![Doodletown sign 6084](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Doodletown_sign_6084.JPG)
Doodletown was an isolated
hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
in the
Town of Stony Point,
Rockland County
Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of t ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, United States. Purchased by the
Palisades Interstate Park Commission
The Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) was formed in 1900 by Governors Theodore Roosevelt of New York and Foster Voorhees of New Jersey in response to the quarrying operations along the Palisades Cliffs of New Jersey. The Palisades, a Na ...
during the 1960s, it is now part of
Bear Mountain State Park
Bear Mountain State Park is a state park located on the west bank of the Hudson River in Rockland and Orange counties, New York. The park offers biking, hiking, boating, picnicking, swimming, cross-country skiing, cross-country running, sledd ...
and a popular destination for hikers, birdwatchers, botanists, and local historians. It is located north of
Jones Point, west of
Iona Island, and southeast of
Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
. The former settlement is now a
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
.
Members of the first family to settle in Doodletown during the 18th century,
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
s whose last name was anglicized to "June", were also the last to leave it in the 1960s.
History
The Munsee Indians were the first to inhabit the valley. In 1683,
Stephanus Van Cortlandt
Stephanus van Cortlandt (May 7, 1643 – November 25, 1700) was the first native-born mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1677 to 1678 and from 1686 to 1688. He was the patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor and was on the governor' ...
, bought the land in the area from the Haverstraw Indians.
In April 1762, Ithiel June purchased 72 acres, from the Tomkins family who were already living there. The name is said to derive from the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
''Dooddel'', or "dead valley", with the "town" suffix added later by English-speaking settlers.
The settlement was a crossroads for soldiers during the
Revolutionary War during battles at Bear Mountain's
Fort Montgomery when many hundreds of British soldiers marched through the tiny settlement prior to a bloody and significant battle with colonists. The Doodletown Road was used by troops accompanying
Mad Anthony Wayne
Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his mil ...
on his successful attack on Stony Point.
[
Early residents worked as ]loggers
Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...
and miners
A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...
, and the remains of the mines are still visible today. There were also small farms and businesses. Others worked at the Iona Island Picnic Grove, a resort built on Iona Island after the Civil War. Around 1900 the United States Navy purchased Iona for an ammunition depot. In 1903 there was a severe explosion at the site, and a worker from Doodletown was killed.
Around 1854 the Mountville Presbyterian Church was built to serve the families of Doodletown. The building was also used for a school.
In the 1890s, Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
bought a defunct iron mine in Doodletown to test his proposed technique for an improved method of refining ore. Nothing came of his project, although several iron mines had been successfully developed and abandoned in the neighborhood at a much earlier date.
By the 1920s, the height of population for Doodletown, the settlement had a school, a church, several small businesses, two cemeteries and approximately 70 homes. At least several families had lived there for generations. Around this era, military and tourism-related enterprises on nearby Iona Island employed residents, as did the Palisades Interstate Park Commission
The Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) was formed in 1900 by Governors Theodore Roosevelt of New York and Foster Voorhees of New Jersey in response to the quarrying operations along the Palisades Cliffs of New Jersey. The Palisades, a Na ...
.
Other residences were maintained as second homes or were inhabited by retired people from the New York City area, and Doodletown's population thus reached its historic peak of about 350 residents.
Bear Mountain began to be developed as a park in the early 20th century,["Hiking Doodletown"]
NY-NJ-CT Botany Online and began to expand around 1920, in part by purchasing property from the landowners in Doodletown, as did the separate but contiguous Harriman State Park, where a story that is analogous but less widely noted than Doodletown, concerns the nearby hamlet of Jones Point. By the 1950s, most of the Doodletown residents had moved away, many to nearby Stony Point or into southern Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
. Those who refused to sell lost their land through eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
by 1965, and most of the remaining structures were demolished or disassembled and moved out by the late 1960s. Debris was buried, the roads were closed, and the surrounding woods were allowed to grow over the properties. In the early 1970s, a dam was built on the Timp Brook, creating a sizable pond. The last remaining building, the stone school house, was kept as a shelter for hikers until vandalism caused the park commission to tear it down in 1980.
Doodletown and nearby Iona Island were designated as New York State Important Bird Areas in 1997 and a New York State Bird Conservation Area.
Hiking
Today, many foundations, walls, and staircases are still visible. The area is accessible by various trails and former roadways. The town's cemeteries contain graves ranging from centuries old to much more recent years, as former residents and their relatives can still choose to be buried there. Steel signage has recently been installed by the park service, listing which families owned each property and often showing photographs of former buildings. Orientation signs are located at intervals throughout the area.
The simplest and most direct access for hikers is from a small parking area on Route 9W near Iona Island. From here one follows the Cornell Mine Trail to the 1777 East Trail, which runs directly into the heart of the area. Doodletown may also be approached from the south end of the parking lot at Bear Mountain Inn via an underpass beneath Seven Lakes Drive
Seven Lakes Drive is a north–south parkway located in the Hudson Valley region of New York in the United States. It extends for just under on a northeast–southwest alignment from an intersection with New York State Route 17 (NY 17) i ...
. Other approaches include from the Palisades Parkway side, taking the Fawn Trail to the Bridle Path, or from Jones Point and over Dunderberg Mountain
Dunderberg Mountain is a mountain on the west bank of the Hudson River at the southern end of the Hudson Highlands. It lies just above Jones Point, New York, within Bear Mountain State Park and the town of Stony Point in Rockland County, New Yo ...
, taking the Ramapo-Dunderberg trail to the Cornell Mine trail. One may also enter the area from the Long Mountain Parkway side, which is a more direct route to the 1777 West Trail or the Bridle Path.["Bald Mountain/Doodletown Loop from Route 9W"]
New York New Jersey Trail Conference Hikers are urged to be wary of rattlesnakes, copperheads, black snakes and garters still prevalent in the area.
References
External links
Interments in Herbert Cemetery, Doodletown
{{coord, 41, 17, 47.8874, N, 73, 59, 41.1, W, type:city_region:US-NY, display=title
Landmarks in New York (state)
Ghost towns in New York (state)
Bear Mountain State Park
Ramapos
Geography of Rockland County, New York
1762 establishments in the Province of New York
Former populated places in Rockland County, New York