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William Bull III House

Houses completed in 1780Houses in Orange County, New YorkHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)Hudson Valley, New York Registered Historic Place stubsNational Register of Historic Places in Orange County, New York
Wallkill River
William Bull House
William Bull 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.

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

William Bull III House
Bart Bull Road, Town of Wallkill

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.472777777778 ° E -74.286388888889 °
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Bart Bull Road 280
10941 Town of Wallkill
New York, United States
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William Bull House
William Bull House
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Bodine's Bridge
Bodine's Bridge

Bodine's Bridge carries New York State Route 211 across the Wallkill River, a mile (1.6 km) south (west by the highway's signed direction) of the village of Montgomery, New York, United States, near Orange County Airport. At 340 feet (103 m) in length, the steel through truss is the longest bridge along Route 211. The current bridge was built in 2015. Its predecessor dated to 1933, with a reconstruction in 1970. All the bridges at the location have been named after nearby, still-standing Bodine's Tavern, a popular rest stop on the early 19th century Minisink to Montgomery Turnpike, which later became Route 211. The house, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built near a popular ford along the river, which the bridges were built over. Due to the bridge's location in the river's flood plain, it is often closed after heavy rains when its approaches, particularly to the south, are overrun by rising waters. This happened most recently during the April 2007 Nor'easter.In summer 2015 the state Department of Transportation began replacing the bridge. Route 211 was closed through the bridge at the beginning of June; traffic was detoured via Goshen Turnpike (County Route 101) in the Town of Wallkill through the hamlet of Scotchtown to State Route 17K via Scotchtown–Collabar Road (County Route 47). The new bridge, completed and opened in September of that year, has three continuous spans, two 12-foot (3.7 m) travel lanes and 6-foot (1.8 m) shoulders. The project was estimated to have cost $8.1 million; it is being paid for by a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant program to replace old scour-prone bridges in areas subject to frequent flooding.

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.