The Deed of Noah Elting
A deed dating back to 1767 between Noah Elting and Benjamin Deyo, this land agreement offers its audience key insights into the constantly changing landscape of the old town of New Paltz and the business of its wealthiest landowners.
Description
Dating back to April 3rd, 1767, this particular piece of paper measures about 16.75 inches by 13 inches. Its provisions and procedures are written in loopy brown cursive, the pages slightly yellowed and frayed along its edges due to centuries of aging. Towards the bottom of the page, Noah Elting’s signature includes a red wax stamp, unique to the Elting family. It stands among several other signatures, including Benjamin Deyo’s, Daniel LeFevre’s, and Joseph Coddington’s.
Provenance
The deed, signed between Noah Elting and Benjamin Deyo, was kept in the Deyo family collection for centuries after its signing. Though its exact locations were unknown, two centuries later, it was donated to Historic Huguenot Street by Sarah E. Deyo in 1960, where it has remained since along with the rest of the Deyo Family Papers.
Narrative
Though New Paltz’s residents live and breathe the town’s history – with townhouses lining Huguenot Street and its streets and schools named for its original settlers – not many realize just how much the land has shifted beneath their feet.
The town of New Paltz originally spanned between the Hudson River and the Shawangunk Mountain Range, encompassing the entirety of New Paltz along with its neighbors like Jenkinstown, Ohioville, Highland, etc. This land was split among notable families such as the Hasbroucks, LeFevres, Beviers, and DuBoises, whose property spanned hundreds of acres of woods and farmland. From the moment the Patentees staked claim to the land to the very township today, New Paltz’s boundaries have constantly changed, adapting to land sales, foreclosures, and wills; this deed is just one example of these ever-changing property lines.
The Deed of Noah Elting describes the land transaction between Noah Elting, a well-known resident of eighteenth-century New Paltz, and a gentleman by the name of Benjamin Deyo. Drawn up on April 3rd 1767, the deed details the transfer of 36 acres of land in exchange for forty-five pounds.
Noah Elting was born in 1721 to Roelif Elting, the first Elting in New Paltz, and Sarah DuBois, granddaughter of Louis DuBois, an original New Paltz Patentee. A captain of the French and Indian War, he married his cousin Jacomyntje Elting in 1742 and had one child, Sarah Wynkoop (Le Fevre 484-485). His most notable achievements, however, lie in his acquisition of landed property. In addition to the homestead he inherited after his father’s death, Elting and another man named Nathaniel LeFevre were granted nearly 3,000 acres of land from King George II of which he received 1,500 acres. That parcel of land was where The Locusts, a historic home replicating the original building that Noah erected in 1746, now stands (National Park Services). This land, in addition to the hundreds of acres he owned, made Elting one of the richest men in New Paltz, with 1/17th of all the land in his name by 1773 (Le Fevre 486).
Historic Lots of New Paltz identifies three distinct plots of land owned by Noah Eltinge in 1760 New Paltz: Lot 1 in the First Tier North, Lot 3 in the First Tier South, and another 1,500 acres of land. The first of three is part of what is currently northern New Paltz, sectioned between Route 32 and the I-87 highway, comprising around 100 acres of land, overlaying a majority of Horsenden Road. To its southern border, there was a plot of land what is referred to as the Grandpere Lot, split among the Deyo family and mentioned in the deed.
The 36 acres Elting sold to Deyo would have been added to the family’s extensive landholdings, according to the deed, including “with all and singular woods, underwoods, trees, timber, meadows, marshes, swamps, ponds, streams, and runs of waters, mines and minerals and all other profits...” It granted Deyo exclusive rights to use the land as he wished.
Noah Elting died twelve years after the deed was drawn in 1778, though by this point, he had drawn up deeds with several New Paltz residents including Cornelius DuBois, Josiah Elting, and Samuel Bevier for varying parcels of land. As New Paltz residents bought and sold land, their properties continued to change within the boundaries of the larger town.
The landscape of New Paltz continued to shift across the next few centuries, with parts of New Paltz being portioned off to create the towns of Rosendale, Gardiner, Marbletown, Esopus, and Rochester, as evidenced by a map from 1875. Eventually, the town would come to encompass the 33.88 square miles it comprises today, maintained and managed by a larger variety of property owners.
The deed of Noah Elting to Benjamin Deyo represents a single land transaction for 36 acres, but its representation of New Paltz’s ever-changing landscape and property lines calls for its visitors to consider the land they stand on and the untold stories of its ownership from centuries and millennia before.
~Sara Vala
Works Cited
Bevier , Louis. Map, 48 Lots of Land in the New Paltz Patent. 1760, nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16694coll153/id/22458/rec/1. Accessed 17 Sept. 2025.
“Historic Lots of New Paltz.” Arcg.is, 2025, arcg.is/1v9eba4. Accessed 17 Sept. 2025.
Le Fevre, Ralph. History of New Paltz, New York and Its Old Families (from 1678 to 1820). Albany, Brandow Printing Company, 1909.
National Park Services. National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks Program Records. Records of National Park Service, 1785-2006, Noah Elting 1767.
United States Census Bureau. “Quick Facts - New Paltz.” Census Bureau QuickFacts, 2025, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newpaltztownulstercountynewyork/LND110220. Accessed 17 Sept. 2025.