Gomez Mill House
Encyclopedia
The Gomez Mill House is located in the Town of Newburgh
, New York
, USA
, on Mill House Road a short distance off US 9W
, just south of the Orange
–Ulster
county line (its mailing address is in nearby Marlboro
, in the latter). Continuously inhabited for more than 280 years, it is the earliest known surviving Jewish
residence in the country and the oldest home in Orange County listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
merchant and trader, whose Spanish
Jewish ancestors fled to France
and England
to escape from the Spanish Inquisition
for the New World, came to New York in 1703. In 1705 he was granted an Act of Denization from Anne, Queen of Great Britain. This certificate gave him rights to conduct business, own property, and live freely within the British Colonies without an oath of allegiance to the Church of England
. Gomez established himself as a prominent businessman and leader within the early Jewish community in New York and in 1714 he purchased 6500 acres (2,630.5 ha) in Marlboro
on the west side of the Hudson River
in the then-British
colony of New York
. His house on the Hudson Highlands
where several Indian trails
converged served as a frontier trading post
for the new colonists. Other pioneers, fleeing tyranny, and the cruelties in Europe for the promise of a new life, then settled in the Hudson Valley. On the western border of his property, he built a single-story fieldstone
block house, with walls three feet (1 m) thick, into the side of a hill alongside a stream that came to be known as Jews Creek. For some thirty years he and his sons lived there and conducted a thriving fur
trade from the fortress like house. This remains until today the foundation and first floor of the Gomez Mill House.
In 1772, shortly before the Revolutionary War
, a Dutch immigrant named Wolfert Acker bought the property. He added a second story
and attic
using brick
s made from local clay
, bringing the main part of the house into its present form. He would serve with the local Minutemen and chaired the area's Committee of Safety
during the war.
In the early 19th century, it passed on to William Henry Armstrong, a local farmer. During the half-century he and his family lived there, the kitchen
wing and garden walls were added. During the next century, it had many other owners, the most notable being Dard Hunter
, a papermaker
associated with the Arts and Crafts movement
. He bought the Mill House in 1909 and built a small paper mill
on the property in the shape of a Devon
shire cottage
, complete with thatched roof
, where he taught students the arts of preindustrial papermaking, printing and publishing for the next seven years. He sold it in 1919 in anticipation of military service. He claimed in his autobiography that a representative of the Russian government bought it for use as a school, but the real buyer was progressive activist Martha Gruening, who tried to establish a libertarian
school in the building.
After World War II
, it became home to Mildred Starin and her family. She fixed the property up, restored it to its original appearance and successfully got it listed on the National Register in 1973. Eleven years later, the New York City-based Gomez Foundation, which had been established in 1979, purchased the house to restore it and operate it as a museum, which it does today.
Newburgh (town), New York
Newburgh is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The 2010 census determined the population is 29,801. This is the first time ever that the population of the Town of Newburgh officially exceeded that of the adjacent but totally separate municipality known as the city of Newburgh...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, on Mill House Road a short distance off US 9W
U.S. Route 9W
U.S. Route 9W is a north–south U.S. Highway in the states of New Jersey and New York. It begins on Fletcher Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey as it crosses the US 1 & 9, US 46, and the Interstate 95 approaches to the George Washington Bridge, where it heads north up the west...
, just south of the Orange
Orange County, New York
Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located at the northern reaches of the New York metropolitan area. The county sits in the state's scenic Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley...
–Ulster
Ulster County, New York
Ulster County is a county located in the state of New York, USA. It sits in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 182,493. Recent population estimates completed by the United States Census Bureau for the 12-month period ending July 1 are at...
county line (its mailing address is in nearby Marlboro
Marlboro, New York
Marlboro is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 2,339 at the 2000 census.Marlboro is in the southeast part of the Town of Marlborough and also the southeast corner of Ulster County.- History :...
, in the latter). Continuously inhabited for more than 280 years, it is the earliest known surviving Jewish
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
residence in the country and the oldest home in Orange County listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
History
Luis Moses Gomez a Sephardic JewishSephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
merchant and trader, whose Spanish
History of the Jews in Spain
Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule in Spain, before the majority, together with resident Muslims, were forced to convert to Catholicism, be expelled or be killed when Spain became united under the Catholic Monarchs...
Jewish ancestors fled to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to escape from the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
for the New World, came to New York in 1703. In 1705 he was granted an Act of Denization from Anne, Queen of Great Britain. This certificate gave him rights to conduct business, own property, and live freely within the British Colonies without an oath of allegiance to the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. Gomez established himself as a prominent businessman and leader within the early Jewish community in New York and in 1714 he purchased 6500 acres (2,630.5 ha) in Marlboro
Marlboro, New York
Marlboro is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 2,339 at the 2000 census.Marlboro is in the southeast part of the Town of Marlborough and also the southeast corner of Ulster County.- History :...
on the west side of the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
in the then-British
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
colony of New York
Province of New York
The Province of New York was an English and later British crown territory that originally included all of the present U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, along with inland portions of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, as well as eastern Pennsylvania...
. His house on the Hudson Highlands
Hudson Highlands
The Hudson Highlands are mountains on both sides of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York, between Newburgh Bay and Haverstraw Bay, which form the northern region of the New York - New Jersey Highlands....
where several Indian trails
Indian Trails
Indian Trails is an inter-city bus company based in Owosso, Michigan.- History :Indian Trails was founded in 1910 in Owosso as the Phillips-Taylor Livery Service, whose main business was transporting cargo to and from Durand Union Station and the surrounding Shiawassee County...
converged served as a frontier trading post
Trading post
A trading post was a place or establishment in historic Northern America where the trading of goods took place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, was known as a trade route....
for the new colonists. Other pioneers, fleeing tyranny, and the cruelties in Europe for the promise of a new life, then settled in the Hudson Valley. On the western border of his property, he built a single-story fieldstone
Fieldstone
Fieldstone is a building construction material. Strictly speaking, it is stone collected from the surface of fields where it occurs naturally...
block house, with walls three feet (1 m) thick, into the side of a hill alongside a stream that came to be known as Jews Creek. For some thirty years he and his sons lived there and conducted a thriving fur
Fur
Fur is a synonym for hair, used more in reference to non-human animals, usually mammals; particularly those with extensives body hair coverage. The term is sometimes used to refer to the body hair of an animal as a complete coat, also known as the "pelage". Fur is also used to refer to animal...
trade from the fortress like house. This remains until today the foundation and first floor of the Gomez Mill House.
In 1772, shortly before the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, a Dutch immigrant named Wolfert Acker bought the property. He added a second story
Story
Story or Stories may refer to:*Story, a recounting of a sequence of events* Narrative* Bedtime story, a traditional form of storytelling, told to children to prepare them for sleep* Organization story, a narrative used in organization studies...
and attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
using brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
s made from local clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
, bringing the main part of the house into its present form. He would serve with the local Minutemen and chaired the area's Committee of Safety
Committee of Safety (American Revolution)
Many Committees of Safety were established throughout Colonial America at the start of the American Revolution. These committees started to appear in the 1760s as means to discuss the concerns of the time, and often consisted of every male adult in the community...
during the war.
In the early 19th century, it passed on to William Henry Armstrong, a local farmer. During the half-century he and his family lived there, the kitchen
Kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...
wing and garden walls were added. During the next century, it had many other owners, the most notable being Dard Hunter
Dard Hunter
William Joseph "Dard" Hunter was an American authority on printing, paper, and papermaking—especially by hand, using the tools and craft of four centuries prior...
, a papermaker
Papermaking
Papermaking is the process of making paper, a substance which is used universally today for writing and packaging.In papermaking a dilute suspension of fibres in water is drained through a screen, so that a mat of randomly interwoven fibres is laid down. Water is removed from this mat of fibres by...
associated with the Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
. He bought the Mill House in 1909 and built a small paper mill
Paper mill
A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags and other ingredients using a Fourdrinier machine or other type of paper machine.- History :...
on the property in the shape of a Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
shire cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
, complete with thatched roof
Thatching
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge , rushes, or heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates...
, where he taught students the arts of preindustrial papermaking, printing and publishing for the next seven years. He sold it in 1919 in anticipation of military service. He claimed in his autobiography that a representative of the Russian government bought it for use as a school, but the real buyer was progressive activist Martha Gruening, who tried to establish a libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
school in the building.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it became home to Mildred Starin and her family. She fixed the property up, restored it to its original appearance and successfully got it listed on the National Register in 1973. Eleven years later, the New York City-based Gomez Foundation, which had been established in 1979, purchased the house to restore it and operate it as a museum, which it does today.