Name/Title
Aug 1972 Bull Picnic article - Paula Bastiano & Lauren SeacristEntry/Object ID
000850Tags
Bull PicnicScope and Content
14 Advertiser Photo News Thursday, August 31, 1972
Bull family hold reunion
By George Fleming
HAMPTONBURGH -- With a pageant reminiscent of the early 1700’s, a descendant of Sarah Wells and William Bull staged an evening of entertainment for over one hundred relatives near and distant of Orange Counties first citizens.
The Bull Family Stone House occupied by Mitchell and Betty Brown, descendants of the Bulls of course, is like stepping back in to the pre-revolutionary days.
The old four poster bed, the wedding dress worn by Sarah Wells when she married William Bull August 25, 1718. The old stone quarters still there but used for storage space. Cases of brc-a-brac and a collection of old relics that would be the evny of an antique collector and a joy to a museum.
As the old timers tell, Sarah Wells, an orphan was “bound over” to Christopher Denns, a carpenter of Staten Island who was part owner of the original Wawayanda Pageant.
After making a trip to the area which is now Hamptonburgh, Campbell Hall, and Goshen the enverous Denn established a friendly relationship with the indians and asked young eighteen year old Sarah to go to the area and state the first home to be built by white men in the territory.
Being assured of the friendliness of the Indians, Christopher Denn sent his pretty, young change along with two Indians and a pair of carpenters. They set sail in a sloop for New Windsor in May of 1712.
From New Windsor she and her companions traveled on horseback to a river now known as the Otterkill. Covering twenty miles of virgin forest and dense undergrowth in one day.
A wigwam was erected and according to Indian customers Sarah was made to enter first to insure good fortune.
The charm must have worked because while preparing the evening meal the next day the Denns concerned about their young adopted daughter, rode up having traveled up the Ramapo Valley by saddle.
Having built her wigwam the day before Sarah Wells became the first white woman in Orange County and Madame Denn became the second.
In 1716 Daniel Cromline who was making a settlement in the patent was a need of workmen and heard of a ship in port with workmen available. A young stonemason named William Bull was one of those aboard but without sufficient funds, $10 pay for his passage and was informed by the captain that he would be “bound out” to pay for the balance. William was prepared to return to Ireland from whence he came preferring “to be a slave at home rather than be bound in servitude in a heathen land”
Comrline impressed with young William Bulls’ independence paid the balance on his passage.
While living with the Cromlines who were good friends and neighbors of the Denns a romance blossomed between Sarah and William.
As a reward for Sarah’s services to the Denns and members of the company, Denn gave her one hundred acres of land, but William Bull chose land he could call his own taking one hundred acres on the southeast side of Denns property name it Hamptonburgh in horor of the place of his birth, Weaver-Hampton in England. Here he erected a log cabin in about 1719.
Then Bulll and a partner named Gerrard obtained another patent and here Bull built with his own hands the present Bull Family Stone house in 1722 -- It still stands as a monument to his skill and integrity after hwo hundred and fifty years. The old house skane by earthquake and shot by thunder bolts “shall not be moved.”
From the union of William Bull and Sarah Wells came twelve children, five boys and seven girls, and at Sarah’s death in 1796, there were ninety-eight grandchildren, 212 great grand-children and thirteen great-great-grandchildren.
Where else but in America can an orphan girl and an imigrant(sp) boy rise to become the first citizens of Orange County?
Chow and Pow Wow
[handwritten: Paula Bastiano Laurie Seacrist]