A great day for the Bull family
By Ginny Privitar
GOSHEN — It was a splendid sesquicentennial — the 150th reunion, that is — for the multitudinous descendants of the Bull family, who gathered on a perfect summer day to celebrate their long history and one another.
The descendants of early Orange County settlers William Bull and Sarah Wells came from all over the United States and from Canada for the event. Although William and Sarah settled and built their home here in 1722, long before we were even a nation, the first reunion picnic was not held until 1868.
The Bulls built this extraordinary fieldstone house over a spring so that in case of attack, they would always have water. Centuries later, the house and the spring still exist.
Sarah and William Bull had 12 children. William predeceased his wife; when Sarah died in 1796, she had 335 living descendants.
The best part of the Saturday party was reconnecting with familiar relatives and meeting new ones for the first time. It was a happy, festive day treasured by those with a love of history, and especially, family history.
Approximately 370 descendants and guests attended. Two giant tents set up under the mature trees on the Bull homestead were filled with celebrants, who spilled out over the pastoral landscape. Later in the afternoon, they gathered around the family homestead for group photos, including one taken by an overhead drone.
Bull family-related items were for sale. At a genealogy tent, guests could check their line of descent from one of the original 12 Bull offspring.
Teacher Melanie Latimer, the honorary master of ceremonies, is a third-generation caretaker: her father, Mike Brown, was caretaker for decades. Before him, Latimer's grandparents had been custodians of the homestead, also for decades. All had lived in the house, preserved its history, and given tours of the home.
Food and friendsbipOn this August day, some guests brought lunch, but most dined on chicken barbecue with all the trimmings prepared by members of the Cardone family.
President Lyle Shute of the Bull Stone House organization, along with other members of the board, thanked Melanie Latimer and her family for their time as caretakers of the Bull Stone House, Boy Scout Timothy McNeilly, an Eagle Scout candidate from Campbell Hall who, with his Troop 416, built picnic tables and benches for relaxing by the pond and Gary Johnson, who maintains the land, "for keeping this place beautiful."
Will Condit came with his family from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
"It’s nice to be back home in the New Jersey-New York area," he said. "It’s just so special. I always tell the kids, just to be part of a tradition and the history is really something to marvel at; we enjoy it. I was looking it up to see how many family reunions there are that are this large, and there’s not that many."
His sister, a nun, Sister Theresa Condit, came from Ohio.
Daniel Monteith, 19, from New Brunswick, Canada, said, "It’s my first time coming here. I’m really glad to be here; it’s interesting to see everything kind of pieced together."
Charles "Sandy" Johnson, there with three other generations of his family, summed the day up best:
"It's the greatest," he said.
For more information about the Bull family or the Bull Stone House, see bullstonehouse.org.
Many more photos at chroniclenewspaper.com. This article has been updated to clarify an editing error, that it's the 150th anniversary of the reunion gathering; the family itself dates back much farther in time, as the article attests. The Chronicle regrets the error.