ABOUT OUR CHAMBER

Tucked away in the southwestern corner of Ulster County, New York, between the Shawangunk Ridge and Catskill Mountains, lies the Village of Ellenville within the Town of Wawarsing. Hamlets within Wawarsing include Napanoch, Spring Glen, Wawarsing, Cragsmoor, Greenfield Park and parts of the town of Kerhonkson.
 
In a valley defined by the awesome Shawangunk Ridge to the east and the Catskill Mountains to the northwest, the Town of Wawarsing is a great place to visit, live or do business. The Ellenville-Wawarsing Chamber of Commerce promotes economic development, tourism, community betterment, legislative action, and programs to make the Town of Wawarsing a better place in which to live and prosper.
 
Our primary service area is the Town of Wawarsing. Membership by those outside the primary area is welcomed. If you would like to become an EWCOC member, we are accepting applications now.

Earliest settlers of the area now known as the Town of Wawarsing were, of course, the Indians. In this region of the Hudson Valley, they were the Esopus, a clan of the Lenni-Lenape. The 1663 daily journal of Martin Cregier, a captain in the Dutch army, records a foray to the Indian fort at Wawarsing in an attempt to rescue settlers from Hurley who had been captured about a month earlier. This was probably the white man's first visit to the Town of Wawarsing.
 
The land had passed from Indian possession by the early 1700s, either by purchase or by appropriation. Geographic names reflect Indian and Dutch roots. Wawarsing from "Wawarsinck", means "where the streams wind."
 
The area's greatest legendary hero emerged from the French and Indian War period. Trapper Sam Gonsalus was setting his traps on the top of the mountain (Cragsmoor) when a small band of Indians came upon him. He ran from them until he reached the end of solid ground. at which point he leaped from a high cliff. The Indians assumed that the fall must have killed him, but the branches of a fir tree had caught and sheltered Sam. He lived to walk away. The cliff from which he jumped has been called Sam's Point ever since. The view from Sam's Point on a clear day is a beautiful reminder of his legend.

The Town of Wawarsing was established in 1806, out of the Town of Rochester. Johannis Hoornbeek, Jr., a farmer in Wawarsing, was chosen the first supervisor.

 Although the Village of Ellenville has used the founding date of 1806, it is more probable that the first cabin was built by John DeWitt, blacksmith, before 1798, when he sold most of the land encompassed by today's village to Alpheus Fairchild. The area was called Fairchild City, or just "The City".

Charles Hartshorn opened a store in The City in 1823 and urged the community to apply for a post office. Community leaders could not settle on a name until Ellen Snyder, the sister-in-law of Nathan Hoornbeek whose tavern was the local gathering place, offered her first name. Her charms swayed the men, and The City became Ellenville.