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Marbletown & Stone Ridge

• Town of Marbletown -- Located in the central part of the county, it was one of the original five townships in 1683. Old soldiers of the Indian wars and veterans of the English Army who came in 1664 received grants there from the government in 1670 and settled in a village at what is now called North Marbletown, but soon scattered and took up the outlying land for farms, which in some cases they bought of the Indians.
  The town lands, covering the area of many of these purchases, were granted by Queen Anne to the town trustees, June 25,1703, and were reconveyed by them to settlers. Prices for land at this time were twelve pence an acre for lowland, six pence for upland. It has always been an excellent farming country.
  One hundred eleven slaves were listed in the town in 1755. A remarkably large proportion of the early names, such as Van De Mark, Schoonmaker, Krom, DeWitt, Bogart, Davis, Hardenbergh, Hasbrouck, Roosa are found in town today. Prominent early English families were the Ashfordbys, Gartons, Nottinghams, Pawlings and Brodheads. John Beatty, an Irishman of aristocratic lineage, married Susan Ashfordby and built the first house at Stone Ridge.
  Government by regularly elected town officials began at least as early as 1711. The regulation of matters relating to town property and perhaps some civil administration is recorded from 1703 onward. As in New Paltz and Rochester, the two governing bodies functioned simultaneously.

  The house where the annual town meetings were held for over a hundred years, since long before the Revolution, still stands on the Kingston-Ellenville highway and is thought to be the oldest town house still standing in New York State. It is called the Davis Tavern from its former owner, Isaac Davis, who built it about 1710.
  Stone Ridge is now a delightful village whose historic houses make the main street of great interest. (See elsewhere.) A modern industry, Sally Tock's (Cosmetics), Inc., occupies for its shop a small house over one hundred years old, and has a large mail order business in fine cosmetics, as well as a local one.
  The Shop in the Garden, whose proprietor is Katharine Hasbrouck, of the old Stone Ridge family, is a gift shop of unusual charm in an old stone house once the parsonage of the First Dutch Reformed Church. Tea, with toast, jam and cakes served either next to the shop or in her beautiful garden, is another attraction of the place, which is visited by shoppers from a wide area.
  The Leggett family have been prominent in town since Francis H. Leggett, grandson of Abraham Leggett, a tanner at Mt. Pleasant in Shandaken, bought a large estate there in the 1890s. Educational lecture courses by noted men and women were held every summer at the Leggett Casino for many years, and the family have always held "open house" to the neighborhood. In the summer of 1943, Mrs. Frances Leggett, daughter of Francis H. Leggett, put the inn at the disposal of the British Merchant Navy Committee of New York with complete accommodations for seamen. A number of Swamis from India were also guests on the estate, and lectures on India, with moving pictures, were made available to the residents of Stone Ridge without cost.
  Marbletown has a claim to being the second New York State capital, as the Committee of Safety, representing both branches of the government, met at the Andrew Oliver house in North Marbletown, October 19 to November 18, 1777, on which day it adjourned to Hurley.

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  Each of these sections has many different books on Ulster County
  

• Geographic
  
• Genealogy
  
• Town & County
  
• Colonial
  
• Native American
  
• Hiking/Maps/Nature
  

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