As to the other patents: The Baird patent included the settlement of Belknap's Ridge, later classed at Coldenham. It was issued to Alexander Baird, Abraham Van Vleque and Hermans Johnson, and was sold to Governor William Burnet. The Kipp patent included the district east, north and west of Orange Lake, and adjoined the Baird patent on the south. It was issued to Jacobus Kipp, John Conger, Philip Cortlandt, David Prevost, Oliver Schuyler and John Schuyler. It was divided into six parts, and these were subdivided into farms. About 1791 a company of Friends from Westchester County settled on the patent. They were Daniel, Zephaniah and Bazak Birdsall, John Sutton and John Thorne. The first purchasers on the Bradley patent are supposed to have been Johannes Snyder and John Crowell. The Wallace patent, issued to James Wallace alone, was afterwards purchased by John Penny, who sold 200 acres of it to Robert Ross, and settled, with his seven sons, upon the remainder. The Bradley patent was to Sarah, Catherine, George, Elizabeth and Mary Bradley, and was taken in their name by their father, Richard Bradley, who thus secured six tracts, of which that in Newburgh was one. The Harrison patent was to Francis Harrison, Mary Fatham, Thomas Brazier, James Graham and John Haskell. It included the present district of Middlehope, and its settlers were influential in the control of the town during its early history. The Spratt patent was in two parcels, 1,000 acres in Newburgh and 2,000 acres in Ulster. It was issued to Andrew Marschalk and John Spratt, the latter taking the Newburgh tract. This was purchased in 1760 by Joseph Gidney, and took the name of Gidneytown. The Gulch patent was to Melichor Gulch and his wife and children of the original company of Palatines. The Johnson or Jansen patent adjoined the Gulch patent, and was the first occupied land in the northwestern part of the town. The settlement of these patents resulted in dividing the old precinct of the Highlands in 1762 into the precincts of Newburgh and New Windsor, the former embracing the towns of Marlborough and Plattekill in Ulster County with the present town and city of Newburgh, and the latter covering substantially the same territory as now. GOVERNMENT BEGINNINGS. The next April, 1763, Newburgh's first town meeting was held at the house of Jonathan Hasbrouck, now known as Washington's Headquarters, and these officers were chosen: Jonathan Hasbrouck, supervisor; Samuel Sands, clerk; Richard Harper, John Winfield and Samuel Wyatt, assessors; Daniel Gedney and Benjamin Woolsey, poor masters; Jonathan McCrary, John Wandel, Burras Holmes, Isaac Fowler, Muphrey Merritt and Thomas Woolsey, path masters; Nathan Purdy and Isaac Fowler, fence viewers and appraisers. [Illustration: N. Barns]