Name/Title
Aug 27, 1972 Bull Picnic pg 12 "The Times Herald Record Sunday edition"Entry/Object ID
000842Tags
Bull PicnicScope and Content
TYPE: Newspaper article and photo
DESCRIPTION: Newspaper article accompanied by photo of five participants of “Bull familygathering” From the article, we can infer that two of these participants are William Bull Brown and his niece, Michelle Brown, dressed as William Bull and Sarah Wells, mixing mortar for a pageant at the picnic.
TRANSCRIPTION: August 27, 1972 SUNDAY RECORD
HAMPTONBURGH
Orange County came home Saturday and had a bang-up American festival.
It was the 105th consecutive August that the Bull family had a picnic. But what made Saturday special was the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the building of the Bull stone house and barn, the two earliest area structures in existence built by white settlers.
There is a saying that “every second or third Orange County native came out of the Bull family.” And there might be some truth to this, because when Sarah Wells Bull died in 1796 she had 98 grandchildren, and 212 great grandchildren.
Sarah came down the Hudson and married William Bull 254 years ago. Together, they built the plain but imposing stone house in Hamptonburgh.
Tribute to the first white couple to be married in the county was paid by more than 300 descendants; some from as far away as the Dakotas and Oregon.
The first part of the celebration was the gathering of the clan. Each person wore a nametag that also pinpointed the lineage. It was a medley of handshaking, backslapping, kissing, introducing of crying, and sometimes bored children, and a chance to catch up with the news.
At noon, each family unpacked picnic lunches. The usual connotation of lunch, however, doesn’t do justice to the feasts that were spread under the large trees that dot the sloping lawn. Roasted chickens, southern fried chickens, hams pitted with cloves, all kinds of salads, homemade rolls and breads, and desserts.
The calories in evidence beggared description. Fresh peach pies, oozing juice; chocolate cakes topped with vanilla frosting and sprinkled with cocoanut; and dark pecan pies, making crunchy mouthfuls.
The women exchanged recipes and “bites.” The often heard protestation “I’m trying to lose weight” was put aside with “This is Bull Family picnic day. Tomorrow you can go back on the diet.”
After nearly two hours of feasting back and forth at the long tables, Mrs. Amy Bull Crist began the more instructive part of the picnic.
Mrs. Crist is county school superintendent and grew up in the stone house. She is a powerful woman in manner and personality. One of the affectionate jokes relatives said of her Saturday was “Amy must of got up this morning and talked to God and told him not to let it rain, at least until the picnic was over.
“And he listened to her, just like he always does.”
After welcoming everyone, Mrs. Crist’s nephew, Michael K. Brown, who lives in the stone house, and Middletown school teacher James Sorrell, led the family in singing a “Tribute to Sarah Wells” set to the tune of “America” in 1912. Part of the words written by Clara Durland Bull say: “They labored, loved, and gained a homestead, still retained with sacred though. See where the structure stands, built by their able hands, stones from the surrounding lands in her apron brought.”
Mrs. Crist introduced the three speaker: Mrs. Dolly Watkins Booth of Warwick, 84; Mrs. Lillian Bull Wait of Newburgh, 85; and William Bull Cocks of Cornwall-on-Hudson, 86.
They each cited incidents from memory, or culled from research, about the house and the Bull family. Cocks pointed to the house behind him several times and said it was a symbol of “the anchor of stability” the region and the country needs.
William Bull Brown and his niece, Michelle Brown, portrayed William and Sarah in a little pageant of making mortar for building the house. Mortar was brought by several visitors for the mock ceremony.
Children attending the picnic had been asked to come as Indians. They performed a Virginia reel, danced by the Bull children on this same lawn years earlier.