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Bull Stone House

1722 establishments in the Province of New YorkHistoric house museums in New York (state)Houses completed in 1722Houses in Orange County, New YorkHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Museums in Orange County, New YorkNational Register of Historic Places in Orange County, New YorkStone houses in New York (state)
Bull Stone House
Bull Stone House

The Bull Stone House is located in the Town of Hamptonburgh, New York. It is a ten-room stone house built in the 1720s by William Bull and Sarah Wells, pioneer settlers of Central Orange County, NY. It is one of the few homes in America still owned and occupied by the same family. The current resident is a ninth generation descendant of the couple. Bull, a stonemason, met and married Wells in the Wawayanda Patent (much of the present day towns of Goshen, Hamptonburgh, Minisink, and Warwick) while they were both working for the patent proprietors. Sarah Wells, an orphan, arrived in the area as the Goshen's first female settler in 1712. She came there to work as an indentured house servant at the age of sixteen. In 1715 Bull arrived in North America from Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England and also came to work on the Wawayanda Patent, where they met. He was the hired mason for Daniel Crommelin, a French immigrant and New York City merchant. Their marriage in 1718, was the first between European settlers in Goshen. Building the house was a joint effort between husband and wife. William bought 100 acres in 1718 adjacent to Christopher Denne's land. Denne was Sarah Wells' master. Eventually, the widow Elizabeth Denne sold 100 acres to William and Sarah's first son, John, when he was just 8 years old. It is family lore that the widow was fulfilling a promise Denne made to Sarah to convince her to act as his land agent in the land claim. The Bull Stone House still stands today and is in the possession of the William Bull and Sarah Wells Stone House Association. When construction began, Sarah carried some of the stones to the site and William cut and laid them, while they lived in a temporary log cabin. It took thirteen years to complete, surviving a 1727 earthquake in the process. (Other sources place the date of the house's construction as 1722 or 1727). The completed building stands 40 feet square (1,600 sq ft (150 m2)) and has walls 2 feet thick.The house was reportedly used as a safe haven during the seven years of the French and Indian War though no known fighting or battle was waged on the property. Sarah and William raised 12 children to adulthood in the house. Each of the children married and had children of their own. William built many stone houses around what is now known as Orange County. In the last year of William's life, 1756, he completed a stone house in New Windsor now called Knox Headquarters, which was the headquarters of several American generals during the American Revolution. Their descendants dispersed within the adjacent region, with the houses of Thomas (now a county museum) and William III also on the National Register. The family has lent its name to the hamlet of Bullville and Thomas Bull Memorial Park. Sarah Wells survived William Bull, who died in 1755–56. She remarried Johannes Miller sometime between 1756 and 1769, but separated from him in 1770. She moved back to her Stone House, where she died at the age of 100 years and 15 days, leaving 335 direct descendants. The county government has renamed Orange County Route 8, near the house, to Sarah Wells Trail, in her honor. The local Girl Scouts council was named for her as well.Both Sarah and William are buried on the property next to Hamptonburgh Cemetery on Sarah Wells Trail. The house and surrounding property have remained in the Bull family's ownership. In 1920 the family incorporated as an association of descendants. Today a ninth-generation descendant lives at the house as the resident family caretaker. Tours are available for the general public for a small fee. Descendants from all over the United States have returned to the house every year since 1868 for a family reunion. The house has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1974. The 120-acre (49 ha) William Bull and Sarah Wells homestead boasts another historical structure of significance, a New World Dutch barn.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Bull Stone House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Bull Stone House
Sarah Wells Trail,

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N 41.430833333333 ° E -74.2625 °
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Sarah Wells Trail 183
10916
New York, United States
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Bull Stone House
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William Bull III House
William Bull III House

The William Bull III House is on a hill overlooking the Wallkill River in the Town of Wallkill in Orange County, New York. It was built by Bull, who was the grandson of early settlers Sarah Wells and William Bull, sometime in the 1780s. William Bull III was a lieutenant in the American Revolution under Col. Oliver Spencer and was at Valley Forge. He received a brevet commission for merit from Lord Sterling after the Battle of Monmouth. Bull and his son William IV, on returning home in 1781 from serving with Gen. George Washington's campaign against the British, had been impressed with the buildings of Baltimore and other Atlantic seaports visited during his military service. The name "Brick Castle" is shared among a few early brick homes constructed in the area around the same time. Bull decided upon arriving home to build a brick homestead. Bull's grandfather built many stone houses through the area including Knox Headquarters in Vails Gate in 1756. It is possible that the elder Bull also contributed to construction of is Gen. Washington's headquarters at Newburgh, NY. The Bull Stone House, which the elder Bull began to build in 1722 and took 13 years to complete, still stands today and is owned and occupied by his descendants. Most of the materials for Bull's Brick Castle were taken from the land around the farm, including the clay. Ostensibly the brick kilns were built on site, but remains have to yet to be recovered. A New York State Historical Register sign on the site states that the building was constructed "for a price of $800.00." This statement has never been verified, nor what construction costs it actually covered. The original homestead was a timber cabin with stone foundations. No portions of the original structure are visible. William Bull's descendants were dairy farmers, and the property was maintained as a dairy farm until 1964. Only one other historic structure, an 1830s carriage house, remains on the property. The other outbuildings were destroyed in by fire in 1964. Six generations of the family have lived there, and it remains a private residence for Bull's descendants today.It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 25, 1986.

Chester Academy

Chester Academy is a public secondary school located in Chester, New York, United States. Their mascot is the Hambletonian, after Hambletonian 10, a famed harness racing horse that is an ancestor of nearly every Standardbred horse in the United States. The school's colors are orange and blue and . Chester Academy is a recently built school, with construction starting in 2002. Students moved into the school from Chester Junior/Senior High School, located about 0.741 miles away, in 2004. There are three floors. The school offers a variety of sports at different levels: football, soccer, baseball, cheerleading, Wrestling and basketball at varsity and junior varsity levels, as well as a varsity track and cross country team. They also have volleyball as of 2015. In 2012, Chester Academy was the first school in Hudson Valley to send home 1-to-1 Google Chromebooks with its students under a plan from K-12 Director of Instruction & Technology / Data Administrator Edward A. Spence. In 2014, Chester UFSD was awards an "Innovative Schools" annual award from NYSSBA. The district has since had ten different school districts visit Chester Academy to share best practices with Mr. Spence, teachers and students regarding their award-winning 1-to-1 Chromebook Instruction Plan. Take-home 1-to-1 Chromebooks have since become the de facto standard for school districts. The name of the school changed from Chester Jr/Sr High School to Chester Academy in May 2004 when students and faculty were moved from the original Maple Avenue school building to the new building on Hambletonian Avenue. Chester Jr/Sr High School housed students grades 7–12, and was changed to accommodate students grades 6–12 in the Chester Academy. The school building is separated into a junior high school wing and a high school wing. Chester Academy is also home to an Orange-Ulster BOCES Special Education wing. One memorable event in the school's history was a school shooting scare in 2018. A BOCES student made a 911 call claiming that a man with a gun was in the building. What ensued was a three-hour lockdown as SWAT members swept each room of the building. Other schools in the area had a lockout, and once the truth was uncovered, no charges were pressed on the student.