board results in a handsome fund in the treasury after the payment of debts and support of the poor. Various sums of money were voted to the three churches – parent church in Kingston, Brabandt (New Paltz) and Klyne Esopus.

1806 -- Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth) auctioned off to John Neeley for $100 dollars.

1810 – Benjamin S. Van Wagenen (the brother of Isaac D.) builds a house and barn. Benjamin Van Aken established a ferry on Rondout Creek between St. Remy and Creek Locks.

1811 – The Town of Esopus officially formed. Elections held at house of Wm. Ellsworth. John LeFevre elected Supervisor. Wm Ellsworth had tavern and held town meetings and elections. P 248 Clearwater. April 5, 1811 Esopus formed from Kingston. It became a favorite spot for country homes for people of means – including Astor, Payne, Smith, Van Benschoten to name just a few - from New York City.

1812 – The Pound was located near the house of William I Houghtaling. The town offered a bounty of $12.50 for each wolf killed within the town and required the head and ears as proof and an oath. Clearwater’s History of Ulster County p 245. Also, about 20 men from Esopus enlisted in the War of 1812 ** p 249 Clearwater (Abraham Degraff, John Deyo, Tobias DuBois, Isaac Houghtaling, Samuel Ostrander, Stephen Terwilliger, John B. Van Aken, Thomas Wells, William Wise, Henry Ellsworth, Henry Degraff, Purdy Dickinson, Theophilus Ellsworth, Henry Freer, Samuel Lefevre, John L Plough, Mahlon Thorp, Charles B Van Wagner, John Winfield Jr)

1813 – Town meetings held at tavern of Tjerck Terpenning in Ulster Park near Kleine Esopus Reformed Church

1814 – Esopus establishes a system of public school districts. For more information about school districts see Chapter XVIII in The Town of Esopus – 3000 BC to 1978 edited by Roger Mabie, et al.

1822 – Perrine's covered bridge in Dashville built. It is the oldest surviving covered bridge of its design in New York State. It is named for James Perrine, a Frenchman.

by 1824 -- in Dashville, Ezekiel Eltinge built a gristmill, sawmill and fulling and carding mill.

1827 – The Klyne Esopus congregation builds the brick church which now houses the Museum. All slaves in New York State – including Sojourner Truth - are freed.

c. 1840 -- Abram B. Hasbrouck named the hamlet of St. Remy after a town in France.

1840 – The hamlet of St. Remy is named by Abram B. Hasbrouck after a town in France.

1842 – Ascension Church, an Episcopal Church, is built in West Park for parishioners who must cross the Hudson River to attend services in St. James Church in Hyde Park.

1849 – French immigrant James Perrine, for whom Perrine’s Bridge is named, dies.

1852-1865 – Pennsylvania Coal Company locates the company headquarters in the area that became known as Port Ewen. It buys land under somewhat dubious circumstances. This caused a boom in the town economy. Farmland was purchased by the company and divided into building lots and many buildings constructed during this time remain standing.

1853 – The Port Ewen Reformed Church opens on Salem Street.

1858 – The Methodist Church in Port Ewen opens. The population of the town reaches 4,700.

1860 – 1882 – George Kay, of Sheffield England, operates a factory at Esopus, near Black Creek. With his brother, he invented the knife-fork combination used by Union soldiers. The property was moved to Walden in 1882. The new owner leased it to Mr. Gilles for a cooperage. Gilles moved to Marlboro around 1930 and John H. Beaver operated a cooperage on the same site. The invention of Cold Storage ended the need for barrels.

1860 – Dr. Josiah Hasbrouck settles and Port Ewen – first in the property located at 210 Broadway then in a house he had built to the northeast that eventually housed the town library. That building was demolished and sat in the location to the south of the Mid-Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union. Josiah Hasbrouck elected Supervisor. Justice Gilbert Hasbrouck born at 210 Broadway.

1861 – 1865 – Esopus provide about 425 men to fight for the Union. There were 21 enlistments in the Navy. The death list from Esopus was heavy. Among the distinguished soldiers were Col Daniel Butterfield who rose to Major General by 1862. Adam Peutor who lives in Connelly fights in the Civil War and serves as a POW at Andersonville Prison (Certificate and bayonet in the Collection of Klyne Esopus Historical Society Museum). He survives, returns to the Town of Esopus, witnesses the tragic deaths of his three children in an epidemic within one week, moves up the hill into Port Ewen. In 1866, he becomes a Naturalized citizen (record in the Ulster County Records Center).

1861 – Jeremiah W. Dimick purchases the mill at Arnoldton. His estate, known as Woodcrest, is owned by the Hutterian Society of Brothers today.

1865 – Litigation between Pennsylvania Coal Company & D&H Canal over costs & tonnage. Samuel Tilden, future NYS Governor & Democratic Presidential Candidate defends the Pennsylvania Coal Company. The company loses the case and moves to Newburgh in order to be near the rail line.
1870 – he builds a small house on ½ acre at 211 Salem Street and has three more children who never marry and remain in the house until their deaths. In 1890, Adam Peutor adds an addition to the south that becomes a kitchen and bedrooms. Adam’s son Webster Peutor works at Hiltebrandt Shipyard in Connelly during WWII. The property is bought by neighbor Daniel Terpening in 1965 and raises his daughters there. He sells the property in 2017 to Michela & Andrew Glancey. George DuBois lived in Sleightsburg and was a Cornell Steamboat Co. Captain and was a crew member of the Monitor during the Civil War. (p 65 TOES)

1870 – The first bridge across the Rondout Creek connecting St. Remy with Eddyville is opened to traffic. Ice harvesting on Dimond's Pond in St. Remy, 292 Farms listed in the census

1871 -- Alton B. Parker of Cortland, New York came to Ulster County to teach school. He was to rise to become Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals.

1873 – Naturalist John Burroughs lives at Riverby, in West Park. He is visited by Presidents and poets such as his friend, Walt Whitman.

1874 – The Catholic Church of the Presentation opens in Port Ewen. For more information about churches in Esopus, see Chapter XVII in The Town of Esopus – 3000 BC to 1978 edited by Roger Mabie, et al.

1877 – A gold mine is established on Hussey Hill. The vein dwindles after only a-year-and-a-half. Sleigh factories in Sleightsburg – first Crosby, Gilzinger, & Co and then Sheridan Velocipede. The factory burns in 1901. Turner Brickyard employs 45 men in Sleightsburg.

1880s - c. 1920 – a stagecoach bus ran from Rifton to Rondout, passing through St. Remy, Freerville, and Eddyville.
1881 – the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway was built as a rival to the New York Central.

1883 – The West Shore Railroad (seen here in photo of railroad station) begins service through the Town of Esopus. The West Shore Railroad begins service through the Town of Esopus.

1884 – the railway went bankrupt and was swallowed by the New York Central.

1887 – Edgar Ellsworth applied to open a post office in St. Remy. (Until 1888 the Fly Mountain postal district served Eddyville and Greenkill in the Town of Ulster and St. Remy and New Salem in the Town of Esopus.)

1890s – The Rondout Creek and Sleightsburgh become a hub for Delaware and Hudson Canal boat traffic. 1890s – The Rondout Creek and Sleightsburgh become a hub for Delaware and Hudson Canal boat traffic. the Raynor tourist and boarding house built in Rifton. It is now a private home. Hundreds of canal boats were in the Sleightsburgh area.

1895 – John Burroughs builds his sanctuary in the woods, Slabsides Cottage.
1901 -- Rifton became an official village. It was composed of the hamlets of Swartekill, Rifton Glen, and Dashville, as well as the communities of Saltpeterville, Arnoldton and Perrine's Bridge. Rifton, on the Wallkill, was the site of a large cotton mill.

1904 – Judge Alton B. Parker accepts the nomination to be the Democratic presidential candidate to run against incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. His Rosemount estate was once part of a hug patent owned by loyalist Thomas Jones who was stripped of his land after the Revolutionary War. The Redemptorists, a Catholic order of priests and brothers, begins to build a major seminary on the site of Robert Livingston Pell’s mansion. They named the seminary Mount Saint Alphonsus in honor of their 18th century founder, St. Alphonsus Maria De Liguori.

1904-1907 -- the Redemptorist Brothers built a seminary on the site of Robert Livingston Pell's mansion.

1910 – the great flood of January 1910 destroys the Eddyville-New Salem Bridge over Rondout Creek. During the winter, the famous steamboat, Mary Powell and the steamboat Albany, docked just east of the present boat launch and fishing pier at the "Sunflower Dock" in Sleightsburgh.

1911 – Telephone service begins in the Town of Esopus.

1917 – Death of Standard Oil executive Oliver Hazard Payne. In his later years he summered at his Hudson River estate at Esopus. He left his Esopus estate to one of his two favorite nephews, Harry Payne Bingham.

1918 – The American Grenade Plant on the Henry Van Aken farm blows up injuring many and killing several just before the Armistice ending World War I is signed.

1919 – The mills in Rifton close (photo KEHSM) and the Village of Rifton is officially dissolved.
1920 – the Esopus Cooperative Fruit Growers, Inc was organized at Ulster Park. This organization posted and marketed the fruit, mostly apples, cooperatively for its members. H. M. Cameron, now of West Park, was the co-op’s secretary and Waldron DuMond of Ulster Park was the treasurer. Ed Wheeler was one of the first grower owned Co-Ops in New York State and its packing and grading equipment were the most modern to be found at that time. The building was built by a contractor from Port Ewen. The organization lasted five years. Then the lack of volume due to a limited membership forced it to go out of business. The building was rented for some years and later purchased by L. Herring & Sons Orchards. Today it is operated as a cold storage owned by Hudson River Fruit Distributors of Milton, NY. Fruit went to market from the West Shore Station at Ulster Park and then by boat.

1921 – Electricity produced at Central Hudson’s hydro-electric plant in Rifton becomes available in the town. The first radios in Port Ewen owned by Charles W. Card.

1922 – The first bridge connecting Port Ewen with Rondout (Kingston) is opened. It is a suspension bridge and remains today.

1928 – Street lights installation begins.
1930 – High-pressure gas available along 9W through pipelines from Kingston and Poughkeepsie. WPA projects in the Town of Esopus help put men to work – paving roads, planting fruit trees etc.

1938 – Port Ewen Water System begins service from wells along Clay Road.
1944 – Morgan Everson’s home in Sleightsburg is demolished by Donald Terpening

1946 – Natural Gas becomes available by pipeline from Texas and Louisiana.

1949 – First television is received in Port Ewen.
1950s – George Van Aken builds houses in May Park & Freerville (Lily Lane & Lake View Terrace)

1953 – The Port Ewen School opens on Clay Road. It is later named Mt. View School and finally, in 1978, it is named the Robert Graves School in honor of its long-time principal.

1954 – WKNY operates the first television station in the area on the present site of the Time Warner Cable. (Timer warner cable is taken over by Charter communications in 2016, changing the name of the company from TWC to Spectrum)

1958 – Dr. George W. Ross donates land for Ross Park in Port Ewen.
1963 – The Port Ewen Water District opens a water purification plant drawing water from the Hudson River along River Road. The town landfill is opened on Floyd Ackert Road in West Park.

1965 – The Low Dutch Church of Klyne Esopus is closed by the Mid-Hudson Classis.
1970 – Approximately 7500 residents live in the Town of Esopus

1972 – Kingston Cablevision begins service.

1974 – George Freer Park (pictured at left) is opened on the river and two mini-parks are opened in Connolly and St. Remy.

1975 – A Town of Esopus Police department is organized.

1976 – The 118 year-old Port Ewen Methodist Church is destroyed by an arsonist.

1978 – The Methodist Church is rebuilt on the site of the previous church.

1979 – The Port Ewen Sewer System is constructed. The John Loughran Bridge is opened between Port Ewen and Flatbush Road. It connects 9W to the Town of Ulster by way of the Frank Koenig Highway. Construction of the highway divides communities and results in the destruction of areas of Sleightsburgh, Port Ewen, Rondout and East Kingston.
1980 – The Town of Esopus Police Department is disbanded and patrol of the Town is assumed by the Ulster County Sheriff’s Department.

1983 – The Town of Esopus Volunteer Ambulance Service (TEVAS) begins.

1986 – The Klyne Esopus Historical Society Museum in Ulster Park opens to the public in the preserved former Klyne Esopus Reformed Church.
2000 to Present – Construction/Renovation boom in the Town of Esopus as evidenced by the large number of Building Permits filed with the town. Significant development changes the town and results in the demolition of many old buildings that are replaced by new, homogenized construction. The population in the Town of Esopus increases from 1970s (4500 ppl) to 2010s (9500 ppl.)