“Haver” is the Anglo-Dutch word for oats. The name originally appeared on maps dating from the seventeenth century as ‘Haverstroo.’ “Stroo” meaning “straw” or “grass.” 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 through an act of the New York State Legislature.
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