Misplaced Pages

#989010

49-596: The Marlboro Mountains form a broken ridgeline running from the Ulster–Orange County border in the south to the mouth of Rondout Creek in the north. The southernmost 9 miles (14 km) of the ridge form Marlboro Mountain, the namesake mountain of the range. Just north of the Marlboro Mountain ridge is Bailey's Gap, which separates Marlboro Mountain from the 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -mile-long (5.6 km) Illinois Mountain . North of Illinois Mountain there

98-581: A Dutch colonial settler who in 1685 had an interest in a 2,900-acre tract of land which extended to the foot of the hill. Shaupeneak Mountain features a Native American name of Munsee Lenape origin. The name is derived from a waterfall, Shaupeneak Falls, located on the mountain's slope. The three syllables which comprise “shau-pe-neak” are thought to be defined as follows: shau (probably short for Asho-, as in Ashokan ), meaning forceful or hard current/rapids; pe, meaning water; and neak (likely ny-ak), meaning

147-412: A floodplain develops alongside. The land along the creek is now largely in private hands, and there is little public access to it as it crosses into Sullivan County . After crossing under NY 55A , it widens into the reservoir just below Grahamsville and begins flowing more to the east-southeast. Routes 55 and 55A bracket the reservoir to the south and north respectively. One-third of the way along

196-477: A boomtown quickly. The canal remained a prosperous operation until late in the 19th century when rail transportation finally became more affordable, and ended its days in 1904 after a brief period carrying Rosendale cement. The former terminal port area for the canal is now Kingston's Rondout-West Strand Historic District , listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In the mid-20th century,

245-487: A chance ray of the vertical sun, it was a perpetual feast to the eye — so cool, so deep, so pure; every reach and pool like a vast spring. You lay down and drank or dipped the water up in your cup, and found it just the right degree of refreshing coldness. One is never prepared for the clearness of the water in these streams. It is always a surprise. See them every year for a dozen years, and yet, when you first come upon one, you will utter an exclamation. I saw nothing like it in

294-518: A fort was built here by the colonial government in 1660. The local Native Americans likewise frequented the area. In 1652, an Englishman , Thomas Chambers, became the first to acquire a land deed from the Indians, nearby, along the Esopus Creek (which has a vast expanse of good farmland), and thus began the genesis of present-day Kingston. The Rondout's role in the area's early settlement was as

343-589: A lease on the hill. After forming the Hudson River Gold & Silver Mining Company the two began mining for gold in 1877. Ultimately, the men claimed to find gold-bearing quartz. However, the gold that was found was supposedly not enough to make up for recovery costs, the mine closing after just eighteen months. Later, in an odd twist, Dimmick's son claimed to develop a second sight which allowed him to sense gold deposits. The Dimmicks would lead Eltinge and others on fruitless gold finding expeditions in

392-713: A narrow valley. At Napanoch, where it turns northeast and receives its first significant tributary, the Ver Nooy Kill , it becomes wider, as does the valley it drains, and deeper. North of the Shawangunks , where the Wallkill trickles down from Sturgeon Pool, it is wide enough to be referred to as the Rondout River at some points. At Creeklocks, the former northern outlet of the canal, it becomes wide and deep enough to be navigable , and several marinas line

441-537: A port for the settlement that was made along the Esopus Creek [The Early History of Kingston, chapter 2] Settlement did slowly progress inland, but it was not until well after American independence that the Rondout would become economically important. In the early 1820s two Philadelphia businessmen realized the immense profits that could be made if they could find a way to get the mostly unmined high-quality anthracite coal from undeveloped Northeastern Pennsylvania to

490-441: A prominent point of land. Taken together, the syllables in the name “Shaupeneak” probably mean something like ‘waterfall on the prominence’. Illinois Mountain is named for the state of Illinois . During the early 1800s, there was a westward migration of New Englanders to the area of the former Northwest Territory , which included Illinois and Ohio. Some settlers, however, never reached their intended destination, being cut off by

539-542: A result, the less resistant strata will be eroded away leaving the more resistant strata as a caprock forming the dip slope (backslope) of a ridge that slopes in the direction of caprock. When this happens to flat-lying beds, landforms such as plateaus , mesas , and buttes are formed. The erosion of tilted beds will form landforms called cuestas, homoclinal ridges, hogbacks, and flatirons. Plateaus, mesas, and buttes have flat tops, while cuestas and homoclinal ridges are asymmetrical (~flat) areas w/ridges. The less steep side (at

SECTION 10

#1732775913990

588-695: A steep slope, or perhaps even a line of cliffs . Generally, cuestas and homoclinal ridges are asymmetrical in that their dip slopes are less steep than their escarpments. In the case of hogbacks and flatirons, the dip of the rocks is so steep that their dip slope approaches the escarpment in their steepness. Dip slopes are the result of the differential erosion of strata of varying resistance to erosion that are dipping uniformly in one direction. In this case, strata, i.e. shale , mudstone , and marl , that are less resistant to erosion are preferentially eroded relative to stronger strata, i.e. sandstone , limestone , and dolomite , that are more resistant to erosion. As

637-510: A trout, I should ascend every stream till I found the Rondout. It is the ideal brook. Starting in 1915 with Ashokan Reservoir , New York City had been expanding its water supply system with reservoirs in the Catskills. In 1937 it began construction of Merriman Dam near Lackawack, which would soon be flooded forever to allow the growing city to tap the pure waters Burroughs had written about. Those waters began to reach city taps in 1951, and

686-402: Is a half-mile-wide break in the ridgeline before it slowly rises to a series of unnamed hilltops west of West Park, New York . North of this section is Shaupeneak Mountain, which bends to the north-northwest before reaching an area known as The Hell, a gap in the ridge through which a creek flows. North of this gap is Hussey Hill, which stretches to an area west of Port Ewen, New York , marking

735-799: Is composed of rock of the Quassaic Group (named after Quassaic Creek ), a geologic group consisting of hard sandstone and quartzite . Quartzite, which consists of sandstone that has been recrystallized, is naturally resistant to erosion. This type of rock is common to other ridges in the Appalachian Mountains. The Marlboro Mountains provide numerous outdoor activities to the Mid Hudson Valley, including hiking, cross country skiing, and fishing. Recreation areas, nature sanctuaries, and trails from north to south: Recently, new land has been preserved on Illinois Mountain by

784-601: The Ver Nooy Kill it bends northeast, paralleling the Shawangunk Ridge and the edge of the Catskill Plateau. The creek, here wider and deeper, forms the bed of a widening valley as it continues northeast past Eastern Correctional Facility , where the first remnant of the canal, an empty ditch next to an old railroad station, can be found alongside. The creek continues towards Kerhonkson , where Route 55 and US 44 cross over. US 209 continues paralleling

833-490: The protected areas on both sides of the creek and the ease of public access, this area has become one of the Catskills' popular trout streams, and fly-fishermen can be seen here during the season. It crosses under Peekamoose Road, here also carrying the Long Path hiking trail, again just north of a popular camping area in the small Peekamoose Wild Forest , and then passes the hamlet of Sundown and widens slightly as

882-523: The Adirondacks, nor in Canada. Absolutely without stain or hint of impurity, it seems to magnify like a lens, so that the bed of the stream and the fish in it appear deceptively near. It is rare to find even a trout stream that is not a little "off color," as they say of diamonds, but the waters in the section of which I am writing have the genuine ray; it is the undimmed and untarnished diamond. If I were

931-621: The English word redoubt (meaning a fort or stronghold) is reduyt . In the Dutch records of Wildwyck, however, the spelling used to designate this same fort is invariably Ronduyt during the earliest period, with the present form rondout (often capitalized) appearing as early as November 22, 1666. The Rondout Creek became economically important in the 19th century when the Delaware and Hudson Canal followed closely alongside it from Napanoch to

980-480: The Rondout towards High Falls , as it begins to curve to the east around the northern end of the ridge. Here, it goes over the spectacular waterfall that gives the community its name, just below NY 213 . These were the subject of controversy in recent years, since they were considered both a popular swimming hole and an attractive nuisance . The local fire department , which owned the land, had to sell it to keep its liability insurance premiums affordable, and

1029-764: The Scenic Hudson organization. Trail building on Illinois Mountain is currently ongoing, having started in June, 2011. It is proposed that hikers and cyclists will be able to reach the summit of Illinois Mountain from the Hudson Valley Rail Trail. Rondout Creek Rondout Creek is a 63.3-mile-long (101.9 km) tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster and Sullivan counties , New York , United States. It rises on Rocky Mountain in

SECTION 20

#1732775913990

1078-594: The Shaupeneak Ridge: MARLBORO MOUNTAINS: SHAPED BY PEOPLE. Humans too have worked on the Marlboro Mountains. Long ago they logged most of the mountain’s hemlock trees to tan leather. They planted fields and orchards whose outlines can still be traced through stone walls running deep through the forest. In fact, Shaupeneak Ridge was once a populated area known as Poppletown. Today, cell towers atop

1127-621: The Shawangunks and Catskills, leaving their followers broke. In 1879, the owners of the land on Hussey Hill granted a lease to Simon S. Westbrook, who had purchased the Hudson River Gold & Silver Mining Company's equipment at foreclosure. Westbrook became involved with the Home Gold and Silver Mining Company, which established offices in Esopus and New York City. The company quickly acquired two million dollars in investment funds to work

1176-437: The aid of his son Julian, constructed Slabsides , a cabin retreat which he used in the summer. A series of infamous events in the history of the Marlboro Mountains and the town of Esopus involves gold mining operations at Hussey Hill. In the 1870s, a Kingston chemist and physician, Edgar Eltinge, claimed that he had found gold at Hussey Hill. Though locals doubted his find, Eltinge, along with another man, Royal Dimmick, bought

1225-650: The banks of the stream, now more than 100 feet (30 m) wide, at Kingston just above its mouth. Rising below the col between Rocky Mountain and Balsam Cap , the Rondout Creek flows generally southerly down the slopes of Rocky Mountain into a narrow valley, receiving tributary Picket Brook on the left and three unnamed streams from the slopes of Peekamoose Mountain to the right. A mile or two from its source, it reaches some private lands and its first road, Peekamoose Road (Ulster County 42). It has dropped 1,440 feet (440 m) in its first two miles. It turns to

1274-441: The base of Hussey Hill which contained gold. A sample of the rock was sent to New York City to verify the claim, and it was judged to actually contain gold. However, whether the rock came from Hussey Hill is questionable. In spite of this fact, Burger managed to sell a twenty-year lease to three men hoping to strike gold on his property. The Marlboro Mountains are primarily formed of shallow marine/delta sediments deposited during

1323-596: The creek but then close by it. Along here it receives several tributaries from the right — Buttermilk Falls Brook , with its eponymous waterfall near its mouth, High Falls Brook and Bear Hole Brook — most of them rising, like the Rondout itself, in the Slide Mountain Wilderness Area to the west. To the east is another Forest Preserve management unit, the Sundown Wild Forest . Some unnamed tributaries come from here. Because of

1372-538: The eastern Catskills , flows south into Rondout Reservoir , part of New York City 's water supply network, then into the valley between the Catskills and the Shawangunk Ridge , where it goes over High Falls and finally out to the Hudson at Kingston , receiving along the way the Wallkill River . The name of Rondout Creek comes from the fort, or redoubt, that was erected near its mouth. The Dutch equivalent of

1421-420: The late Ordovician, approximately 450 million years ago. After millions of years, these sediments have been titled and uplifted. Weathering has removed more easily eroded material surrounding the mountains, producing their modern topographic relief. Structurally, the Marlboro Mountains constitute a geologic formation known as a dip slope . The sedimentary layers comprising the bulk of the mountains dip towards

1470-406: The low point) is their dip slope (intersecting 'ground' surface, and disappearing underground) and the steeper other side (the opposite, and at the high point) is their escarpment. In case of hogbacks, the steepness of the dip slope and escarpment will be about the same. Dip slopes can also be formed by igneous structures such as sills . Some dip slopes are quite prone to landslides , due to

1519-425: The lucrative markets of New York City . Railroads had not yet been perfected, so they saw the possibility of a canal running from Honesdale, Pennsylvania , to the Hudson at what was then the village of Rondout . In 1828 they obtained a charter for their company to do this, and the Delaware and Hudson Canal was opened a few years later. Coal was transferred from canal barges to river ships at Rondout, and it became

Marlboro Mountains - Misplaced Pages Continue

1568-413: The mine on Hussey Hill. Much of this funding was raised through public viewings of weekend dig operations directed by a company sales associate. As with Eltinge and Dimmick, no appreciable gold was ever verifiably found, and none of the gold supposedly produced was ever shown. The last gasp of gold fever at Hussey Hill occurred in 1891. A farmer, Conrad Burger, claimed he discovered a rock on his farm at

1617-496: The new owner has posted the property for the same reason. Around the north end of the Shawangunks, it receives as tributaries many of the streams of the Minnewaska State Preserve : Peters Kill , Stony Kill and Coxing Kill . It begins to curve more to the east again. Route 213 replaces Route 209 as the Rondout's paralleling road, with the canal's empty ditch running next to both along the way to Rosendale ,

1666-583: The next settlement, which grew up around the canal and, later, a local cement industry that used the creek to get its product to market. Here it crosses under Route 213 and NY 32 in a gravel-lined flood control channel, but returns to a more natural bed shortly afterwards to flow beneath the New York State Thruway . In the wooded areas east of the Thruway, the Wallkill River , its flow attenuated by Sturgeon Pool just upriver, joins in from

1715-452: The northernmost limit of the Marlboro Mountains. The name “Marlboro” is a variant of the English “Marlborough”. In the case of the mountains, the name comes from the Duke of Marlborough , for whom the town of Marlborough, New York , is named. The names of the individual ridges of the Marlboro Mountains have both European and Native American roots: Hussey Hill is named for Frederick Hussey,

1764-598: The past two centuries than at any other time in human history. Today, due to a decline in agriculture and logging in the mountains, some of the ridges have begun reverting to a more natural state. An information board erected by the Scenic Hudson Land Trust at the ridge-top parking area of the Shaupeneak Ridge Cooperative Recreation Area summarizes the history of human impact on the mountains, with emphasis on

1813-622: The reservoir itself was completed three years later. Today, via the Delaware Aqueduct , and the connections it has via the Neversink Aqueduct to the Neversink , Pepacton and Cannonsville reservoirs to the west supplementing the upper Rondout's drainage, it supplies half the city's daily water draw. Dip slope A dip slope is a topographic (geomorphic) surface which slopes in the same direction, and often by

1862-601: The reservoir's 9-mile (14 km) length, it crosses back into Ulster County. Now at an elevation of 840 feet (260 m), the creek resumes at the site of the former hamlet of Lackawack, leaving the Catskill Park , now headed eastwards, in a rocky, wider streambed through some slightly more development. It follows closely alongside Route 55, deviating from it only when it turns north to Honk Lake , another impoundment. Past here it crosses under 55 again and comes into Napanoch . After crossing under US 209 and receiving

1911-404: The reservoir, which collects water from three others, also add to its flow. The Rondout goes through several different stages because of the changes in surrounding geography and past development, such as the canal and reservoir, that has drawn on its waters. Its headwaters , above the reservoir, are a typical mountain stream. Below the reservoir it remains fairly rocky but widens into the floor of

1960-472: The ridge add a new and controversial human presence to the landscape. Yet despite many intrusions, Shaupeneak’s busy natural workshop has staged a remarkable comeback. Today it is closer to its natural condition than at any time during the last 200 years. –Scenic Hudson Land Trust In addition to their consumable resources, the mountains have provided quiet solitude and escape. It is in the Marlboro Mountains that naturalist and essayist John Burroughs , with

2009-419: The same amount, as the true dip or apparent dip of the underlying strata . A dip slope consists of the upper surface of a resistant layer of rock, often called caprock , that is commonly only slightly lowered and reduced in steepness by erosion . Dip slopes form the backslopes of cuestas , homoclinal ridges , hogbacks , and flatirons . The frontslopes of such ridges consist of either an escarpment ,

Marlboro Mountains - Misplaced Pages Continue

2058-402: The south. The Rondout turns north, then east again, crossing Route 213 again. At Creeklocks the last lock and the end of the canal are still visible. In Kingston itself it widens and flows under a pair of bridges, the historic Kingston–Port Ewen Suspension Bridge , which carried US 9W until the construction of the neighboring John T. Loughran Bridge . The city's West Strand neighborhood along

2107-473: The southwest to follow a wider valley, known informally as Peekamoose Gorge. Most of the land surrounding the creek is part of New York's Forest Preserve , "forever wild" and thus undeveloped. The rocky stream boasts several popular swimming holes , one of which is known as Blue Hole for the greenish tone of the deep water within. South of the small outlet stream from Peekamoose Lake, it is crossed and then followed by Peekamoose Road, which at first runs high above

2156-500: The stream would find another important use. Naturalist John Burroughs had anticipated it when he explored the upper headwaters with a friend early in the century, writing in his essay "A Bed of Boughs" of the purity of the stream's waters and its benefits for both man and fish: My eyes had never before beheld such beauty in a mountain stream. The water was almost as transparent as the air — was, indeed, like liquid air; and as it lay in these wells and pits enveloped in shadow, or lit up by

2205-476: The swamps just west of the Marlboro Mountains. Setting up homesteads in the area, the settlers named local places and geographic features after the lands they never reached. Ohioville, New York is an example of another area with the same etymological lineage. Though occupied and utilized by people for thousands of years, the Marlboro Mountains, which have historically provided timber, game, and agricultural land, were more intensely exploited for their resources in

2254-475: The value of the creek for their colonial ambitions. However, the contention that a trading post or fort was established at the mouth of the Rondout in the early part of the 17th century is thoroughly debunked in Marc B. Fried's The Early History of Kingston and Ulster County, NY, pp. 3–14 and 155–61. The first non-Native structure at this location was undoubtedly the house of settler Christoffel Davits in 1653, and

2303-411: The village of Rondout , now part of Kingston, which grew rapidly as the canal's northern port. Today it is important not only for the reservoir, but for the fishing and other recreational opportunities it provides. Due to the Wallkill, it drains a vast area stretching over 1,100 square miles (2,850 km ) all the way down to Sussex County, New Jersey . The high mountains around its upper course and

2352-622: The waterfront has been rejuvenated in recent years and many boats can be seen moored at docks here on summer weekends. Old shipbuilders ' factories line the northern bank, and one of them has been converted into the Hudson River Maritime Museum . After a slight curve through swampier, less developed lowlands in the Kingston Point neighborhood, the Rondout empties into the Hudson at Rondout Lighthouse , just opposite Rhinecliff . The early Dutch settlers realized

2401-419: The west, with a hard cap rock layer at the surface. The ridgeline of the mountains forms the edge of the cap rock layer, which is being eroded relatively slowly, protecting underlying geologic layers from being weathered. This setup leads to the hogback appearance of the mountains: gently sloping westward flanks and steeply graded eastern flanks. The hard cap rock layer responsible for the mountains' topography

#989010