Two miles south of Craigville is situated Oxford Depot, on the Erie
Railroad, with a general country store, kept formerly by Peter B.
Taylor, but for many years the store and post-office have been in
charge of S. C. Van Vliet, who has also served the town as
supervisor, justice, etc. Here is also a creamery run by the
Alexander Campbell Co. The old settlement of Satterly's Mills and the
adjacent Campbell Tillotson property are now the beautiful country
residence of William Crawford, a well-known New York merchant, who is
doing much to improve that part of the town. Near Oxford Depot is the
beautiful home of Judge Charles R. Bull, supervisor from 1899 to
1903, and associate judge of County Court, and a lineal descendant of
Sarah Wells. The old-time homes of the Seelys and Marvins and the
Fletcher Woodhull families, for a long time famous for their
well-tilled farms, and in the old times well finished fat cattle,
have passed from their hands, with the single exception of that of
Courtland Marvin, still in the hands of his grand-daughter, Fannie
Marvin, regent of Blooming Grove Chapter, D. A. R., and
granddaughter of Fannie Woodhull Marvin, mentioned by Eager in his
sketch of Claudius Smith as being used by her mother, wife of Captain
Woodhull, in saving the family silver. The stone house built under
the supervision of William S. Woodhull is still the property of the
widow of his son, Jesse Woodhull, who was a daughter of Marcus Sears
and Mary Caldwell. And the Youngs homesteads are still held by their
descendants, Joseph W. Young, Mrs. Durland and the family of William
B. Hunter. The Bulls in the southern part of the town near Monroe,
still dwell upon the old homestead. John Brewster, the town clerk of
Cornwall, 1765-1799, lived near Blooming Grove, and a part of his old
homestead remains in the hands of his descendants, Thomas C. and
Walter H. Brewster, who have both been supervisors of the town, and
whose beautiful homes are beside the Tappan on Satterly's Creek, and
near the ancestral home of Selah E. Strong, supervisor of Blooming
Grove, 1875-1882, and sheriff of Orange County, 1888-1889-1890, and
is now the home of his widow and their son, Sherwood Strong. This
fine, old home was built by his grandfather, Selah Strong, the first
supervisor of the new town of Blooming Grove, having been justice of
the peace for the town of Cornwall for ten years. His father, Major
Nathaniel Strong, came to this farm with the Howells and Woodhulls
from Long Island, and married Hannah, daughter of Major Nathaniel
Woodhull. He was a prominent citizen, a major in the Continental
Army, and was murdered in his home on his farm, by the notorious
Claudius Smith, October 6, 1778. This homestead adjoins that of the
Strong family, now occupied by Charles F. Bull, from which came:
Major Samuel Strong and Captain Nathan Strong, who was at Valley
Forge with the Continental Army. The descendants of Samuel Strong now
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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