History
Local deeds show that John Yelverton bought the land where the buildings now stand around 1755. The 1765 date long accepted as the year of the inn's construction seems likely from his will dated two years later, which names his son Abijan as the "innkeeper".
The first of several historic events in the inn's history took place on September 3, 1774, when local voters gathered there chose Henry Wisner of nearby Goshen as their delegate to the First Continental Congress. He was among those who voted, two years later, to declare independence but was not able to actually sign the Declaration of Independence as he had to attend to his duties as a member of the provincial congress. During the ensuing war, local militia were encamped and mustered on a nearby hillside.
In the last years of the war, on July 27, 1782, George Washington slept at the inn on his way back from Philadelphia to his headquarters in Newburgh to meet with Count Rochambeau. The event was commemorated 125 years later with a plaque attached to the building by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
After the war ended, a major local land dispute was settled on the grounds of the inn. Early in the century, two land grants had been made taking up most of what is now Orange County. They were known as the Wawayanda Patent, mostly to the southern portion of the county, and the Cheesecocks Patent to some of the northern areas. The former had not specified precisely where its northern boundary lay, and over the course of the century different owners claimed title to the same tracts of land. Several times during the colonial era this dispute had flared into litigation and sometimes violence, without being conclusively settled.
The Cheesecocks patentees claimed the boundary ran along a straight line rather than mountains, hilltops and ridges. As many as 52,000 acres (20,800 ha) were at stake, and a Suffolk County court ordered the creation of a special commission to hear the case upstate. It held its trial in a nearby barn (not the existing one), with the attorneys for the parties likely staying at the inn. Among those representing the Wawayanda claimants, who ultimately prevailed, were Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Elias Boudinot and Ezra L'Hommedieu were also present.
Read more about this topic: Yelverton Inn And Store
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