Gomez Mill House
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Gomez Mill House
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Mill House in 2007. Original 1714 fieldstone still visible in first story.
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| Location | Town of Newburgh, NY |
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| Nearest city | Newburgh |
| Coordinates | 41°35′12″N 73°58′53″W / 41.58667°N 73.98139°WCoordinates: 41°35′12″N 73°58′53″W / 41.58667°N 73.98139°W |
| Built | 1714 |
| Architect | Jacob and Daniel Gomez (first floor) Wolfert Acker (second floor and attic) |
| NRHP Reference # | 73001245 |
| Added to NRHP | 1973 |
The Gomez Mill House is located in the Town of Newburgh, New York, USA, on Mill House Road a short distance off US 9W, just south of the Orange–Ulster county line (its mailing address is in nearby Marlboro, in the latter). Over 300 years old, it is the earliest known surviving Jewish dwelling in North America and the oldest home in Orange County listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Luis Moses Gomez, a Sephardic Jewish merchant and trader whose Spanish Jewish ancestors fled to France to escape from the Spanish Inquisition for the New World, came to New York in the late 1690s. In 1705 he was granted an Act of Denization from Anne, Queen of Great Britain, which he purchased for 56 pounds British Sterling. This document gave him rights to conduct business, own property, and live freely within the British Colonies without an oath of allegiance to the Church of England. Gomez established himself as a prominent businessman and leader within the early Jewish community of New York. In 1714, he purchased 1,000 acres in Marlboro on the west side of the Hudson River in the then-British colony of New York. Subsequently he and three of his sons, Jacob, Daniel and David, acquired an additional 3,000 acres. The property was located where several old Native American paths converged. Other pioneers, fleeing tyranny a in Europe for the promise of a new life, then settled in the Hudson Valley. On the western border of the Gomez property, a single-story fieldstone block house with walls three feet (1 m) thick was built into the side of a hill alongside a stream that came to be known as Jews Creek. For over thirty years Daniel ran the thriving family lumber and linestone operations along Jews Creek and the Hudson River, while offering goods for sale and trade at the stone blockhouse, which remains today as the foundation and first floor of the Gomez Mill House.
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