Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of the wooded Doodletown valley below Bear Mountain and Dunderberg

Farm and ranch town

Doodletown

A valley hamlet settled by 1762 and bought out for Bear Mountain State Park. Its foundations, stone steps and two cemeteries lie along old roads that have been closed for storm repairs since 2023.

41°17′48″N 73°59′41″W · ≈270 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). See the photographs in the gallery below.

Trails closed

Flash floods on July 9 and 10, 2023 tore up the Doodletown trails. The Trail Conference's December 2025 trail-status map, which the NYS Parks page still links as its closure map, shades the valley, the townsite and the 1777 trails as closed: "Shaded areas are closed to the public." The Cornell Mine Trail along the valley's east edge reopened in October 2025. In December 2025 NYS Parks wrote that crews were repairing roadways through Doodletown and replacing washed-out culverts, and the $3 million trail project was slated for completion in late 2026. We found no reopening notice as of October 19, 2026, so check the Bear Mountain State Park page or call 845-786-2701 before you go.

Overview

A hamlet the park bought

Doodletown lies in a valley between Bear Mountain and Dunderberg Mountain, just west of the Hudson. The name is said to come from the Dutch for "dead valley." Ithiel June bought land here in 1762, and his family stayed for two centuries. During the Revolution, British troops marched through the hamlet, and Anthony Wayne's men used the Doodletown Road on their way to Stony Point.

The hamlet never grew big. Its people were loggers, miners and farmers, and later worked at the Navy depot on Iona Island and for the park. At its height in the 1920s it had about 70 homes, a school, a church and two cemeteries. Then Bear Mountain State Park began buying land around it. Most families had left by the 1950s, and in 1965 the last holdouts lost their land to eminent domain.

The houses were torn down and the roads closed in the late 1960s, and the woods grew back over them. The old roads became trails. Steel signs name the families who owned each lot, and the two cemeteries still take burials of former residents and their relatives. Since a July 2023 storm the valley's trails have been closed for repairs.

Timeline

Two hundred years in the valley

Doodletown on the 1957 USGS sheet, with the Montville school and the June and Herbert cemeteries
Doodletown on the 1957 USGS sheet, with the Montville school and the June and Herbert cemeteries · Map: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
  1. Munsee people live in the valley. In 1683 Stephanus Van Cortlandt buys the land from the Haverstraw.
  2. Ithiel June buys 72 acres from the Tomkins family, already living here. The Junes are the first family to settle and the last to leave.
  3. British troops march through on the way to the fighting at Fort Montgomery, and Anthony Wayne's men use the Doodletown Road on their way to take Stony Point.
  4. Mountville Presbyterian Church is built for Doodletown families. It doubles as a school.
  5. Thomas Edison buys a disused iron mine here to test an ore-refining method. Nothing comes of it.
  6. The Navy buys nearby Iona Island for an ammunition depot. A 1903 explosion there kills a Doodletown worker.
  7. Doodletown peaks, with about 70 homes, a school, a church, small businesses and two cemeteries, and about 350 people counting summer residents.
  8. Bear Mountain State Park expands, partly by buying Doodletown property.
  9. Most residents have moved away, to Stony Point or southern Orange County.
  10. The last owners who refused to sell lose their land through eminent domain. By the late 1960s the buildings are demolished or moved and the roads closed.
  11. The stone schoolhouse, the last building standing and by then a hikers' shelter, is torn down after vandalism.
  12. Flash floods badly damage trails across Bear Mountain State Park, including the Doodletown area.
  13. The Cornell Mine Trail reopens with a new stone staircase. A $3 million project to repair about five miles of Doodletown trails is slated to finish in late 2026.
  14. The Trail Conference's trail-status map still shades the Doodletown valley as closed. NYS Parks writes that crews are repairing roadways through Doodletown and replacing washed-out culverts.

What's left

Along the old roads

The bridle path through Doodletown under snow, February 2007
The bridle path through Doodletown under snow, February 2007 · Photo: Jim Harper (Pixel23), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5

Before the storm, the Trail Conference's 5-mile loop from Route 9W climbed the crumbling Doodletown Road past markers for former buildings, skirted the Doodletown Reservoir and turned onto Pleasant Valley Road, where stone walls and steps mark abandoned homesites. Side paths reach the Herbert Cemetery and the site of the church, and the return along the Bridle Path passes the First June Cemetery. The park's steel signs list the family who owned each lot, often with a photo of the house.

The 1947 USGS sheet below still labels Doodletown and Doodletown Brook, with building dots along the roads, and the 1957 sheet adds the Montville school and the June and Herbert cemeteries. On the older West Point sheets the valley sits at the western edge, beside Iona Island and Dunderberg.

  • House foundations and stone walls
  • Stone staircases
  • Doodletown Road
  • Doodletown Reservoir
  • Herbert Cemetery
  • First June Cemetery
  • Mountville church site
  • Old mine workings
USGS topographic map of the Doodletown valley with Doodletown Brook, the 1777 trails and the Cornell Mine trail
USGS The National Map, topo. Doodletown Brook and the 1777 trails cross the valley; the highway and Salisbury Meadow are to the east.
Aerial view of the Doodletown valley: unbroken forest around a small pond
Aerial imagery, same area. Forest covers the valley; the small pond is the Doodletown Reservoir.

Historic maps

Doodletown on USGS maps, 1892–1957

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Doodletown, 1892
West Point sheet, 1892, 1:62,500 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Stony Point is the closest town, about 10 minutes south on US 9W. From Manhattan the fastest route runs up the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Both routes end on Seven Lakes Drive near Bear Mountain, about a third of a mile from the townsite, and from there you would walk in. The Trail Conference's usual start was a small hikers' lot on Route 9W. The Doodletown trails were closed for repairs at our last check, so confirm they have reopened first.

USGS topographic map between Stony Point and Doodletown with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From Stony Point8.4 miabout 12 min
  1. From Stony Point, head north on US 9W/US 202 (North Liberty Drive).6.8 mi
  2. Bear left on South Entrance Road, then continue on Seven Lakes Drive at the roundabout.1.6 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • There is no road into Doodletown. Its old roads are closed to cars and are now trails.
  • The Trail Conference describes the Route 9W lot as small, on the left side of the road 1.3 miles south of Bear Mountain Circle, just past a concrete bridge over a stream.
  • NYS Parks charges a $10 vehicle entry fee at Bear Mountain State Park. Its page doesn't say whether that applies at the roadside 9W lot.
  • Wikipedia notes rattlesnakes and copperheads in the valley; watch your step in warm weather.

Photos

Doodletown in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Doodletown?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Doodletown

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our New York index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Doodletown": fact sheet fields (county, roads, climate, best time, remains).
  2. Wikipedia, "Doodletown, New York", retrieved October 2026: history, population, eminent domain, demolition, schoolhouse, cemeteries, signs, wildlife, coordinates.
  3. New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, "1777E/Doodletown Bridle Path Loop from Route 9W" (verified November 2019): the 9W trailhead and the route past the reservoir, cemeteries and homesites.
  4. New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, Bear Mountain trail alert, updated November 21, 2025: Cornell Mine Trail reopening, the five-mile Doodletown repair project due late 2026.
  5. Bear Mountain Area Trail Status map, New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, updated December 2025, hosted by NYS Parks: the Doodletown valley, the 1777 trails and the reservoir inside the closed area; the Cornell Mine Trail open.
  6. NYS Parks blog, "Restoring the Cornell Mine Trail", December 26, 2025: roadway repairs and culvert replacement under way in Doodletown before its last trails can reopen.
  7. Rockland Times, "More Updates Coming to Bear Mountain", October 16, 2025: the July 9–10, 2023 storm date and the $3 million Doodletown project.
  8. NYS Parks, Bear Mountain State Park, as of October 19, 2026: phone, dawn-to-dusk hours, vehicle fee, the notice that "many trail closures still remain in effect," and the December 2025 map as its current closure map.
  9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits