At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Saugerties was entering the height of its earliest community development and the names of its leading families are those that will play a part in the protests, rebellion and recovery for the next quarter century. All were landowning Freeholders of the Kingston Commons. The majority found themselves residing and farming on disputed lands after the Crown grants of 1767. For this reason this community was one in calling the taxes and other economic Acts of England tyrannical and joining the protests that made England declare its American colonies in rebellion.

Following the Unanimous Declaration of the Independence on July 4th, 1776 an army of 32,000 English and Hessian soldiers landed on Long Island and occupied New York City. Cut off from the sea, the Kings Highway and Kingston, the most important location on it, became the route and destination of all communication and commerce between the rebellious colonies. After the independent State of New York elected a Governor in June of 1777 England called for its armies of the north and those in New York City to join at Kingston, destroy the seat of the new government, occupy the whole of the Hudson Valley and split the colonies in two.

When the army of the north surrendered at Saratoga the British fleet had already burned Kingston, Livingston’s Clermont and other houses along the shore around Saugerties before retreating back to New York City.

The army that had fought at Saratoga, marching south to Pennsylvania along the Kings Highway, was greeted at Kaatsbaan Church by the homeless families of Kingston with a great feast to celebrate their victory. Afterward, as they passed the ruins of Kingston’s beloved Dutch church and the remains of the homes of this once-prosperous place, that memory would strengthen their resolve and see them through the many hardships they would suffer in the winter that followed at Valley Forge.

Saugerties, together with Hurley, Marbletown, New Paltz and other places that had grown out of Kingston’s seed now had to feed and shelter its homeless population for that harshest of all winters and then until its homes could be rebuild. This played a decisive role in reinforcing the settlement patterns of these host communities, especially in Saugerties where so many of the third and forth generation Dutch had already made their homes.

Kingston had become a center of great wealth. Its houses were the showplace of those that controlled the most productive lands in the Hudson Valley. Many also owned houses in New York City that the great fire there had destroyed the past winter. After the burning of Kingston an entire class used to comfort was forced to live in the rough dwellings built for their slaves and farm workers on their plantations or to seek charity in the frontier homes of their friends or relatives.

In these homes there was a constant threat of raids and even fear of a full-scale invasion throughout the winter. An army of Indians and loyalists were pressing throughout the Catskills recruiting leasehold farmers with promises of ownership grants to their farmsteads. A Tory fort built atop the Plattekill Clove controlled the peaks and looked down on all the land of Saugerties, the Hudson River and a smoldering, deserted Kingston to the south.

By 1773 the budding village of Saugerties already had Christopher Kiersted in residence as its doctor. He lived in the stone house built by his wife’s grandfather Hizakia DuBois. After the burning of Kingston his house and that of his neighbor, Edgar Schoonmaker who had just returned from the battle of the north, as well as other dwellings in the vicinity filled up with relatives from these early Kingston Dutch families and others they could give charity to as the winter approached.

On February 17, 1778 Governor Clinton exempted “artificers” (carpenters and masons) from military drafts and duty who were available in the spring to start rebuilding Kingston. Many of these artificers came from the Snyder and Myer families of Churchland. Johannas Snyder had earlier built the stone “hospital” for housing the troops during the French and Indian War and the entire Snyder family were skilled carpenters and stone layers. The stone houses built by the second generation of the Christian Myer family were landmarks along Kings Highway and into the village of Saugerties well before the Revolution. It is not until 1781 that militia responsibilities are again placed upon the Myers and many of the Snyder family indicating the time it took to finish the rebuilding of Kingston.

The frontage of Saugerties on the Hudson was vulnerable to the traffic on the river's broad and deep sea level channel and its western bounds were vulnerable to the mountain overlooks and the enemy encamped behind them. But the middle terrain of Saugerties with its raising bluestone ledges made it equally defensible against these threats.

Saugerties’ single most important asset was the sweeping views that, in this time of threats of Indian raids from the Catskills and military invasion from the Hudson, permitted a watchful community to feel informed and secure. Just as the high escarpment of the Catskill mountains allowed the Tory fort to keep a watchful eye on the activities of Saugerties, the high hills between the Catskill wall and the river offered equally strategic views of both the mountain and the river. From atop Mount Marion a view of the river as far as the Highlands and, on a clear day, through the Highlands to Manhattan could be had.

These same high hills also represented a significant, defensive barrier to east-west and, at critical points, north-south overland traffic. Where these barriers opened their few natural passages, Saugerties formed its settlements. In this way it effected the points of traffic and insured both its security and that of the larger community of Kingston. These passages grew after the burning of Kingston to rapidly became control points as well for commerce. Compact groupings of stores and houses were built to support the traffic that passed through them.