In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up our Hudson River and anchored the "Half Moon" in Cornwall Bay. Orange County was established in 1683 as one of the original counties of the Province of New York. The county name is derived from King William III of England who was a Prince of the House of Orange. George Washington established his longest residency during the Revolutionary War in Newburgh. It was here that he founded the Order of the Purple Heart, and in 1850 Washington's Headquarters became the first Registered National Historic Landmark in the United States.