In 1684, after the English crown had replaced the Dutch West Indies Company as the colonial government, provincial Governor Dongan "bought" Newburgh and New Windsor for $200 and some implements like cooking pots, scissors, cloth and shoes.
The Queen of England issued a patent for this land deal, and Newburgh sat waiting for its first inhabitants. A Scottish family (the MacGregories) settled in New Windsor's Plum Point Alley along the Moodna Creek. Newburgh's first settlers arrived in the spring of 1709 - a ship of refugees originally from the Palatinate, a strip of land along the middle of the Rhine. Driven out by Louis XIV, the Palatines had taken shelter in England.
Queen Anne sponsored their passage, granted them the land north of Quassaick Creek and charged them to make it productive. Soon the land was divided and conveyed officially to the Palatine settlers.
In 1714 a patent from King George awarded 50 acres to every man woman and child on the land, with another 50 acres designated as the Glebe or communal land. A wide strip was reserved for the first road (what is now Broadway) to the west. Soon the landowners ceded property for another north-south roadway, originally called the King's Highway and now Liberty Street. The Waoreneks' trail from the shore west probably followed what is now Washington Street -a street later settled by newly-arriving ethnic groups like the Africans and later Italians and Mexicans.
