Moses Bull Jr. would be remembered very simply as a farmer and an early resident of Scotchtown if not for the fact that he was also a member of Orange County’s famous Bull family. Luckily, the few references to him that survive in local histories can be easily expanded upon with a brief account of his Bull ancestors and the aid of a recently discovered family bible.

Moses Bull Jr. was the great-grandson of William Bull (1689-1755), an early pioneer who was born in England, spent his youth in Ireland, and set sail for America about 1715. He was skilled in stonecutting and masonry and arrived in New York in 1716 with no money. He quickly found work with an early settler of the Wawayanda Patent named Daniel Cromeline. William built for him Grey Court, the great Cromeline house, and other stone houses for other families. It was on this patent of land in Orange County that he met Sarah Wells (1694-1796), the adopted daughter of Christopher Denne. Sarah had come from New York in 1712 with a party of Indians and white men to claim her foster father’s share of the Wawayanda Patent. William married Sarah in 1718, and they lived in a log cabin until they finished their own stone house. They had twelve children and acquired more land in 1724 through a grant from King George I. At his death, William the pioneer settled his second and third sons, William and Thomas, on this royal grant divided by the Wallkill River. William’s share of the land was on west side of the river, in what is now the Town of Wallkill. He married Anne Booth and they had at least one child, namely Moses Bull Sr. (1753-1844). Very little is known of him, though Moses Bull Jr., his only son and the subject of this biography, was born on June 19, 1773. [1]

According to a family bible, Moses Bull Jr. was married to Dolly Moore on July 28, 1795 by the Reverend Thomas Smith of Little Britain. In 1791 Rev. Smith had been installed as pastor of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church of Little Britain in the Town of New Windsor. He was replacing Rev. Robert Annan who had served both the Little Britain congregation and another church at Neelytown, in the Town of Montgomery, which remained without a pastor until 1796. [2] The record is silent as to the location of the marriage of Moses and Dolly, but if the ceremony was held at a house of worship and not a private home, we may assume it would have been at one of these two churches. The evidence available suggests they were more likely to have been married in Neelytown than in the joined church in Little Britain. The Neelytown church was closer to the area of the Town of Wallkill where the Bulls resided, and some members of the family are known to have been a part of this congregation. According to early recollections, Moses Bull and William Bull were among the parishioners from Wallkill that regularly attended the Neelytown Church. William Bull, grandfather of Moses Jr., was an elder of the church in 1796. [3]

Moses was 22 years of age at the time of his wedding and his bride, Dolly Moore, was 24. Shortly after the marriage in 1795 they settled on a piece of land along McCorlin’s Kill, in the middle of what is now Highland Lakes State Park. The assessment roll of 1803 shows Moses Bull’s property valued at $362. One of his daughters later recalled an old “Indian path” near their land that led south to the Wallkill River. [4] Part of this path may still be preserved as what is now Indian Trail Road.

Though a plain farmer, Moses had a remarkable taste for books. He made himself familiar with many volumes of history, biography and general literature. [5] Just like his great-grandparents, Moses and his wife had twelve children. Dolly had been a member of the Presbyterian Church since girlhood and she reared her large family, including two sets of twins, “under Christian influences.” Moses was also a devout Christian and maintained the family altar from the time of his marriage until his death. He died on May 16, 1848 at the age of 75 after a protracted sickness of 8 months. The cause of death was a severe congestion of the lungs which gradually wore out his strength. His wife Dolly died seven years later on May 14, 1855. Both Moses and Dolly are buried in the old burial ground of the Scotchtown Presbyterian Church. [6]

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