Montgomery: Named for a Revolutionary Hero

The village of Montgomery in Orange County, New York sits in the Hudson Valley about sixty miles north of New York City. Its origins go back to seventeen ten, when a patent was granted to Henry Wileman, a Palatine German immigrant who was among the first in a wave of German settlers who put down roots in this corner of New York. The area was originally organized as the town of Hanover in seventeen seventy-two.

After the Revolution, residents renamed it Montgomery in seventeen eighty-two to honor Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, an Irish-born officer in the Continental Army who died leading an assault on Quebec City on December thirty-first, seventeen seventy-five. The village itself was incorporated in eighteen ten. In eighteen eighteen, a new Federal-style brick building replaced the original academy, and that building now serves as Village Hall.