Town History

The Town of Woodbury, which is comprised of the hamlets of Central Valley and Highland Mills, and the area which was formerly known as the hamlet of Woodbury Falls, was officially created on December 19, 1889 by an act of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. The town’s borders meet with those of Tuxedo, Monroe, Blooming Grove, Cornwall, Highland Falls, and a short segment of Rockland County in Harriman State Park. The first town meeting was held the following year on March 4th with John A. Patterson presiding as Supervisor. The second Supervisor was James Seaman, descending from a notable lineage of Quaker farmers that lived on the northern edge of Woodbury. First delivering groceries from Woodbury Falls, the Seaman family later founded “Sweet Clover Farms” which delivered milk throughout southeast Orange County before its absorption by Poughkeepsie’s Fitchett Bros. Dairy in 1956. Most recently, the property of the Seaman family, including the C. 1796 homestead, was operated as Palaia Winery.

THE TOWN OF WOODBURY WAS CREATED TWICE

The Town of Woodbury was actually created twice - the first of these attempts occurring in 1863 when the Board of Supervisors approved the division of Monroe into the three communities of Monroe, Tuxedo, and Woodbury. Objections to this quickly arose, likely since Woodbury had yet to develop prominent business districts in the (then) very small communities of Central Valley and Highland Mills, and was hindered more by the lack of a railroad at that time. Two years later, the Legislature was asked to overrule the Board's decision, and the original town boundaries were reinstated. With the arrival of a railroad, more industry and commerce, as well as more residents, the Board of Supervisors once again proposed the separation more than twenty years later. This time, in 1889, the Town of Woodbury was officially “reborn."

Woodbury had gone through numerous geographic and name changes before its incorporation in 1889. The earliest indications of boundaries can be traced to the 1702 Chesecock Patent, through which the land of approximately five Native American tribes was sold to Dr. John Bridges, Henry Ten Eyck, Derick Vandenburgh, John Cholwell, Christopher Dean, Lancaster Syms, and John Merritt. According to Russel Headley’s 1896 history of Orange County, the land under this patent was said to extend “west of Highland Mills” to “the bounds of Haverstraw and the Hudson.” Before 1799, Orange County extended only as far north as New Windsor and included all of present-day Rockland County. Until 1764, Woodbury was part of an enlarged Goshen Precinct, of which Goshen served as a secondary center of administration to Orangetown. In 1764, Goshen was divided into two parts, with Woodbury then becoming part of the Cornwall Precinct. This was maintained through the American Revolution, with the area shown on maps as “Smith’s Clove” (named for Town of Monroe pioneer David Smith) or, in rare cases, “Woodbury Clove." In 1799, when Rockland County was formally created, and towns such as Montgomery, Crawford, and Newburgh were added to Orange County from Ulster County, Cornwall was divided. Woodbury joined present-day Monroe and Tuxedo to become the Town of Chesekook/Chesecock, taking reference from the original land patent of the same name. This was later changed to Smithfields or Southfields and, in 1808, Monroe was chosen in honor of the newly elected United States President James Monroe. 

WHERE DOES "WOODBURY" COME FROM?

Thus far, no definitive evidence has surfaced providing an origin for the name “Woodbury.” Some claim it may have come from the Dutch word “WODE" for wood, as well as denoting a "dwelling place in the woods."  Others have stated that the many English families who settled here bestowed the name of a famous English family named “Woodbury" upon the area. One of the more promising stories is tied to the American Revolution. Many of Woodbury’s Revolutionary War veterans are buried in the Woodward Cemetery, a small graveyard located next to the former Gasho/Iron Chef Restaurant. Among those buried in that cemetery is a William Fairfield Woodbury, whose father, Jonathan, was said to be a physician in the region. Given that doctors were highly regarded in local communities of the eighteenth century, not to mention rare in an area that was so sparsely populated at the time, it seems possible that Jonathan and William’s family has given the region a legacy that continues more than 250 years after the American Revolution.

As for the hamlets, Central Valley and Highland Mills were once called Lower Smith's Clove. As mentioned before, the name Smith relates to the pioneering Smith family of Monroe (which once included all of this area), and the term “clove” meant valley. Highland Mills was also known as Orange Post Office, but the residents changed it in 1824 to the present name, most likely reflecting the mill and tannery businesses once located in the center of the hamlet. A map from circa 1790 shows Woodbury Falls as being called “Smithfields,” again with a reference to the Smith family. It may have later taken its name from the once lovely falls that bordered Route 32 underneath today’s railroad trestle. Used during the period when an iron furnace operated here, the falls were destroyed when that trestle was built between 1906 and 1909. 

NINETEENTH CENTURY EXPANSION

Woodbury’s industry and commerce remained largely quiet, apart from farming, a few scattered grist mills, and eighteenth-century iron mining in Woodbury Falls, until the arrival of railroads to Orange County. In 1841, the New York & Erie Railroad began operating service between Piermont and Goshen, though the mainline missed Woodbury by just a few miles, instead serving nearby Turner’s (today known as Harriman) as well as Monroe. It would take twenty-eight years before each of Woodbury’s three hamlets received railroad stations in 1869. In the decades following, industry flourished. Among the most prominent businesses located in Woodbury was the production of fly fishing rods and line, with three prominent individuals of this craft calling Woodbury home. Central Valley was home to Hiram L. Leonard’s nationally-acclaimed rod works off today’s Laura Lane, while the Hall Line Factory and E. F. Payne’s rod works were located a few thousand feet apart in Highland Mills. The mammoth Hall Line factory that stood along Park Avenue no longer exists, though the Payne rod workshop still stands at the corner of Hollis and Elm streets, as does the second Leonard Rod facility in Central Valley.

Complimenting manufacturing after the coming of the railroad was the growth of tourism in Woodbury after 1869. By the turn of the twentieth century, the town boasted over twenty hotels as well as numerous boarding houses. Two of the largest, Elisa Stockbridge's Mountain Top and Summit Lake Houses, once standing near the junction of Routes 6 and 293, boasted electric lighting and telephones. Highland Mills’s Cromwell Lake was itself a resort destination, with accommodations like Hillcrest and the Cromwell Lake House being able to accommodate over one hundred guests each. As the twentieth century progressed, Woodbury also became home to numerous Jewish summer bungalow colonies. The largest of the colonies, Unser Camp/Kinderwelt, boasted a lengthy list of influential guests, including Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, Academy Award-winning director Sidney Lumet, and cinematographer Jerome Robbins. Today, the site of Unser Camp is now occupied by Highland Lakes estates. 

GATEWAY TO ORANGE COUNTY—PAST AND PRESENT

While its tourism industry has shifted perspectives, the beauty of Woodbury remains as pleasing to the eye as it did a century ago. Bordered by Schunnemunk Mountain to the northwest and the Hudson Highlands to the southeast, the Woodbury Creek meanders tranquilly through the three hamlets. However, even though Woodbury remains a bedroom community, it is no longer the “countryside” as it was once advertised one hundred years ago. Often known as the “Gateway to Orange County,” Woodbury is located at the intersection of Routes 6, 32, 17 (The Quickway/Interstate 86), and the New York State Thruway (Interstate 87). These four roads connect between exit 16 on the Thruway and exits 131/130A on the Quickway, which underwent a complete redesign between 2018 and 2020 to accommodate the region’s growing traffic. Located approximately 45 miles north of New York City, Woodbury is a natural commuter hub.

The largest employer and tourist attraction in the town, as well as one of the state’s top tourist destinations, is the Woodbury Common Premium Outlet Center located in Central Valley, just to the northwest of exit 16 on the Thruway. Originally home to farms as well as the original alignment of Route 32/Route 17, the first stores opened in 1985 and have steadily expanded since to include a four-story parking garage and an impressive indoor food court. As of 2019, the mall’s 250 stores attracted more than 13 million visitors annually.

Just as Woodbury proves to be attractive for tourists today, the same scenery enticed distinguished individuals to dwell here centuries ago. Among Woodbury’s distinguished residents are attorney Charles E. Rushmore, for whom Mount Rushmore is named, burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee, business manager Armand Hammer, and Ethan Dodds, an engineer of industrial mechanics who held more patents than Thomas Edison. One of the society’s committees, the Gatehouse Museum & Learning Center Committee, oversees the historic Gatehouse that graced the entrance for vaudeville pioneer Frederick Freeman Proctor’s 1,142-acre property. Woodbury’s largest estate, Arden House, was built between 1904 and 1912 for railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman, father of New York State governor Averell Harriman. The mansion even featured a private incline railway up the side of Tower Hill, which was removed in 1941.

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