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Concept
Walden, New York
Summary
Walden is the largest of three villages of the town of Montgomery in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 6,818 at the 2020 census. It has the ZIP Code 12586 and the 778 telephone exchange within the 845 area code. Walden is part of the Poughkeepsie−Newburgh−Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York−Newark−Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.
The precursor to the village began in the early 18th century as a mill town along the Wallkill River. One miller, Jacob Walden, was so successful the village that incorporated in the mid-19th century took its name from him. Later, it would be the village's three knife manufacturers that brought it growth and prosperity. They are gone today, but other industrial concerns remain.
The area around present-day Walden was purchased in 1736 by Alexander Kidd, and settlers of Scots-Irish, English and German descent started arriving not long afterwards. It was the first settlement west of the Wallkill River, known at the time as Kidd's Town.
In the 1820s, a successful New York shipper named Jacob Walden convinced some of his business partners to finance the construction of wool mills on the river, attracted by the Great Falls as a source of power and the railroad connections at nearby Maybrook. He dammed the Wallkill above the falls, creating a power station that remains in use today, and his mill was a success.
Other wool-makers followed as the Industrial Revolution picked up steam and the growing population center became known instead as Walden's Mills. Most of them failed a few decades later, but their influence was such that the village incorporated in 1855 as Walden.
The village fathers needed to replace the mills as a source of employment, and began encouraging knife manufacturers to relocate from nearby Dutchess County to the vacant buildings, where the New York Knife Company made much of the cutlery employed by the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War.
After the war, other knifemakers came to Walden, too, and the village became colloquially known as Knifetown.
Official source
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