Wallkill: Gunpowder Town of the Revolution

The Town of Wallkill was established on April seventh, seventeen seventy-two, drawn from a large colonial land patent in Orange County. European settlers had been filtering into the Wallkill River valley since the seventeen twenties, farming the fertile bottomland.

When the Revolution came, Wallkill made a quiet but essential contribution: industrialist Henry Wisner and his son-in-law Moses Phillips operated gunpowder factories in the Phillipsburgh and Craigville corners of the town, producing powder for American troops. It was small-scale, unglamorous work, but armies ran on it. Today Wallkill is a sprawling town of several hamlets and is best known as home to Woodbury Common, one of the country's largest outlet shopping centers, though its roots run back to colonial farmland and revolutionary-era mills.