Name/Title
58th Bull Family Annual PicnicEntry/Object ID
002999Tags
William Bull and Sarah Wells Stone House AssociationScope and Content
Caption under the photograph:
Snapshot taken August 25, 1925 in front of the Bull house near Campbell Hall on the occasion of the 58th annual reunion of the Bull family descendants. In this picture Ebenezer Bull stands at the center with his nephew, League Director Harry Bull, at his left.
Echoes of 1700 Resound
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joined with their associates a patent to 15,000 acres of land in Orange county called the Wawayanda patent. Ms. Denn had sent this sixteen-year-old girl into the wilderness to take charge of the erection of a log cabin for their home.
After a journey of twenty miles through the unbroken forests, the party reached the spot chosen, and today by Denn for his home. They made a fire where Sarah slept while the young Indians guarded the camp and listened while the wolves and panthers howled in the distance. The next day the log cabin was built and every one was kept busy from then on cutting trees, plowing and planting. Sarah would deliver the grain to the mill at New Windsor whenever needed. On one trip she was attacked by the wolves and had to stay up a tree till dawn.
Six years later Sarah became acquainted with a young Englishman named William Bull, a stone mason born in Wolverhampton, England, who had been employed on the building of a house at Greycourt, not far distant. These two children of the forests fell in love with each other and the wedding day was set.
William was an Episcopalian and wished to be married with the forms of that church but the question arose as to how the banns were to be published in the absence of a resident rector. They concluded that circumstances altered cases and that three proclamations in due form were as effectual as if made three successive weeks, so the magistrate took up the book of common prayers, proceeded to the front door of the cabin and proclaimed them to the trees. Then he went to the back door and proclaimed them to the cattle and outbuildings and again to the wilderness at large, and William and Sarah were united in holy wedlock.
Four years later in 1722 they built their home which is the stone house now standing, it is a remarkable fact that this house was never molested by the Indians when their aggressions on the other white settlers were the most frequent. Sarah lived there, and she and hers were sacred in the eyes of the children of the wilderness. During the French and Indian wars, which lasted from 1756 to 1763, the Bull stone house was a refuge at night for the inhabitants for miles around.
William Bull died in 1755 and Sarah in 1796. They had twelve children and now the descendants of this noble couple assemble at the old stone house each year in August in commemoration of their worthy ancestors.
Uncle Ab says there's a world of difference in doing somebody well and doing somebody good.