In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed his ship, the Half Moon, up the river that would bear his name in a vain search for the legendary Northwest Passage. He sailed as far north as what is now Albany; on the return trip, the Half Moon sailed into a sheltered wide spot in the river. It had scarcely dropped anchor when local Native Americans flocked aboard. Most were friendly, but one reportedly stole items from the ship and was shot and killed by a sailor. The incident created difficulties for future settlers, but Hudson’s journey claimed the whole Hudson Valley for the Dutch.

     In 1666, local Native Lenape people sold a large tract of land along the river to a New York merchant named Balthazar de Harte. In 1671, de Harte received a land grant from the English government, which had taken over the territory from the Dutch in that year. The precinct of Haverstraw was created in 1719, when it was separated from Orangetown. Haverstraw then included the present towns of Clarkstown, Ramapo and Stony Point. Haverstraw became a town in 1788; Clarkstown and Ramapo became separate towns in 1791; and Stony Point became a town in 1865.

   The location of Haverstraw—on the Hudson, the main trade artery between New York City and Albany—was important to the defense of the American colonies in the Revolutionary War. In 1780, Haverstraw also played a major role in a plot that, if it had succeeded, would have changed the course of the Revolution. American General Benedict Arnold, a hero of the Battle of Saratoga, persuaded George Washington to give him command of the fort at West Point. Washington was unaware that Arnold was involved in treasonable negotiations with the British. During the night of September 19–20, the English emissary Major John Andre was rowed from the sloop-of-war Vulture to a beach below the Long Cove in the Town of Haverstraw. The negotiations to sell the plans to West Point were not completed by dawn, and Arnold and Andre repaired to the home of the Loyalist Joshua Hett Smith. The plot was foiled when Andre was captured in Tarrytown on his way back to British lines. Arnold fled to England. The captured Andre traveled through Haverstraw once more on his way to his trial and subsequent execution in Tappan. 

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Village of Haverstraw and the Brick Industry

Between 1771 and 1941, Haverstraw was the greatest center of brick production in the nation. Immense clay beds along the Hudson’s shores and beneath its surface formed the raw material for this huge industry. In 1771, Jacob Van Dyke began making bricks in Haverstraw by hand. James Wood started the first brickyard in Haverstraw in 1815. In 1852, a fresh impetus was added to the industry by Richard Vervalen’s invention of the automatic brick machine. In 1883, there were 42 brickyards in the area, which manufactured 148 brands of brick; In a single year more than 300 million bricks were shipped out of Haverstraw Bay. A t one time, more than two-thirds of the buildings in New York City were constructed of Haverstraw brick, and some two-thirds of the workers the yards employed were African American.

     Haverstraw’s greatest catastrophe was caused by the excavation of clay used to manufacture of bricks. On January 8, 1906, clay beneath a one hundred-foot embankment slipped away, destroying the Rockland Street business section in Haverstraw. Nineteen lives were lost in the landslide, and only a fortunate snowstorm averted the spread of a fire that would have destroyed a large portion of the Village. A combination of the Great Depression, competition, and the rise of new building materials brought Haverstraw’s brickmaking industry to an end when the last yard closed in 1941.

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Garnerville and the Rockland Print Works

In 1828, John Glass founded the textile industry in the Town when he bought forty-five acres of land along the Minisceongo Creek and built a plant to make calico. After he was tragically killed in an accident, the plant was purchased by Thomas and James Garner and Charles Wells. The Garner name was given to the hamlet surrounding the factory.

     In 1853, the Rockland Print Works was incorporated to print and dye woolen, cotton, and linen goods. The company built houses for its workers; at one time, more than eight hundred workers were employed there. Many of the houses still stand, and the Garnerville Holding Company rents space to businesses, artists and craftsmen. The buildings are excellent examples of nineteenth-century factory architecture still in productive use in the United States.

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Although the earliest European settlers in Rockland County were Dutch, it was not long before the population trends demonstrated the diversity that has become a hallmark in Haverstraw. English and Scotch-Irish followed the Dutch. French Huguenots came at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Irish and German immigration dominated the mid-century, while the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century saw the addition of newcomers from Canada, Austria, Hungary, and Italy. African Americans from the South came to work seasonally in the brickyards, and many became permanent residents.

     The 1950s and 1960s saw the arrival of people from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Today the Town of Haverstraw comprises a diverse community, with new residents from Latin America, Russia, India, Pakistan, and elsewhere from around the globe.

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This essay, written by Thomas F. X. Casey (1935–2009), is adapted from http://www.townofhaverstraw.org/history.html and reprinted by permission.