Name/Title
100th anniversary Bull PicnicEntry/Object ID
000535Tags
Bull PicnicScope and Content
Famed Bull Family Celebrates
100 Years at Hamptonburgh
HAMPTONBURGH - Four-hundred members of the famed
Bull Family of Orange County gathered for an annual get-together last Saturday. They communed for the 100th time, the 100th anniversary. They
are Orange County’s first family. The celebration marked the
wedding of Sarah Wells and William, first to settle in
Orange County. Their home was the scene of the celebration
at Hamptonburgh. One of the most well-known
members of the Bull Family is Mrs. Amy Bull Crist,
Orange County school superintendent.
Mrs. Crist said the attendance of the 100th anniversary
of the Bull Family far exceeded any other picnic held in the
past decade. Entertainment at the reunion
centered around a pageant depicting the history of the Bull
family. Over 200 participated in the six scenes which dramatized the first picnic and subsequent picnics. When the Bull Family bought
the 185 acres and the buildings at the Old Stone House Farm
in 1921, Mrs. Crist said it was necessary to have a mortgage.
The original was burned in 1929. Mrs. Margery Bull Jackson of
Middletown; Mrs. Frances Roe and Mrs. Lillian Bull Wait of
Newburgh, who were participants in 1929, used the same
candle and candlestick in the pageant on Saturday, August
26th. The 1868 picnic was planned to raise money to purchase a monument to replace the common field stones which marked the
burying place of William Bull and Sarah Wells. The arrangements for the first picnic were made by the eight sisters who were residing in the Bull Stone
House at that time. Mrs. Crist, and those participating in the pageant, were
dressed in costumes in keeping with those worn a century ago.
A heavy rain failed to dampen the spirits or the ruggedness of
the Bull family, the first to settle in Orange County.
Brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts - all related to
the Bull Family enjoyed a bountiful picnic of home made
goodies - fried chicken, salads and desserts, including a cake
made from a recipe concocted by “Grandma Bull”.
[Bottom Left Newspaper Clipping]
[Image: Four individuals standing outdoors in front of a stone building structure.]
CLOSE TO 350 DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM BULL AND SARAH WELLS gathered Saturday for their Annual Picnic and Meeting on the Sarah Wells Trail. William Bull and Sarah Wells were the first white man and woman married in Orange County, and their descendants have been meeting since 1868. Shown above is Amy Bull Crist, co-chairman of the 100th Anniversary Picnic to be held in 1967; Margery Bull Jackson, chairman of the Reception Committee; Mrs. Emma McWhorter, secretary of the William Bull and Sarah Wells Association; and Henry Parry, Jr., chairman of the meeting and a
member of the Board of Managers of the William Bull and Sarah Wells Association. They stand before the house purchased in 1722 by the Association and converted into a war memorial. Four directors of the Board of Managers were elected at Saturday’s meeting. They were - Charles
W. Slaughter of Chester, N.Y., Eleanor Dickerson Hoppensted of Gardener, N.Y., Henry Parry Jr. of Highland Falls and John Sanford III of Warwick.
The youngest in attendance was Jennifer Ann Bastiano (16 days) and the oldest was Silas Patterson (93), a resident of Monroe N.Y. One member of the family Robert G. Bull III, currently in the Air Force,
was home from Saigon, Viet Nam. There are over 2800 on the mailing list of the William Bull and Sarah Wells Association.
[Bottom Right Newspaper Clipping]
8 Monday, August 29, 1966 THE TIMES HERALD RECORD
[Image: Three women and a baby; one woman holds a model house, another looks down at the baby held by an elderly woman.]
--TH-Record photo by Fred Germain
Gathering of the clan
One of the eldest greeted one of the youngest Saturday at the 99th Bull family picnic. Miss Nellie Bull, 91, of Newburgh charms 27-day-old Sarah Dru Metcalf of Brandford, Conn. Sarah’s mother, Mrs. John Metcalf, center, and Mrs. Amy Bull Crist look on. More than 300 descendants
of William Bull and Sarah Wells attended the picnic at the historic “Bull Stone
House, built in 1722, at Hamptonburgh.