It was built around 1785, around the time the thousand-acre (400 ha) Gatehouse Patent was first sold, and is one of the oldest houses remaining in the area.

[2] In the 1820s, Jacob Treadwell Walden, a successful shipping merchant, came to the area from New York City and saw the potential of the Wallkill River for powering textile mills.

With him, he brought Jesse Scofield and Dr. Seth Capron who had expertise in running woolen mills.

They formed the Franklin Company to finance mills in Walden and dammed the Wallkill [which runs through the middle of Walden] above the falls, creating a power station that remains in use today.

(See U.S. Federal Census for 1840) On the waning of the textile mills, he returned to New York City and died there in 1855.