Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 019 1934

Park began after the map of 1797 was made and before 1813, when (according to Spafford) there were forty houses in the neighborhood.

The map of the farm of Luke Stoutenburgh that was filed in 1791 (as above cited) records a church building as standing then on the east side of the post road near the present four corners and it is in connection with the name of that church that there has arisen some of the misunderstanding referred to at the opening of this article. The church-building belonged to the "Stoutsburgh Religious Society." The members of that society gathered themselves together at an unrecorded date. On January 7, 1789, the clerk of the society opened a minute book and entered in it the names of fifty persons who on that date had started a fund for building a church. The subscribers to the fund were men who represented several Protestant denominations and their homes were scattered over the whole area that now constitutes the town of Hyde Park,—that is to say: they lived at or near the site of the present Staatsburgh ; along the course of Crum Elbow Creek in the interior; and throughout the south end of the present township, from the river eastward.

Naturally, any group of people living at such widely separated points needed to select a site for a church that would be convenient to as many as possible. It was therefore decided that a lot on which to build a church should be purchased "on the plains of Luke Stoutenburgh."

This was in 1789, just as the farm of Luke Stoutenburgh had been partitioned among his children and when some of his heirs had begun to sell some pieces out of their holdings. But it should be remembered that the "Stoutsburgh Religious Society" was already organized before it acted to buy land; that it had acquired its name before it selected a site for a church; and that the site selected was at a place that had no name other than "the plains of Luke Stoutenburgh,"—which was just a descriptive term for a topographical feature.

While the subscribers to the fund for building a church lived in all parts of a large territory, the initial movement for founding an undenominational religious society must have arisen among residents of a place called "Stoutsburgh", inasmuch as that name was given to the society, and fortunately the story of "Stoutsburgh" can be accurately set down.

In the north end of the present township of Hyde Park a tract of land was purchased from the Indians by Henry Pawling of Ulster County, who died in 1695. Henry Pavvling's heirs sold most of their 28