Before Unionville: From Settlers to a Village.

The Wawayanda Patent of March 5, 1703 brought more than 150,000 acres—including the lands of the present day village of Unionville and townships of Minisink, Greenville, and Wawayanda—into the ownership of the Colony of New York. The governor of New York and New Jersey at that time, Lord Cornbury, then granted the land to twelve patentees. An additional man was soon added to the list and on September 23, 1706, the land was divided up among them into various divisions and lots. The area that later became Unionville fell within lots 11 and 12 of the First West Division of the Wawayanda Patent. Lot 11 was granted to Henry Ten Eyck and constituted 1233 acres and Lot 12 was granted to John Merrit and constituted another 1233 acres. These lots stretched across Unionville and went West-Northwest through Minisink and Greenville. Settlement of the Wawayanda Patent occurred slowly at first. While some settled on Wawayanda Patent lands as early as 1712 (Christopher Denn near Goshen, and Johannes Wisner near Edenville), it was some decades later before anyone settled within even a couple miles of what would become Unionville.

In the first decades of settlement of the area (1750 – 1790) each came to farm their own lands; there was no village yet at Unionville. Many of the earliest settlers near Unionville are seen on the 1754 Survey Map of Richard Gardiner. Gardiner had been hired in 1746 as a surveyor by the board of the Proprietors of the Eastern Division of New Jersey, a corporation which owned nearly half of the lands of New Jersey. Gardiner’s task was to survey the lands along the Wallkill River and its branches, and to execute land leases from settlers in the area.¹ He continued in that work to 1763.

Settlers near Unionville on Gardiner’s map include Jacob Middag², Thomas Schoonover³, Benjamin Sutton⁴, James Bill⁵, Ruben Knapp⁶, Benjamin Forgerson⁷, Uryah Forgerson⁸, and Benjamin Knapp.⁹ These men generally settled along the waterways; Rutgers Creek and other tributaries of the Wallkill River, but none of them actually settled within the bounds of present Unionville. The first to settle on lands that are now at least in part within the village limits were George Kimber who bought land in 1759¹⁰ and James Clark who bought land in 1762.¹¹

Many of the first settlers including Richard Gardiner, George Kimber, James Clark, Benjamin Forgerson, and others acquired their lands from the Board of Proprietors of the Eastern Division of New Jersey and likely considered themselves to be residents of that colony, and not of the Colony of New York.

Indeed the Colony of New Jersey in those days claimed the boundary between the two colonies was further north than the modern line. When the Colony of New Jersey was established in 1664, maps were consulted and its northern border with New York was declared to be a straight line from the “assumed northernmost branch” of the Delaware River at 41 degrees and 40 minutes north latitude to the Hudson River at 41 degrees North latitude. The point on the Hudson was easily established, but in regards to the point on the Delaware the maps were in error; there was no branch at that latitude. The boundary line then depended on where one put its location on the Delaware River, and as one writer has said, “the determination of this spot caused a hundred-year contest.”¹²

Many of the earliest settlers along the border only leased the land rather than risking a purchase of land, which could be lost if the border changed position. In leasing out the land the Proprietors thus could claim the land was occupied by New Jersey residents, even without permanent owners present. Even so, settlement along the border region was likely delayed because of the uncertainty of the property titles.

The beginning of the end of the boundary dispute occurred in 1769 when a royal commission was set up by King George III. The commissioners met and declared the contested boundary point along the Delaware River not to be at 41 degrees and 40 minutes on the Delaware since there was no branch there, but instead at a point at the “Fork or Branch formed by the Junction of the Stream of Water called Machackamack [today’s Neversink] with the River called Delaware or Fishkill, in the Latitude of of forty-one Degrees, twenty-one Minutes, and thirty-seven Seconds..”¹³

While waiting for the King’s final approval of the commission’s work, and to avoid mass evictions and economic ruin for the settlers along the borderlands, each of the two colonies passed laws to confirm the property titles of existing peaceful settlers, legally validating old deeds regardless of which colony originally issued them. First, on February 16, 1771, New York passed “An Act for establishing the Boundary or Partition Line between the Colonies of New York and Nova Caesarea or New Jersey, and for confirming Titles and Possessions.¹⁴ It was noted, however, that “This act not of force until an act similar to this is passed by the Legislature of New Jersey, not until both acts were confirmed by the king.”¹⁵ Soon thereafter, on September 26, 1772, New Jersey passed a reciprocal law of the same title as New York.¹⁶

These legislative acts explicitly named individual properties and owners living along the border area.¹⁷ By cataloging who actually lived on the land, the commissioners prevented wealthy land speculators from using the new border to execute mass evictions or claim pre-existing farms. It was noted in the New York law for example: “AND WHEREAS it is conceived just and equitable that the present Possessors of the said Lands on each Side of the said Partition Line, who have not only purchased the same for a valuable Consideration, but many of them have laid out all their Substance in the Improvement therefore should be secured in the Enjoyment and the Fruits of their Labour and Industry.”¹⁸

Finally on September 1, 1773 King George III approved the decision of the boundary commission, settling the border where it remains today.

Settlement of the area really took off after the boundary was settled. In addition to the various settlers mentioned above (who officially became residents of New York), by the 1770s there were a number who had settled just over the border in New Jersey including the Crowell’s¹⁹ (Samuel, John, Joel, Joseph), Stephen Mead²⁰, Joseph Barton²¹ (who joined the Loyalists in the Revolution), Michael Crossman²², Benjamin Van Fleet²³, Samuel Meeker²⁴ and his brother Nathaniel Meeker²⁵, and Frederick Hayne²⁶.

Further settlement occurred in the decades ahead, but there was nothing that could be called a village at Unionville until the 1790s. The earliest sign of anything approximating a village at Unionville is found in the existence of Henry Tucker’s store. The first reference to “Henry Tucker’s Store” is in 1790 in the Sussex County, NJ road book where it is mentioned relative to a new public road being laid out.²⁷ The store is mentioned again in the Goshen Repository when in October 9, 1793 Tucker placed an ad for selling fifteen acres of his land “nearly adjoining the subscribers store.” The store was in operation until at least 1807²⁸, and Tucker was active in the area through at least 1822.²⁹

References to other residents in the village are scarce, but in 1803 we have three men noted at a meeting for the establishment of a church. They are Lt. James Clark, Richard Whitaker, and Samuel Van Fleet. Clark technically lived just outside of the present village limits and Van Fleet lived just over the border in Wantage (on today’s Quarry Rd.), but Whitaker probably lived directly in the village.³⁰

The Whitaker name goes back even earlier in the area. John Whitaker was in Minisink by the time of the first town meeting in 1789.³¹ Both Richard Whitaker and John Whitaker are on the 1790 Minsink Census. Then, on June 24th, 1793 Richard Whitaker of Minsink placed an advertisement in the newspaper which read:

“STOP THIEF. Stolen out of the house of the subscriber on the night of 22d instant, one new rorum hat, one bandanno handkerchief, and one pair of worked stockings, and perhaps other articles taken that is not yet missed, supposed to be stolen by a traveller who put up at the subscribers, who called his name ELLIT, about thirty years of age, five feet nine or ten inches high, dark complexion, dark eyes, long black hair; had on when he went away a white vest, fine shirt, and white overalls.”

Additional information on the Whitaker family is found in another history which states: “John ‘Whitaker died in 1742 [sic, 1792] 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 yet 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 Wawayanda at or about the same time.”³² Richard Whitaker was living in Unionville until at least 1827 as he was noted in a deed of properties sold to his son Samuel Whitaker in that year.³³

The historian Ruttenber provided additional names of some of earliest residents of the area in a list of those connected with the Unionville School district in 1813:

Widow Elizabeth Wisner, Increase Mather, Samuel Kimber, Abraham Clark, George Kimber, Joseph Hildreth, Nathaniel Chandler, Theodore H. Pierson³⁴, Heman Allen, Squire Lee, Sylvester Austin³⁵, Richard Whitaker, Peter Ayres, David Wright, Isaac Popino, Levi Moore, Martin Mires, John Hammet, Ephraim Ferguson, Widow Mary Bennet, Henry Brown, Joshua Case, Widow Esther Case, Jonathan Clark, James Clark, James Clark, Jr., Leonard Middaugh, James Gland, Jonathan Casterline, David Christie, Widow Sarah Wilson, Widow Eunice Beers, Isaac Van Houston, Widow Catherine Clark, James Kimber, Widow Sarah Clark.

Thus all of these families arrived before Unionville took its present name in 1823.

For those who might further research the history of Unionville before it became Unionville, you ought to know the name which the area had in the earliest year.

From the earliest known times it was part of the Lenape territory. It became part of New Netherlands until 1664, but likely did not see few if any Dutchmen in that period being as it was in the hinterlands of the colony. From 1664 the area is part of New York, and from 1683 part of Orange County. In 1703 the lands were part of the Wawayanda Patent, and from 1714 to 1788 the part of Goshen Precinct (at some point being designated as part of District No. 6 of that precinct). From March 7, 1788 forward the area is part of the Town of Minisink. From 1790 to 1820 it may have been referred to as Tucker’s Store, and about the same years it was known as Westtown. Only in 1823 did Unionville take its present name, and in 1871 was it incorporated as a village.