Fallsburg including South Fallsburg, New York, Sullivan County. Catskill Mountains (aka Borscht Belt).

On March 9 1826, NY State Legislature passed an act establishing the Town of Fallsburg. The town was created from portions of existing towns of Thompson & Neversink, derived its name from the falls located in the town in the Neversink River.

Little is known about the earliest settlers who were most likely of Dutch decent. They probably reached here using an old Indian trail that crossed the Neversink River at Dennison’s Ford near Glen Wild. Some of these settlers established a small settlement near the ford while others continued north, crossing the Sheldrake Creek, and settled on a ridge east of Kiamesha Lake and Lake Anawana. This settlement was in the Town of Thompson and was abandoned during the French and Indian War.

The Neversink River runs from north to south through the Town of Fallsburg and played an important part in its early development. In the late 1780’s the valley above the falls in the Neversink River, between what is now Fallsburg and Hasbrouck, became known as having fertile land. When the D & H Canal was opened in 1828 it brought a change to the area. Now the nearest place to trade was in Ellenville. Up until this time Hasbrouck had been the major settlement in the area. The upper Neversink River between Woodbourne and Hasbrouck was the heaviest settled because of the rich flatlands there along the river. A number of sawmills and gristmills were built there. The settlement at Hasbrouck was named in honor of Anthony Hasbrouck, a wealthy and prominent man who settled there in the early 1800’s.

The area of Dennison’s Ford was one of the first places to be settled in the Town of Fallsburg. There were settlers already there in the 1790’s when the influx of new pioneers came up the Sandburg Trail.

THE HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF FALLSBURG
By Judy Magie, Town of Fallsburg Historian