Tappan

Tappan takes its name from a Lenape people whose country lay west of the Hudson, among the Palisades and the highlands beyond. Dutch settlers established a village bearing their name after acquiring land in the seventeenth century. Its farms and roads lay close to the river route between New York and the interior.

A land patent obtained in 1686–1687 established the colonial settlement, whose early families included free people of African descent. The settlement was also known as Orangetown. During the American Revolution, residents adopted the Orangetown Resolutions in 1774 to protest British measures. Six years later the captured British officer John André was tried at Tappan for his part in Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point, and was executed nearby.