The Town of Highlands is located in Orange County, New York, about 50 miles north of New York City in the beautiful Hudson River Valley. It is bordered on the South by Bear Mountain in the Town of Stony Point in Rockland County, on the North by the Town of Cornwall, on the West by the Town of Woodbury, and on the East by the Hudson River. It is composed of the village of Highland Falls, the hamlet of Fort Montgomery, portions of the Palisades Interstate Park, and the United States Military Academy at West Point.
On December 3, 1872, the Town of Highlands was formed from the Town of Cornwall by the Orange County Board of Supervisors. For many years the Town of Cornwall had consisted of the thickly settled territory north of the Storm King mountains, and the localities around Highland Falls and Fort Montgomery far to the south. It was an unnatural and inconvenient alliance. In order to transact public official business together, required the people of one part of the town or the other to travel over long and difficult mountain roads, or make the trip by boat on the Hudson. It was a very obvious necessity that led to a movement for a new town south of Cro's Nest -- a town that should consist of of territory upon which the people might easily meet and transact public business.
|
