New archive footage unearthed for the sesquicentennial highlights Vassar students’ relationship with the Casperkill Watershed. For Vassar’s 150th anniversary, three videos shot between 1930 and 1943 have been uploaded onto the Vassar YouTube channel. In each video from each period, students can be seen enjoying the Watershed through Sunset Lake and Vassar Lake in many ways. […]
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Professor Lucy Johnson at the U-puku-ipi-sing site Last Friday, as part of Dutchess Watershed Awareness Month, archeologist Lucy Johnson of Vassar College led a walk-and-talk to a very special place in local history. She took us to the spring, known as U-puku-ipi-sing, which gave Poughkeepsie its name. Although it is not located within the Casperkill […]
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Ed Lynch with his bike on Vassar campus Ed Lynch has lived on College Avenue since 1979. Before that, he lived in the Wappingers Creek area, where he canoes even today. As a longtime area resident, Mr. Lynch remembers many of the events that we have written about on this blog. While attending middle school […]
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Panoramic view of Vassar Lake from 1912, with Raymond Avenue on the right On September 5, 1933, a Poughkeepsie Eagle News article came out under the headline “Dam At Vassar Lake Goes Out.” Heavy rains had put considerable strain on the rotting, wooden structure, causing the gate to give way and the lake to drain […]
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On May 16, 1928, the Miscellany News, Vassar’s student-run newspaper, featured on its cover an 1880’s print of Vassar Lake, then known as Mill Cove Lake. The print had been found in a bookshop in New York City and submitted to the newspaper for its historical value. Subtitled “Old Print Recalls Former Balmy Days When […]
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The following passages are from the glossary of the 1924 book Poughkeepsie: The Origin and Meaning of the Word by Helen Wilkinson Reynolds: Kil “In the Netherlands in the seventeenth century the word kil was used to designate narrow connecting water-channels. In the Dutch settlements in America it was applied to running streams and was […]
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In 1876, a Historical Sketch of Vassar College was prepared “in compliance with an invitation from the Commission of the Bureau of Education, representing the Department of the Interior in matters relating to the National Centennial.” This early document highlights the centrality of the Casperkill Creek to the value (and landscape design) of the land […]
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Posted in Fonteynkill on Jun 3rd, 2010 No Comments »
The Fonteynkill, a major tributary of the Casperkill, drains a portion of the City of Poughkeepsie. It flows from Park Avenue to Vassar Lake, then under Raymond Avenue and onto the main Vassar College campus. On campus the Fonteynkill runs between Olmstead and Skinner Halls before joining the Casperkill just south of the Sunset Lake […]
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