Where family is the story...

The Story of Huguenot Street 

After decades of sojourn and relocation, a small group of Walloons from what is today northern France and southern Belgium and linked by family, language, religion, and friendship purchased nearly 40,000 acres along the Wallkill River  

These men and women, part of the larger Huguenot diaspora, purchased this land from the native Esopus Indians, thus establishing a permanent home where they could pursue their Protestant faith free from religious and political persecution. They named the new town after die Pfalz, the region along the Rhine River where they had found temporary refuge before journeying to the new world.

The families began replacing their temporary log and wood homes in the early 1700s with stone houses along what is now known as Huguenot Street.  Seven of these buildings survive today.  The houses were added to over the first century or so of their existence to provide more comfortable living arrangements, and today the domestic environments of the colonial period and the early years of the Republic are preserved to inspire and to educate. While four of the houses are similar to their early appearance, the National Historic Landmark district also includes three original stone houses that were altered in the 1830s, the 1890s, and the 1940s, enabling three hundred years of history to be told on the street, displaying both continuity and change in American history. 

Beginning in the 1890s, these homes came into the possession of the Historic Huguenot Street with the generous assistance of descendants of the original founders and early residents of the community. Today the houses are furnished with period and heirloom artifacts, many of which descended through the families.  Through the preservation of this remarkable site, we have the opportunity to enjoy and investigate the origins and development of our distinctly American culture.