Mastodons near Campbell Farm in Hanover

During the summer of 1801, the first scientific expedition financed by the fledgling United States, arrived in Montgomery, New York in search of mammoth bones. The expedition, led by Charles Willson Peale of Philadephia, exhumed bones from three marl pits. One marl pit was located at the Joseph Barber Farm, less than a mile from the old Campbell farm.

Map giving location of Mastodon Pit and Campbell farm.The Marl Pit is just north of 17K, NW of Dollar General (black arrow). The outline of the Campbell Farm (sold to Barkley in 1793) is in purple

By 1801, most of the Campbells had left Montgomery for Deerpark, New York. Nathan and Levi (brothers of Joel) still farmed the original Campbell farm that was on St Andrews Road. Perhaps they witnessed the spectacle.

Peale Painting of excavation/draining of the marl pits.

Prior to their relocation, the Campbells almost certainly had seen some of the large bones unearthed by their neighbors. The reverend of the Goodwill Church, Robert Annan, had found bones on his property in 1780. Just west of the village in 1794, bones were found near the house of Archibald Crawford. In 1793, the same year the Campbell siblings gathered to sell the 100 acre parcel shown above, Joseph Barber found several rib bones while digging marl. Did they see Barber's find on what may have been their final visit to Montgomery?

The bones were of such general interest that General Washington and other officers stationed at Newburgh in 1780 made a special trip to view them. (Robert Annan, “Account of a Skeleton of a Large Animal, Found Near Hudson’s River, Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2, pt. 1 (1793): 160-4.)

Two complete skeletons were assembled from the Montgomery expedition. One is exhibited in the Hessisches Landemuseum in Darmstadt, Germany. The other was destroyed by fire in Baltimore, Maryland in 1850. (National Register of Historic Places, Section 8, p1)

Mastodon at Hessisches Landemuseum in Darmstadt, Germany.  Courtesy of nonfictionminute.org

However, there are literally hundreds of places to see mastodon fossils or skeletons.  Including one unearthed in 1845 in nearby Newburgh, New York.  It is displayed in the American Natural History Museum in New York.

Maps of Hanover Precinct, Ulster County, New York

This page contains links to maps that are very useful in researching the 1770-1820 period in Hanover, Ulster (later Montgomery, Orange).

1862 Montgomery Farm Map
This map shows outlines of farms and names their owners. Many of these farms are unchanged from their original layout and are often occupied by descendants of the original settler. One original copy of this map hangs in the Montgomery Town Hall. Others copies exist, but none are known to be digitized. The linked image is from the Montgomery Town Hall map and is four i-phone images stitched together. Stay tune to this site for more professional images of this map.

1862 Montgomery Farm Map.  Link to higher resolution image

1798 Montgomery Map
This map shows major roads, homes of notable residents, and churches in the newly named Town of Montgomery. It can be downloaded as a very large tiff file from the New York State Archives. This link is to a lower resolution map (which is still very high resolution by most standards) and is much more usable in jpeg format. The map has also been rotated with north pointing up.

1798 Montgomery Map. Link to high resolution version.

Parcel Map of NE Town of Montgomery with boundaries of early patents
Orange County maintains a very useful on-line Geographic Information System map which includes boundaries of current land parcels in the county. As would be expected, historic patent lines are preserved over time as large patents are subdivided. The linked map is a composite of the area of Montgomery that contains the Wileman, Brasier, Alexander, Nicholls, and Kennedy patents. The patent lines are plotted based on early surveys and existing parcel lines. The map is very useful in plotting surveys in early deeds.  The lands of the Campbells, Barkleys, Haines, Hill, Milliken, and other have been successfully matched to existing parcel lines using this map. If you desire a copy of this map without all of the explanatory text, please contact the author.

Boundary Lines for Wileman, Brasier, Alexander, Nicholls, and Kennedy Patents