Orange was one of the earliest counties of the State, dating back to 1683. when it was organized by a colony law. It was also one of those formed by a general act of organization in 1788, when it included the present county of Rockland, and was described as extending from the limits of East and West Jersey on the west side of the Hudson River along the river to Murderer's Creek, or the bounds of Ulster County, and westward into the woods as far as Delaware River--that is, all that part of the state south of an easterly and westerly line from the mouth of Murderer's Creek to the Delaware River or northerly line of Pennsylvania. In 1797 Rockland county was set off from it, and five towns from Ulster were added. Its boundaries were definitely fixed by an act of the New York legislature adopted April 3rd, 1801. The previous act of April 5th, 1797, provided that five towns, then a part of the County of Ulster, should be annexed to the county of Orange, and that the courts should hold their sessions alternately at Newburgh and Goshen. Two days afterward another act was passed defining the boundary lines of the towns composing the newly constructed county, and naming them as follows: Blooming Grove, Chesekook, Deer Park, Goshen, Minisink, Montgomery, New Windsor, Newburgh, Wallkill and Warwick. There were subsequent changes, and the following is a list of the present towns, with the years of their erection, and the territories from which they were taken: Blooming Grove, 1799, taken from Cornwall; Cornwall, 1788, as New Cornwall, and changed to Cornwall in 1797; Chester, 1845, taken from Goshen, Warwick, Monroe and Blooming Grove; Crawford, 1823, taken from Montgomery; Deer Park, 1798, as a part of Ulster County and taken from Mamakating; Goshen, 1788; Hamptonburgh, 1830, taken from Wallkill, Goshen, Montgomery, Blooming Grove and New Windsor; Monroe, 1799, taken from Cornwall, original name Chesekook, changed to Southfield in 1802, and to Monroe in 1808, and divided in 1890 into Woodbury and Tuxedo; Montgomery, 1788; Mount Hope, 1825, taken from Wallkill, Deer Park and Minisink, original name Calhoun; Newburgh, 1788; New Windsor, 1788; Wallkill, 1788; Minisink, 1788. There are three cities in Orange County, Newburgh in the town of Newburgh; Middletown, in the town of Wallkill, and Port Jervis, in the town of Deer Park. Newburgh was chartered as a city in 1865, Middletown in 1888, and Port Jervis in 1907. The irregular county thus constituted is bounded on the northwest and north by Sullivan and Ulster Counties, on the east and southeast by the Hudson River and Rockland County, on the southwest and west by New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Sullivan County. It has nearly half a million square miles. The towns along the northwestern and northern border are Deer Park, Mount Hope, Wallkill, Crawford, Montgomery and Newburgh. Along the Hudson are Newburgh, New Windsor, Cornwall and Highlands. Next to Rockland County are Highlands, Woodbury and Tuxedo.