Stories of the Saw Kill
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Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2018 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2018 From the Headwaters to the Bay: Stories of the Saw Kill Tierney Jo Belle Weymueller Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2018 Part of the Environmental Studies Commons, and the Human Geography Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Weymueller, Tierney Jo Belle, "From the Headwaters to the Bay: Stories of the Saw Kill" (2018). Senior Projects Spring 2018. 330. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2018/330 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From the Headwaters to the Bay: Stories of the Saw Kill Senior Project Submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College by Tierney Jo Belle Weymueller Annandale-on-Hudson, New York May 2018 To Bob Bard, Gayle and Gary Beatty, Sheila Buff, Susan Ellis, Sheryl Griffith, Erik Kiviat, Christopher and Claudine Klose, Brent Kovalchik, Dan McKenna, and Ruth and Maia Oja. Your care and presence make the Saw Kill a more beautiful place. Acknowledgements Thank you again to all the people I spoke with who made this project possible: Bob Bard, Gayle and Gary Beatty, Sheila Buff, Susan Ellis, Sheryl Griffith, Erik Kiviat, Christopher and Claudine Klose, Brent Kovalchik, Dan McKenna, and Ruth and Maia Oja. I cannot thank you all enough for your generosity in sharing your time, stories, and knowledge with me. You have taught me so much this year, and I am honored to have had the opportunity to share it through this project. To Michele Dominy, thank you for your unending support and guidance this year. Your thoughtful comments, challenging questions, and trust in this project’s potential were invaluable to me. Thank you for your continuous belief in this project. To Eli Dueker for sharing your love of water and the Saw Kill with me, and whose advice, encouragement, and teaching has shaped my four years here. Susan Rogers, thank you for taking me boating on the Saw Kill, reading my many drafts, and showing me the wonder of birding. Peter L’Official, thank you for introducing me to a literature around place and one of the best syllabuses I have encountered at Bard. Thank you to Helene Tieger for helping me navigate the wonderful, yet confusing, world of historical archives. Amy Parrella, Claudine Klose, and Emily Majer for all of your help in answering my questions on the history of this area. Jeremy Hall in the library for taking the time to go over my citations with me. And Isabel Snodgrass for being an outside eye when I most needed it. Emily Beresford and Lydia Pepi, thank you for bookending our time here at Bard. I could not have done this year without your friendship, and the enormous amount of baked goods we made. You two have made this place my home. Ella Hill, the first person I visited the Saw Kill with during Language and Thinking, for being the first person to be excited about this project idea and your continual support. To all the EUS seniors, for your passion that inspires me daily and for challenging me in all our classes together. Thank you especially to Julia Derby for dreaming up eel music videos with me in the midst of this crazy year, Jasper Hartnett for going on adventures with me to find the source of the Saw Kill, and Xaver Kandler for our early morning birding. To everyone in the Bard Dance Department, dancing with you all has been the greatest source of joy. To the Saw Kill Watershed Community, for all you have taught me, and for welcoming me into this amazing community. To my family; for everything. You taught me how to make home wherever we went, the value of education, and the importance of stories. Table of Contents Where it Begins The Saw Kill ........................................................................................................... 1 The Project ..............................................................................................................3 The Course of the Project .......................................................................................8 Stories Near the Source in Milan: Sheila Buff ..............................................................................12 First Reflection ......................................................................................................19 Echo Valley Farm: Christopher and Claudine Klose ........................................................22 Second Reflection ................................................................................................. 34 Hook, Line, and Sinker: Gayle and Gary Beatty .............................................................. 37 Third Reflection ....................................................................................................53 A Pause in Mill Pond: Sheryl Griffith .............................................................................. 55 Fourth Reflection ..................................................................................................65 Beneath the Village of Red Hook: Brent Kovalchik ........................................................ 67 Fifth Reflection .....................................................................................................76 The Chocolate Factory: Ruth and Maia Oja .....................................................................78 Sixth Reflection ....................................................................................................93 The Water Plant to the Mouth and Back Again: Dan McKenna ......................................96 Seventh Reflection ..............................................................................................108 The North and South Woods Near the Mouth: Erik Kiviat ............................................110 Eighth Reflection ................................................................................................121 The Mouth, into the South Bay and the Hudson: Bob Bard ...........................................123 Ninth Reflection ..................................................................................................138 Where It Empties A Final Conversation ..........................................................................................141 Forming a Water Ethic ........................................................................................143 Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 148 Figures and Maps Cited ..................................................................................................155 Illustrations Maps Map 1. The Saw Kill Watershed ................................................................................................... 10 Map 2. My depiction of the Saw Kill and the sites of the people I met ........................................ 11 Map 3. Sheila Buff’s map showing the upper reaches of the Saw Kill ......................................... 12 Map 4. Taconic State Parkway, 1949 ........................................................................................... 18 Map 5. Chris and Claudine Klose’s map of their property next to the Saw Kill .......................... 22 Map 6. Survey map of the Klose’s property, 1908 ....................................................................... 31 Map 7. Wade & Croome's Panorama of the Hudson River from New York To Albany, 1846 .... 32 Map 8. Close-up of the Montgomery Place landing from Map 7 .................................................. 32 Map 9. New York State map depicting the distribution of Ash trees 3 ........................................... 3 Map 10. Survey of the Beatty’s property on Mill Pond, 1985 ...................................................... 37 Map 11. Alexander Thompson map of the town of Rhinebeck and surrounding area, 1798........ 47 Map 12. A close-up of Map 11 to show the grist mill on Mill Pond, 1798 .................................. 47 Map 13. Sheryl Griffith’s map of her parcel of land next to Mill Pond ........................................ 55 Map 14. Brent Kovalchik’s map of the village of Red Hook’s wells, groundwater protection area, and tributary seven’s connection to the Saw Kill ................................................................................ 67 Map 15. Survey map in the village of Red Hook drawn for George Cramer, 1889 ..................... 73 Map 16. Ruth Oja’s map of the lower Saw Kill ............................................................................ 78 Map 17. A close-up of Map 11 to show mills at Cedar Hill, 1798 ............................................... 90 Map 18. The original Saw Kill monitoring program sample sites, 1975-1982 ............................. 90 Map 19. Chapin tourist map of the Hudson River, close-up of the Saw Kill, 1830 ..................... 93 Map 20. Dan McKenna’s map of the lower Saw Kill ..................................................................