Rockland County, New York Genealogical Records Information

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Rockland County History and Information

Rockland County Facts

Rockland County was created in 1798 and formed from Orange County . Rockland County was named for the early settlers' description of the local terrain as "rocky land" and the County Seat is New City. See also Extended History for more historical details.

The Rockland County Courthouse is located at 11 New Hempstead Road, New City , NY 10956; 845-638-5100 and the Official County Website is located at http://www.co.rockland.ny.us/.

Rockland County Borders Orange County (northwest/north), Putnam County, across the Hudson River (northeast), Westchester County, across the Hudson River (east), Bergen County, New Jersey (south), Passaic County, New Jersey (west) .

Rockland County Municipalities: Towns include Clarkstown, Haverstraw, Orangetown, Ramapo, Stony Point. Villages include Airmont, Chestnut Ridge, Grand View-on-Hudson, Haverstraw, Hillburn, Kaser, Montebello, New Hempstead, New Square, Nyack, Piermont, Pomona, Sloatsburg, South Nyack, Spring Valley, Suffern, Upper Nyack, Wesley Hills, West Haverstraw. Communities include Bardonia, Blauvelt, Central Nyack, Congers, Garnerville, Grassy Point, Hillcrest, Jones Point, Ladentown, Monsey, Mount Ivy, Nanuet, New City, Orangeburg, Palisades, Pearl River, Sparkill, Stony Point, Tappan, Thiells, Tomkins Cove, Valley Cottage, Viola, West Nyack . Town Clerks are responsible for vast amounts of local information from deeds, property transfers, and genealogical materials. Research on place and road names, the history of property transfers and much more are available through your Town Clerk. They are a tremendous resources.

Rockland County, New York History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.

There are free downloadable and printable forms to help with your research. These include U.S. Census Extraction Forms, U.K. Census Extraction Forms, Research Calendar, Ancestral Chart, Research Extract, Correspondence Record , Family Group Sheet , Source Summary Form.

Rockland County Court Records

See Also New York Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information.

Rockland County Clerk has Land & Court Records from 1798 and is located at 1 South Main Str, Ste 100, New City, New York 10956-3549; (845)638-5070, FAX (845)638-5647, [EMAIL] .
The county clerk is the keeper of most civil and criminal trial court records for Supreme Court and County Court, naturalizations, marriages (1908–35), censuses (Some county clerks' offices hold duplicate copies of some of the State censuses taken periodically between 1825 and 1925 and copies of the federal census), as well as deeds and mortgages.

Land conveyances (deeds and mortgages) are recorded in the county clerks' offices or in the New York City Register's Office. Recording of deeds became mandatory statewide in 1840. Before that many deeds were not recorded.
Marriages Prior to 1784 couples intending to marry were required to obtain licenses from and file bonds with the provincial secretary, if the impending marriage was not announced in a church. These Marriage Bonds were mostly destroyed in the 1911 Capitol fire. Published abstracts are available in Names of persons for whom marriage licenses were issued by the secretary of the province of New York, previous to 1784. (Albany: 1860; repr. with supplements 1984); and in New York Marriage Bonds, 1753-1783, comp. Kenneth Scott (New York: 1972).
Naturalization records are created by the Federal and State courts. State court naturalization records generally remain in custody of the county clerks. Older Federal court naturalization records have been transferred to the National Archives. Photocopies of naturalization documents and indexes for New York City for the period 1792-1906 (both Federal and State courts) are held by the National Archives--Northeast Region, 201 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014.

Rockland County Surrogate Court Clerk has Probate Records from 1798 and is located at 1 South Main Street, New City, NY 10956; Ph: (845) 638-5330 .
The Surrogate's Court in each county generally has records dating back to the establishment of the county or 1787, whichever was later. Record keeping was systematized by an 1830 statute. Surrogate's Courts maintain records of wills, letters testamentary, letters of administration, orders and decrees, and appointments of guardians; and filed papers, including original wills, petitions for probate (gives date of death and lists next of kin), performance bonds, property inventories (seldom found after ca. 1900), administrator's or executor's accountings, etc. Surrogate's Courts create comprehensive indexes to records and files.

In recent decades many courts have ceased recording documents in books and substituted microfilm recording. Some courts have disposed of old property inventories, which have no continuing legal value. Most Surrogate's Court records are retained permanently because they may document title to real property or the legal status of individuals. Surrogate's Court records statewide occupy over 200,000 cubic feet, with over half a million record retrievals yearly. The court is authorized to charge substantial fees for records searches conducted by court staff. Prior to that time most estates were handled in New York City, the capital until 1797. Before 1787, some wills were recorded in the counties and occasionally in town records.

Click Here to Search New York Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records! - Researchers often overlook the importance of court records, probate records, and land records as a source of family history information.

Rockland County Historian is located at 12 Ashwood Lane, Garnerville, NY10923 .In New York State, every municipality (town, city, village, county) must have an appointed historian. Most of the towns have their own historians as well and each can be contacted. A county historian may be appointed for each county, check for availability.

Below is a list of online resources for Rockland County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Rockland County Court Records by clicking the link below:

New York Wills, 1626-1836: This database is a collection of New York citizens' wills from 1626 to 1836 that were recorded in the office of the clerk of the court of appeals, of the county clerk of Albany and of the secretary of state.
Soundex Index to Petitions for Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906: NARA M1674. The Soundex index to naturalization petitions filed in federal, state, and local courts in New York City, including New York, Kings, Queens and Richmond counties, 1792-1906.
Index to the Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Jul 1865-Sep 1906: NARA M1164. A card index to naturalization petitions filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York from July 1865 through September 1906
Index to the Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1906-Nov 1925: NARA M1164. A card index to naturalization petitions filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York from October 1907 through November 1925.
Index to the Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1865-1957: NARA M1164. A card index to naturalization petitions filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York from November 1925 through December 1957.
Alphabetical Index to Declarations of Intention of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1917-1950: NARA M1675. Alphabetical Index to Declarations of Intention of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1917-1950
Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalization of the US District Court [and Circuit Court] for the Southern District of New York, 1824-1941: NARA M1676. Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalization of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1824-1941.
Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalizations of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, 1907-1966: NARA M1677. Alphabetical Index to Petitions for Naturalizations of the US District Court for the Western District of New York, 1907-1966
Rockland County, New York Court Books at Amazon.com
New York Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.

Rockland County Vital Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Scattered town and precinct tax records for a few years in the 1770s and 1780s and nearly complete lists for the whole state, 1799-1804, are at the New York State Archives, although for the latter period the surviving 1804 rolls cover only delinquent taxes of nonresidents. New York City tax records are at the Municipal Archives. Some early assessment rolls have been published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, such as those for New York City, 1730, in volume 95; New Rochelle, 1767, in volume 107; and Ulster County, 1709-21, in volume 62. See also volumes 43-44 of the New-York Historical Society's Collections for New York City assessments 1695-99. A few counties such as Ontario have retained their early tax records, but most do not have them until about 1850 or even later. Many old tax lists are to be found in manuscript collections. Dutchess County is fortunate to have a long series of eighteenth century tax records. Some of the 1798 U.S. Direct Tax records survive for New York.

Below is a list of online resources for Rockland County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Rockland County Tax Records by clicking the link below:

Rockland County, New York Tax Books at Amazon.com

Rockland County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other New York Genealogical Addresses

The Repositories in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be more generalized and over look the smaller details that local societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy section and may have some resources that are not located at archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All these places are vitally important to the family genealogist and must not be passed over.

Below is a list of online resources for Rockland County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Rockland County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:

Rockland County Archives Building, Building S, Sanatorium Road, Pomona, New York 10970
Telephone (845)364-3670, FAX (845)364-3671, [EMAIL]
Local New York Researchers, Find a local researcher or become a local researcher.
New York State Archives and Records Administration, The State Education Department, Cultural Education Center, 11th Floor; Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230; (518) 474-8955, [EMAIL]
Referred to here as the New York State Archives for brevity, it was the last such archives to be established in the United States. It houses land and court records, military and tax records, New York state vital records indexes, pre-settlement survey maps, and legislative records.
New York State Library, Cultural Education Center, 7th Floor, Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230; The state library has a large collection of published and manuscript material on New York, including genealogies and local histories, federal and state censuses, city directories, and periodicals. It is also one of the two depositories for the State of New York DAR collection.
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 122 East 58^th Street, New York, New York 10022-1939; 212-755-8532, Fax: 212-754-4218; A private society, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society publishes the NYG&B Newsletter and a quarterly, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Its library holds much New York State and related material, both for New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. For New York there are censuses, federal and state; a large manuscript collection of church, cemetery, Bible, and other records; and an extensive amount of published family and local histories. Nonmembers can use the library for a small fee, but only members have access to the stacks, manuscripts, and microforms. The library provides a list of area researchers.
New York State Historical Association, West Lake Road, P.O. Box 800, Cooperstown, New York, 13326-0800
National Archives--Northeast Region, 201 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014.
New York Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
New York Genealogical Society Books at Amazon.com

Rockland County Church & Cemeteries

Click Here to Search New York Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.

There are many churches and cemeteries in Rockland County. Some transcriptions are online. A great site is the Rockland County Tombstone Transcription Project.

Many church records, mostly early and particularly for Long Island, New York City, and the Hudson River Valley, have been published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record with a large collection of unpublished records maintained by the New York. Particularly useful as vital records substitutes among the surviving New York church records are those of the Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, and Quaker groups.

The largest number of New York cemetery records (the bulk of which are actually transcriptions of cemetery marker inscriptions) is found in the multivolume collection of the Daughters of the American Revolution in the State of New York, Church, and Town Records, located at the New York State Library, the New York Public Library, and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C. Scattered volumes are found in other libraries including many local libraries in the area in which a particular cemetery is located.

Below is a list of online resources for Rockland County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Rockland County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Click Here to Search New York Family Tree Records! - The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Rockland County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Rockland County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

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Rockland County, New York Family Books at Amazon.com

County History

Twenty years after the Dutch had founded the colony of New Amsterdam, 1640, the first settlement was made in the present County of Rockland by a Captain De Vries. At Tappan, on the meadows south of Piermont on the Hudson, where an entering creek gave promise of being useful for mill sites, De Vries purchased an acreage from the Indians and established Vriesland. De Vries had already been the recipient, with others, of a land grant in Delaware, 1629; in 1639 had purchased property on Staten Island, and colonized it. He was a man of prominence among the Dutch, and venerated by the Indians. But even his influence with the Indians was not enough to prevent the destruction of the first of the Rockland settlements by the tribes, when once they were aroused to vengeance by the injustice of the whites of New Amsterdam. The Indians remained in control of the Rockland area until well after 1700. Practically all of the patents secured by various persons, including the De Harte, Jenson, Orangetown, Quaspeck, Kakait and Wawayanda tracts, dating from 1666 to 1703, were all purchased from the various tribes who held the lands.

Probably the greater part of the lands secured by the whites in the Rockland District were acquired for speculation by men who never saw their property, or did anything to secure the development of it. Proximity to the thriving village of New Amsterdam, which by 1680 had given every assurance of permanency, freedom from the fear of Indian depredations, the ease with which the Indians parted with great areas for the equivalent of a few dollars, all tended to place the region in the hands of those who bought only to sell at a profit. This resulted in the late and meagre settlement of the section. Orange County, from which Rockland was formed later, was a wilderness with hardly a person residing within its bound at its erection in 1683. Even ten years later, there were only twenty families in this territory of 823 square miles; in I702, there were 268.

It is likely that the physical conditions of the region had even more to do with the retarded development of a section so near to the future New York. Rockland County, as formed February 23, I798, is a triangle with sides of about twenty miles each, the one to the south resting on the north line of New Jersey; the westerly one joining Orange County; the longer and irregular base bordering the Tappan Zee, or Haverstraw Bay of the Hudson. The south line of the County is only a mile or so above, and opposite the north line of the City of New York. The Ramapo mountains extend along the northern border, the Palisades come in from the South and end at Piermont.

A Brief History of Rockland County - By Thomas F. X. Casey, Rockland County Historian

Rockland County is the smallest county in New York State outside the five boroughs of New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the east, the State of New Jersey on the south and the Ramapo Mountains to the north and west. Although the county consists of only 176 square miles, it is a land rich in history.

To a newcomer, Rockland County may appear to be border-to-border housing developments built over the last 40 years, but its historical roots go back almost 400 years – over 10,000 years, if you include Native American history. Records indicate that the first residents were the Indians of the Delaware or Lenni Lenape nation, who were scattered throughout the county in small tribes.

Henry Hudson is credited as the first European to set eyes on what would become Rockland. In 1609, Hudson, an Englishman under commission to the Dutch East India Company sailed up the river, which would one day bear his name. He anchored in both the Tappan Zee and the widest point in the river, off what is now known as Haverstraw. He mistakenly assumed that he had found the legendary "Northwest Passage" to India, and he continued his voyage upstream to Albany before he realized his mistake and headed for home.

Early attempts to settle the county by the Dutch were generally unsuccessful, and in 1664 they handed over the territory to the English. Yet the Dutch did leave a legacy in place names like Duhderberg, Sparkill and High Tor, as well as a small collection of unique sandstone houses.

In 1686, the Duke of York, later to become King James II of England, established the county system and designated our area Orange County. That county included all of present day Rockland and part of what is now Orange County. In the same year, the town of Orangetown was created which encompassed all of modern Rockland County. The precinct of Haverstraw was established in 1719 when it was separated from Orangetown and permitted to hold its own meetings and elect its own officers. Haverstraw was made a town in 1788, and included the present towns of Clarkstown, Ramapo and Stony Point. Clarkstown and Ramapo became towns in 1791, and it was not until 1865 that Stony Point became a town.

The first half of the 18th Century saw much of the land cleared, homes built, grist and saw mills erected on the numerous small creeks, and general stores opened at Haverstraw and Tappan Slote, present day Piermont. Because of the lack of roads, travel was largely confined to sloops, which made regular trips up and down the river. In 1700, the DeWint House, which still stands, was built in Tappan and later served as George Washington’s headquarters.

In 1691, the first County Courthouse was built in Tappan, but by 1737, the residents of the northern part of the county (modern Orange County), were complaining about the difficulty of attending the county court of Tappan. The Ramapo Mountains were a formidable barrier. As a result of their demands, sessions of the County Court were alternated between Goshen and Tappan. In 1773, a second county courthouse was built in Goshen. In 1774, the county seat was moved to New York City, but in some ways this location was even more inaccessible. At least Tappan could be reached by the river, while access to New City was limited to the poor roads.

By the 1770s, the movement to separate what is now Rockland from greater Orange County was in full swing – a process that was completed in February 1798.

Revolutionary Rockland

During the American Revolution, Rockland became an important crossroads – a vital link between the Northern and Southern colonies, and a scene of conflict and treason.

On July 4, 1774, the people of Orangetown gathered in Yoast Mabie’s House to adopt a series of resolutions that contained the seeds of the great principles which would be later embodied in the Declaration of Independence. The fact that both the Orangetown Resolutions and the Declaration of Independence were adopted on July 4 was a fortuitous coincidence.

There were American fortifications at Sidman’s Fort at Suffern, a blockhouse at Palisades, and larger forts at Stony Point, Bear Mountain and Fort Montgomery. Entire armies and vital supplies passed through Rockland on their way to war. The King’s Ferry in Stony Point and Dobb’s ferry in Palisades linked New York and the southern colonies with New England. King’s Ferry was used by Washington’s Continental Army many times, and in 1781 it carried the French allies on their way to the final battle at Yorktown. In 1775, Dobbs Ferry, run by Molly Sneden, a Tory, carried Martha Washington on her way to Massachusetts to visit her husband.

Two important battles took place in the county – the capture by the British of Fort Clinton at Bear Mountain in October 1777 and the victorious attack by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne’s army on the British fort at Stony Point in July 1779.

There were several small battles in the county when British landing parties attempted to come ashore at Nyack and Haverstraw, only to be beaten back by the local militia.

Rockland County also became famous for the treasonable plot by Benedict Arnold to sell the plans for the fortifications at West Point to the British. His co-conspirator, British Major John Andre, was captured in Tarrytown on his way back to the British lines with the plans. Andre was taken to Tappan where he was tried, found guilty and hanged.

Rockland was also the site of the first formal recognition of the new nation by the British. On May 5, 1783, General Washington received the British Commander, Sir Guy Carleton, at the DeWint House to discuss the terms of the peace treaty. On May 7, Sir Guy received Washington aboard his vessel Perserverance. On this day, the King’s Navy fired its first salute to the flag of the United States of America.

After seven years of war, Rockland County was in a sad state; having been ravaged by British troops, Tories and just plain outlaws. Homes had to be rebuilt and farms restored.

In this period after the war, there were four townships in the old Orange County; Goshen and Cornwall to the north, and Haverstraw and Orangetown to the south. Since Haverstraw and Orangetown had born the brunt of the war, the Supervisors at their annual meetings in 1779 and 1780 voted to decrease the taxes in these towns and increase them in Goshen and Cornwall. This stimulated a movement among northern towns for a separation.

In 1793, residents of the northern towns who wanted a county seat in Goshen began discussions with a group of residents in the Newburgh area. Newburgh was then part of Ulster County and its citizens had to travel 30 miles north to conduct official business. Finally all parties interested in dividing the county came together and the New York Legislature created Rockland County, while also realigning the borders of northern Orange and Ulster Counties. Rockland officially became a county on February 23, 1798.

The Road to Modernization

In the national census of 1800, the total population of the newly created County of Rockland was 6,353.

The town of Ramapo, or Hempstead as it was known until 1829, had the largest number of residents at 1,931. Clarkstown was next with a population of 1,806 followed by Orangetown with 1,337. Haverstraw, which included Stony Point, had 1,229 residents. By this time, Native Americans had virtually disappeared from the county. Slavery existed in a diminished form until 1828.

Improvements in transportation set the pace for development in the first half of the 19th century. Roads were primitive and transporting products from the western end of the county to the Hudson River was very difficult. After legislative approval, it took 17 years to complete the Nyack Turnpike, which connected Nyack to Suffern, where the Orange Turnpike provided the inland route to Albany. Present day Route 59 roughly follows the path of the Nyack Turnpike.

In 1827, steamboat travel debuted from Nyack to New York City, attracting competition from steamboats later built at Haverstraw and Tappan. To facilitate steamboat traffic from Tappan Landing, a road was built over the marshes to the end of a 500-foot pier, which within a few years became the terminus of the Erie Railroad. Eleazor Lord planned a railroad through the Ramapo Pass to serve New York’s southern tier of counties. Work began in 1838, and the 484 miles of track to Dunkirk on Lake Erie were completed in 1851, making it the second-longest railroad in the world. The President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, and the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, along with a score of national and state officials, boarded the train at the Piermont Pier for the first trip.

Although agriculture remained dominant in Rockland County well into the 20th Century, industry saw a gradual growth. Quarries in and around Nyack and in other parts of the county provided stone for many structures outside Rockland as well as in it. Building stone from local quarries went into the old Capitol at Albany, the old Trinity Church in New York, and the first building at Rutgers College.

Large deposits of clay in the Hudson River brought about the beginning of brick manufacturing in Haverstraw in 1771. Haverstraw became the brick-making center of the east in 1817 when James Wood discovered that coal dust could be mixed with clay, reducing the price of the bricks. In 1852, a fresh impetus was added to the industry by Richard VerValen’s invention of the automatic brick machine. The new machine tempered the clay, pressed the malleable clay into molds, and produced bricks of uniform size. For the next 75 years, North Rockland was the source of building materials for the colossal growth of New York City. At one time, the Town of Haverstraw had over 42 brickyards. In January 1906, an entire area, undermined by tunneling below the surface, was engulfed in a landslide of clay, which took 20 lives and destroyed part of the business district. The use of steel and concrete in construction, rather than brick, contributed to the decline of the industry, and the depression of the 1930s struck the final blow.

In Post Revolutionary Rockland, manufacturing was varied. Because of the proximity of iron mines, numerous metal products were made – plows, hoes, railings, nails, machinery, even cannon-balls. Rockland factories made shoes, straw hats, silk and cotton cloth, sulfur matches, and pianos.

Foremost among Rockland’s early industries was J.G. Pierson and Brothers, a large-scale nail manufacturer whose overwhelming success spurred the settlement and development of western Ramapo. While reliable transportation was important to manufacturers such as Pierson, even more essential was water for steam and timber for fuel. The Ramapo Pass offered a plentiful combination of both. For this reason, Pierson relocated his operations in 1795 from New York City to a site along the Orange Turnpike at the base of Torne Mountain.

Pierson immediately set to work on a 120-foot dam across the Ramapo River. By 1813, his Ramapo Works was producing a million pounds of nails annually. The addition of a cotton mill in 1814 nearly doubled the size of the Works, which in 1822 were incorporated under the name "Ramapo Manufacturing Company." With the passing of the Pierson brothers, the Ramapo Works effectively shut down after 1850. During its heydey, however, the Pierson nail factory was a powerful economic stimulus to the region because of its links to existing agricultural and commercial trade.

In the process, Ramapo developed into an agricultural marketplace and a locale for manufacturing innovations. For over a half century, the only school in the county was in Tappan, which was established by the Tappan Reformed Church. The first schoolhouse was built there in 1711 and was used as a school until 1860. The next mention of a school in Rockland County is in the Town of Haverstraw Highway Commissioner’s report in 1796. Schooling in the late 18th and early 19th Century in Rockland County was done in the home or by private schoolmasters in their houses or their pupils’ homes. As compulsory education spread, 34 school districts were established in the county by 1829. They were organized on the general concept that a three-mile-square area with a centrally located school would allow five year olds and older to walk to school.

By the middle of the 19th Century, matters of pubic interest began to receive attention. Debating societies were formed in Haverstraw, Nyack and Nanuet. Halls and "opera houses" were built. Newspapers were established in Nyack and Haverstraw, and a fire in Haverstraw in 1854 brought about the formation of the first volunteer fire company.

Religion also played a prominent part in Rockland’s history. The earliest Dutch Reformed churches, and later the Presbyterian churches, laid the groundwork for other Protestant denominations to flourish in the county. The first Roman Catholic Church In Rockland was St. Peter’s Church in Haverstraw which opened in 1847. Haverstraw was also the site of the congregation of the Sons of Jacob, which completed and dedicated its first temple in 1889.

As in the American Revolution, the men and women of Rockland have served in all of America’s wars. During the war of 1812, Rockland turned out more soldiers in proportion than any other county in the state. Four Union generals and four Medal of Honor recipients lived in Rockland. One of the best kept secrets in the history of the county was the movement of over a million troops through Camp Shanks in Orangetown in World War II.

20th Century Changes

The dawn of the 20th Century saw the beginnings of the decline in the number of farms in Rockland and the gradual rise in industry. For example, the California Perfume Company was founded in Suffern in 1897. Today it’s a major cosmetics company known as Avon.

By the 1920s, Rockland County became home to many artists, writers and stage celebrities. Henry Varnum Poor, the painter and muralist; Maxwell Anderson, the playwright; and Kurt Weil, the composer, all lived on South Mountain Road in New City. Edward Hopper, the world-renowned artist, lived in the county as did actresses Helen Hayes and Katherine Cornell and memorable actor Burgess Meredith.

By 1950, there were fewer than 150 farms left in Rockland. Today that number has been reduced to a handful. In the 1950s, homes were built at a rate of more than a thousand a year. Much of this growth was due to the opening of the Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955 and the completion of the Palisades Interstate Parkway and the Thruway during the same decade. Rockland’s rural character was changed forever.

Among Rockland County’s current qualities are its rich history, its economic scope, its unparalleled parkland and its diversity of population. With these extensive attributes Rockland County is primed for the challenges of the new Century.

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