Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Dover Plains, NY

Dover Plains is a hamlet and census-designated place in the northern part of the town of Dover in eastern Dutchess County, New York, set in the Harlem Valley along the Ten Mile River on NY Route 22 near the Connecticut border.

The 2020 census counted 1,322 people in Dover Plains.

When the town of Dover was formed from the town of Pawling in 1807, James Ketcham — a Dover Plains merchant who with Jonathan Mabbett had bought the village's first store in 1806 — became the town's first clerk, at a time when the village had fewer than a dozen buildings.

Rail service reached Dover Plains on December 1, 1848, with the New York and Harlem Railroad, and the hamlet's station served as the Harlem Line's northern terminus until the tracks were extended to Chatham in 1852.

Dover Plains station, now on Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line, is 76.5 miles from Grand Central Terminal — about a two-hour ride — and the 7.5-mile stretch from Dover Plains to the Harlem Valley–Wingdale station is the longest gap between two stations on the entire Harlem Line.

When Penn Central abandoned service north of Dover Plains in 1972, the hamlet again became a terminal station, and it stayed the end of the line until Metro-North restored service to Wassaic in 2000.

Dover Plains is home to the Dover Stone Church, a cave-like rock formation with a roughly 30-foot waterfall inside it, preserved in a town park and preserve of about 60 acres just off Route 22.

Local tradition holds that Sassacus, sachem of the Pequot, took refuge in the Stone Church cave in 1637 while fleeing the English, and the site was first mentioned in print in the 1600s.

The hamlet's water system, serving approximately 1,000 households, draws from a wellhead on Stone Church Brook, one reason the town and the Dutchess Land Conservancy worked to protect the Stone Church property in 2004.