"Eighteenth Century Records of the portion of Dutchess County, New York that was included in the Rombout Precinct and the original Town of Fishkill," collected by William Willis Reese, President of the Dutchess County Historical Society and edited by Helen Wilkerson Reynolds, from Collections of the Dutchess County Historical Society, Volume 6, 1938. Published by the Society.

List of Tax-Payers of the original town of Fishkill, Dutchess County, NY

This list gives the names of taxpayers of the South Ward from January 1717/1718 through February 1737/1738; of the "Fishkills prisings" in February, 1738/1739, and February 1739/1740; and of Rombout Precinct from February 1740/1741 through 1779, lacking only seven years. The volume which contained the lists for 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752 has been lost. The lists for 1764 and 1776 were not entered. In 1777, 1779, 1780 all lists were not filed for each year but the list for Rombout Precinct was omitted only in 1780.

The territory constituting the South Ward included the present Putnam County, New York (set off from Dutchess in 1812). It extended from the boundary of Westchester County northward to a line between Hudson's River and the Colony of Connecticut. That line began at the river at the mouth of the Wappingers Creek and ran inland due east.

When wards were abolished and precincts laid out, Rombout precinct (at first called "the Fishkills") was created. It did not include the area which is now Putnam County, but conformed very nearly to the boundaries of the tract of land, title to which was covered by the Rombout Patent. Rombout Precinct was equivalent to the area now divided into the towns of Fishkill, East Fishkill, Wappinger and the west half of the town of La Grange.

A small part of the tract of land covered by the Rombout Patent was not included in the South Ward. It lay in the Middle Ward, at what is now the north end of the Town of La Grange and the eastern part of the Town of Poughkeepsie.

Another small part of the tract of land covered by the patent was left out of Rombout Precinct, namely a strip, five-hundred rods wide, lying on the west side of the Wappingers Creek, in what was then Poughkeepsie Precinct and is now the town of Poughkeepsie.

The list of names here given does not include a few residents on the patents who lived in the Middle Ward nor a few who lived in Poughkeepsie Precinct.

Lane, ____; 1769, 1770
Lane, on Daniel Beadle place; 1770
Lane, Gilbert; on D. Beadell's (Bedle's) place; 1771, 1772
Lane, Gilbert, 1773-1775, 1777-1779
Lane, Jacob; 1772-1775, 1777
Lane, Joseph; on Bedle's place; 1771, 1772
Lane, Joseph; 1773-1775, 1777-1779
Lane, on Wilsie's place; 1774
Lane, William; 1775, 1777-1779

The above was submitted by Liz Dubois at: [email protected]