Tappan Historic District

Tappan Historic District is the old center of the Rockland County hamlet of Tappan, New York, clustered along Main Street and Kings Highway near the Sparkill. Thirty-five contributing buildings and three sites, including two cemeteries and the Village Green, show how the village grew from about 1730 to 1920. Five eighteenth-century buildings survive, among them the sandstone '76 House and the Tappan Reformed Church Manse, along with Federal houses, a cluster of Greek Revival buildings from a 1830s building boom, Gothic Revival and Victorian residences, and early twentieth-century Colonial Revival structures. The '76 House gained wartime importance as the place where British Major John Andre was held before his trial and execution in 1780. The district also reflects Dutch colonial settlement patterns in the Hudson Valley. Surrounding areas have been heavily developed, but the district keeps the compact, rural feel of a small village with few intrusions.