History of the Catskill Mountains

Two hundred million years ago, as plate tectonics uplifted the Appalachians, the delta region rose almost uniformly into a plateau rather than breaking up into smaller mountains.

Hardenbergh, however, managed to enrich himself by selling shares in the partnership, much to the consternation of colonial governors who wanted a firmer bulwark against French ambitions in North America.

While their explorations were not extensive, the elder Bartram's short written account of the adventure, “A Journey to Ye Cat Skill Mountains with Billy,” was widely read and appreciated both in America and abroad.

But in the course of collecting them, they explored the area of the Pine Orchard near North and South Lakes on the Escarpment in Greene County, which would in the next century become the site of the Catskill Mountain House.

These plans were put on hold in 1769 when John Bradstreet, a British lieutenant colonel who had fought with distinction in the recent French and Indian War, filed papers with the crown charging that the Hardenbergh Patent had been improperly granted and could thus be regranted; he claimed a 50,000 acre (200 km2) slice as was his right as a retired officer.

The colonial governor, John Murray Dunmore, found in 1771 a solution that temporarily settled the issue but pleased no one: he awarded Bradstreet 20,000 acres (80 km2) in what is now Delaware County but said nothing about the legality of the original patent.

Back in London, the Privy Council urged King George III to block it, and he duly ordered the new governor, William Tryon, not to sign any grant for the land.

The large landowners like Livingston and the Hardenberghs, fearing Parliament would settle the matter with a land tax that would vastly cut into their wealth, increasingly took stands that would lead to independence.

Their tenant farmers, on the other hand, were, as Livingston put it, "resolved to stand by their King," despite their landlords' efforts to drum up revolutionary sentiment among them, in the belief that if it came down to war, the Crown would confiscate the holdings of those who had opposed it and distribute smaller parcels back to those who had been loyal.

Rose's Rangers, as they were called, had to make its way through the strongly Patriot Hudson Valley to rendezvous with British regulars in New York City, however, and was captured in the vicinity of Schunemunk Mountain in Orange County after a skirmish with local militia.

The failure of Rose's mission and the burning of Kingston by British forces that year severely blunted Tory sentiment in the Catskills, and for the remainder of the war the region posed no threat to the Patriot cause.

[2] Later changes in vacationing patterns have led most of those travelers elsewhere, although there are still bungalow communities and summer camps in the towns of Liberty, Bethel, Monticello and Fallsburg catering to Orthodox populations.