Casperkill Watershed Oral History Project

Harvey Flad is Professor Emeritus of Geography at Vassar College. Appointed to the faculty in 1972, he played an important role in the development of multidisciplinary programs in American Culture, Environmental Studies and Urban Studies. He has lived in the City of Poughkeepsie for 30 years.

On June 21^st, Professor Harvey Flad joined us for a conversation about the Casperkill. For the past 40 years, Flad has been living, teaching and doing research in the Poughkeepsie area, and he has accumulated a great wealth of knowledge about local history.

As a professor of geography, he strove to engage his students in a critical understanding of the relationship of humankind to its environment. “Space and spatial analysis are what geography is all about,” he explained. But, over the course of his career, Flad developed an interest in time in addition to space.  Recognizing the importance of history in understanding landscape, his work became focused on the evolution of the landscape and its implications for society and culture.

Perhaps his primary focus was on the history of human development and land use, which necessarily includes the study of water sources and their role in human activity. Therefore, much of his research and teaching involved the Hudson River and its two local tributaries: the Fallkill and the Casperkill.

Harvey Flad on the evolution of the Casperkill watershed

The history of the Casperkill goes back to Native American use. Already in pre-colonial times, this area had been given the name of Poughkeepsie, which means “little reed house by the watering place.”  Said watering place is not the Casperkill but another small creek. However, its very mention sheds light on the importance of streams and ponds even in the earliest days of human history along the Hudson.

With the arrival of the Dutch in the early 17^th century and all the way into the revolutionary period, the entirety of the Fallkill and Casperkill watersheds were made up of agricultural land. Wheat and other crops were grown here, in small farms which also raised cattle, sheep and goats. It was not for nothing that Dutchess county and the surrounding area were known as the “breadbasket of Washington’s army.”

Naturally, the Fallkill and Casperkill were crucial to the success of agricultural activities. Not only did they provide the necessary water but they powered the mills which made much of the agricultural production possible.

In the late 19^th century, the emergence of steam power and the moving away of agriculture and industry meant that local streams like the Fallkill and the Wappingers no longer played as important a role in industrial development. The Casperkill remained as rural as it had ever been, with the area surrounding it still occupied by farms.  It wasn’t until the 20^th century that local land use trends took a radical turn.

While the upper reaches of the Casperkill remained largely unchanged; a perennial swamp and shrubland, the middle and lower courses of the stream saw unprecedented land use changes. At the southernmost end of the Casperkill, a quarry was built and expanded, thus transforming the composition of the creek right at the mouth. After picking up oil and other industrial wastes in its winding path through the quarry, the Casperkill flowed into the Hudson, no longer as a pristine creek, but dark and contaminated.

The middle reaches of the stream were transformed somewhat later, in the post-WWII period. At that point urbanization kicked in, resulting in highway construction, landfilling and retail development.  All of these had (and continue to have) a significant impact on the Casperkill.

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As urbanization raged on, suburbanization took over the land south of Spackenkill Rd. Harvey Flad speaks on the development of suburban housing and the transformation of the social landscape by IBM.

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For more information on Professor Flad, see http://harveyflad.wordpress.com/

Special thanks to Baynard Bailey for his help filming and editing this interview.