Name/Title
Newspaper clipping Aug 6, 1938 Brick Castle "Middletown Times Herald"Entry/Object ID
001171Tags
Bartow W Bull, William Bull, Hamptonburgh, Ebenezer BullScope and Content
Aug 6, 1938
Middletown Times Herald
Grandson of William and Sarah Built His House of Brick
The home of Bartow Bull near Crystal Run is unique among the many Bull homesteads in Orange County. It is of brick instead of stone construction. Captain William Bull, grandson of William and Sarah, who was promoted to the captaincy during that discouraging Winter with Washington at Valley Forge, exemplified his faith in the new nation by undertaking construction immediately after his return from the war. Up to then the family of his father, also William, had occupied a log house just across the road. Bartow Bull turned up debris from that early fireplace when he plowed the field this Spring. Captain William and his helpers made the brick for the new house themselves, and their refuse pile, now a grass covered mound, still is noticeable near the present home of Ebenezer Bull. They made not only enough brick for the staunch outer walls, four bricks thick and three stories high, but enough for every partition, closets included, in the fourteen or fifteen room house. The cost of construction was recorded as $800. A balcony in the attic and slave quarters in the cellar are like attic and cellar of the original Bull house in Hamptonburgh, but except for its bricks the home of the third William is almost an exact duplicate of the slightly older house of his uncle Thomas Bull just across the Wallkill. Like that, too, it tops a high ridge and faces South along a pleasant valley. The broad southern exposure is characteristic of Bull houses. Bartow Bull, sixth generation from the builder, is the first owner of the house not to bear the name of William.
Photo by Seese.