Paul Wilstach in Hudson River Landings relates the story of the founding of New Paltz:
"New Paltz is the offspring of Old Hurley. The Huguenots had first established themselves at Hurley, but in 1663, the Indians attacked that settlement, burned it, and on their retreat carried away some of the women and children of Colonel Louis Dubois. The colonel was one of the rescue party who set out after the Indians. Their way led up the valley of the Wallkill, which parallels the course of the Hudson on the western side of the hills that rim the river. On their return, these French did not forget this lovely valley, and in 1677 they purchased from the Indians thirty-six thousand acres of land, whose eastern boundary was the Hudson itself, from a point nearly opposite the city of Poughkeepsie up nearly to Kingston." The price of this land was "’40 kettles, 40 axes, 4 adzes, 40 shirts, 400 strings of white beads (wampum), 300 strings of black beads, 5o pairs of stockings, 100 bars of lead, 1 keg of powder, 100 knives, 4 quarter-casks of wine, 40 jars, 60 splitting or cleaving knives, 60 blankets, 100 needles, 100 awls, and 1 clean pipe."
In The Hudson River From Ocean to Source, Edgar Mayhew Bacon tells the dramatic story of Colonel Dubois rescuing his wife from the Indians who kidnapped her. Catherine Dubois had already been tied to the stake and was about to be burned when she began singing hymns. The Indians were either impressed with her courage or simply enjoyed her singing because they encouraged her to keep singing. It was just after this that her husband and his party of men charged the Indian village and rescued her and the other women.
Arthur Adams in a Hudson River Guidebook explains the town of Highland's history:
New Paltz Landing was also called Elting's Landing "In 1678 a group of displaced Huguenots, living then in the Palitinate, purchased a 39,0000-acre tract, stretching from the Hudson River to the Shawangunk Mountains, west of the Walkill River from the Esopus Indians. . . . Over the years Elting’s Landing became the main route to the outside world, with a ferry to Poughkeepsie operating from 1793 until 1941."