In 1805, Josiah Hasbrouck returned from his first stint in U.S.Congress during the administration of Thomas Jefferson eager to create for his family a home worthy of their position in the small but growing community, which was founded by Huguenots in 1678. Hasbrouck was a descendant of HuguenotJean Hasbrouck, one of the founders, or patentees, of New Paltz. In addition to his service in Congress, Hasbrouck served with the Ulster County Militia during the American Revolutionary War, in the New York State Assembly and as New Paltz town supervisor Along with his wife Sara Decker, Hasbrouck purchased the Terwilliger family homestead a few miles south of the village of New Paltz. At the time, the site was a small farm and mill and featured a modest stone house built 67 years earlier. Over the next several years, Hasbrouck acquired additional acreage, ultimately increasing the size of the farm to. He also set about building a dramatic Federal style mansion, which was completed in 1814. The 3-story house features a center arched doorway and a symmetrical arrangement of windows. In the back of the house, there is a -story kitchen wing. Inside, the arrangement of rooms on the first and second floors is, for the most part, symmetrical as well, with rooms opening up from a wide center hallway. Faux marble plaster walls in the first-floor hallway date to 1814. The home was lived in by Josiah and Sarah's descendants until 1885, when the family locked all of their belongings in one half of the house and rented the remainder to tenants who farmed the surrounding land. So things remained for almost 75 years, when the house was donated to Historic Huguenot Street. Today, the house features many of the Hasbrouck's family possessions set up as they were when the house was occupied by Josiah, Sarah and their descendants.
Evert Terwilliger House
The homestead Josiah Hasbrouck bought in 1805 was originally settled by Evert Terwilliger, a Dutch man, in 1738 after he married Sara Freer. Sara was the daughter of Hugo Freer, one of the French-speaking Huguenot founders, or patentees, of New Paltz. Evert and Sara's son Jonathan expanded the home in 1764. The house is a good example of the Dutch-style stone houses built in this region during the eighteenth century. One and a half stories in height, the house originally had a gable-end entry. A porch running the length of the house, another feature of front-gable Dutch houses in America and the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries, overlooks the Plattekill Creek. This creek and the falls just beyond the house were used by the Terwilliger family to operate a grist mill and saw mill at the site. The house was acquired by Historic Huguenot Street in 1973 with the financial assistance of the then newly formed Terwilliger Family Association. The Terwilliger Family Association continues to support the maintenance and preservation of the home.
