What’s a ‘Haverstraw’?

“Haver” is the Dutch word for oats. Prior to the brick making industry that began in Haverstraw in the late 1700s, miles of “haver grass” or wild oats spread out into Haverstraw Bay, the widest length of the Hudson River. Legend has it when Henry Hudson sailed up the river in 1609 he commented on these magnificent grassy plains.

The Village was originally named Warren, or the Village of Warren after a Revolutionary general, but was subsequently changed to a more “historic” and “representative” name later during the mid-1800s.