History of Minisink, New York, USA

Inman Walling was a settler. probably 1725-1730, by the Wallkill, east of present Westtown, and John 'Whitaker died in 1742 near where Unionville now is, and had been a resident there, no one knows how long. His will on record in the surrogate's office in Goshen, liber A, page 221, mentions his wife Eve, sons Richard, Peter and John, and daughters Jean and Elizabeth. Their descendants are vet residents of the town and of Sussex County adjoining. Those two families were probably the first permanent ones in this town of Minisink. There were others in the limits of what is now Wawavanda at or about the same time.

There were two Smith families early in the precinct of Minisink. One of them, Benjamin, settled near the present Slate Hill village, and the other on the farm now owned by J. Cadigan near Johnsons, where he kept an inn, the place being known as Smith's Village for at least seventy five years.

Other settlers came in rapidly. William Stenard in 1749; Captain John Wisner from ...

First settled by Europeans around 1725, the jurisdiction was organized by Americans as a town in 1788 following the Revolutionary War. In the following decades, the Town of Minisink lost territory to newer towns: Deer Park (1798), Wawayanda (1849), and Greenville (1853). In 1871, the community of Unionville set itself off from the town by incorporating as a village.
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During the Revolution there were few changes in county matters, but March 7th, 1788, the legislature of the State enacted that subdivisions of counties should be called towns instead of precincts. By that act Orange County was divided into the towns of Haverstraw, Orangetown, Goshen, New Cornwall, Warwick and Minisink, The southern boundary of the latter was the State line of New York and New Jersey,

The town of Minisink under that formation was bounded on the east by the Wallkill River, northeast and north by the town of Wallkill and the Ulster County line around on the northwest to the Delaware River,...

Its territory then covered the three towns, and that house supposed to he the old stone house now in Greenville, on the former Jonathan Van Tuyl farm, later the Hallock house, was a convenient place for the gathering.

The History of Orange County, New York
Edited by: Russel Headley
Published by: Van Deusen and ELms
Middletown, New York, 1908

consisting of Reuben Hopkins, Freegift Tuthill, Benjamin Strong, Stephen Jackson, James Carpenter, D. M, Westcott, "and such other persons as they shall associate with them." The purpose was to build a turnpike road from the State line to Rutger's Kill near the mill of Jones & Vancleft (at Gardnersville). Thence it ran to Pellet's round hill and the Goshen and Minisink turnpike.

The History of Orange County, New York
Edited by: Russel Headley
Published by: Van Deusen and ELms
Middletown, New York, 1908

In 1835, ten years after the town of Calhoun (Mount Hope) had been set off, the remainder of the territory in old Minisink had 4,439 inhabitants, and the present limits of this town about 1,000.

The History of Orange County, New York
Edited by: Russel Headley
Published by: Van Deusen and ELms
Middletown, New York, 1908

In 1850 the town of Wawayanda was taken off, and in 1853 the town of Greenville. In 1855, by the first census after their elimination, this town had a population of 1,295.

Since then its limits have remained unchanged. In 1860 its population was 1,266; in 1865, 1,209, a decrease owing to the civil war; in 1880, 1,360, including the incorporated village of Unionville, which had 316; in 19O5, the last census taken, 1,354, including Unionville, a gain in 50 years of 59, which may be mainly said to be in Unionville.

The History of Orange County, New York
Edited by: Russel Headley
Published by: Van Deusen and ELms
Middletown, New York, 1908

Minisink, a post-township in the W. part of Orange co., N. Y., on the Erie railroad. It has a small village of the same name.