Goose Pond Mountain State Park
Encyclopedia
Orange County, New York
Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located at the northern reaches of the New York metropolitan area. The county sits in the state's scenic Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley...
. The park is located within the Town of Chester
Chester (town), New York
Chester is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 12,140 at the 2000 census. The town is named after another city in Great Britain...
and is administered by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission
Palisades Interstate Park Commission
Palisades Interstate Park and its creator, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, was formed in 1900 by governors Theodore Roosevelt of New York and Foster M. Voorhees of New Jersey in response to the destruction of the Palisades by quarry operators in the late 19th century...
. A small section is accessible to casual hikers via a boardwalk
Boardwalk
A boardwalk, in the conventional sense, is a wooden walkway for pedestrians and sometimes vehicles, often found along beaches, but they are also common as paths through wetlands, coastal dunes, and other sensitive environments....
, and there are extensive trails for hikers and horseback riders. Part of the area is wetland used as a bird sanctuary.
The loyalist leader Claudius Smith
Claudius Smith
Claudius Smith was a notorious Loyalist guerrilla leader during the American Revolution. He led a band of irregulars who were known locally as the 'cowboys'....
is said to have used a rock shelter in the area as a hideout during the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
.