riverside sanctuary to GW's headquarters

     In the mid-1600s, more than 50 years after Hudson sailed up his river, Governor Dongan of the Province of New York bought the land we now know as the Town and City of Newburgh from a group of Native Americans (Favata 24). Back in Europe, in the Rhenish, or Lower Palatinate region of Germany, treacherous weather and Louis XIV's forces conspired to remove the Lutheran Palatine community from their homes. They fled to England, where a sympathetic Queen Anne agreed to provide them with 2100 acres from Governor Dongan's agreement, or "patent," in New York. As a result, in 1709 a group of more than 50 Palatines landed in Newburgh Bay and resumed their lives in this place along the Hudson River called "Palatine Parish Patent." Their tenure was brief; having struggled through the years primarily as farmers, by the 1740s most of the original settlers had either moved farther west or died off. By 1743, the year the ferry started, the Scots took over and changed the town's name to the Scottish "Newburgh." One of the most prominent of the Scottish residents was Jonathan Hasbrouck, a landowner and businessman, who bought a large tract of land and built a home that would later become George Washington's headquarters.

Newburgh and the American Revolution
     Little did John Hasbrouck expect that his home would be a place from which George Washington would change the course of the country. In fact, some consider the birthplace of America to be NOT in Philadelphia, but in Newburgh (Haines 13). Regardless of where America was born, "Newburgh's history is indissolubly bound up with that of the great struggle for freedom from foreign dominion," writes John Nutt in Newburgh: Her Institutions, Industries, and Leading Citizens (23).

     Shortly after Jonathan Hasbrouck died in 1779, Washington showed up at the doorstep of Hasbrouck's widow, along with 180 of his weathered soldiers. They camped on Hasbrouck's estate and around Newburgh to rest. Washington wanted to maintain a strong army after the British surrender while planning to disband at the signing of the peace treaty (Project Profile). From his new home in Newburgh, Washington made one of the most pivotal decisions in American history.

     In May 1782, Washington received a letter from Colonel Lewis Nicola, a leader of the secret British conspiracy to bring down the Republic, that suggested America adopt the English system of government, a monarchy. The letter claimed that Republics were the least stable form of government and the least capable of securing the rights and freedom of individuals (Haines 13). America could never become prosperous under a republican form of government, Nicola urged. He suggested Washington become King.

     Upon reading these words, Washington was aghast. He wrote:

"Nothing in the course of the war has given me more painful sensation than your information of their being such ideas existing in the army as you expressed, and I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity … I must add that no man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do, and as far as my powers and influence in a Constitution may extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion."

     Meanwhile, his officers were upset with Congress regarding their overdue salaries. The conspirators leveraged their anger to send anonymous letters, known as the Newburgh Letters, which would circulate amongst the army with the aim of turning them against Congress and Washington. But Washington skillfully diffused the conflict. On March 14, 1783, from his office in the Hasbrouck house, Washington wrote his monumental Newburgh Address.

     He outlined four major points … "an indissoluble union of the States, a sacred regard to public justice, the establishment of an adequate army during peace, and a pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the States which should induce them to mutual concessions for the advantage of the community." This address "outlined the principles on which the new government of the United States was subsequently established. The Republic was not in being , nor would it have been had he not willed it" (Haines 13).

     On April 19, 1783, General Washington's ordered a "cessation of hostilities" from his headquarters in Newburgh. During this period Washington wrote letters to each of the 13 state legislatures setting forth his ideas for the federal government. These Circular Letters, which were reprinted at that time throughout the states and in London, eventually influenced the development of the U.S. Constitution (Project Profile).

     Washington sent his soldiers home, but some chose to settle in Newburgh along with families who fled from New York City when it was captured by the British. As a result, by 1790, Newburgh's population reached 2,365.

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