Casperkill Watershed Oral History Project

Although the Casperkill may not seem like an ideal place for American eel (Anguilla rostrata), many of the people we have interviewed have seen these fish in the creek.

Vinnie Bihn, who lives close to where the Casperkill drains into the Hudson, told us that he “used to live in the pond” in his backyard.  In addition to bass, sunfish, perch and catfish, Bihn often caught eel:

Eel is delicious. You’ve gotta get over the looks because they are really tasty. And my mother being Italian, you know…Italians eat anything.  So my mother and I would skin them and use them. Actually, not long after we moved here (Bihn moved back to his family home in the 1970s with his wife Kathi), I caught a large eel.  Kathi and I skinned it and I gutted it and cut it up into pieces and put them on a plate in the refrigerator for dinner. And then, from the living room, I hear this scream. This was hours later. [Kathi] took the plate out and one of the pieces jumped off the plate. They don’t need a brain because everything takes place in the spinal cord.  It was actually moving five or six hours after it had been gutted. But it’s very white, sweet meat.  Really good.”

Vinnie Bihn fishing in the Casperkill  in the 1950s

Further upstream along Boardman Road, David Page never got to experience the great taste of Casperkill eel meat.  When he caught an eel as a kid in the 1950s, he “didn’t know” what the “big, black wriggling thing” was.  He says that he got so scared of the fish hanging on to the end of his fishing pole, that he actually flung the pole through the air and the eel “accidentally hit a tree.”

It is unknown how many eel currently live in the Casperkill, but local fish experts have told us that there are definitely some there—although probably not as far upstream as Boardman Road. American eel are common in the tributaries of the Hudson River and in other estuaries of the United States, where they migrate to from the Sargasso Sea (in the Atlantic Ocean).  When the eels travel up to North America on the Gulf Stream, they are just tiny glass eels.  Eventually the eels mature in the streams and estuaries and then return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. In recent years eel populations have been declining, so the New York Department of Conservation started up a citizen-science monitoring and research project—The Eel Project—in 2008.  To find out more about the Hudson River Eel Project, please visit the DEC website or check out this description of the project from http://dutchesswatersheds.org.

– Eel life cycle image courtesy of Chris Bowser, DEC Science Education Specialist.

– Special thanks to the Bihn’s for letting us use images from their personal collection.

The Casperkill along Old Farms Road in 1955

Dr. Melody Mordock has lived on Old Farms Road for about 18 years.  The Casperkill, which runs through her backyard, is an important feature of her property.  To begin with, there are the floods:

Flooding is pretty common. The last major flood came up and just smiled at us, like a half an inch before coming in into our downstairs porch, that’s how close it gets.

Right here (points beneath a tree in a picture) is where we buried our cat.  It really seemed safe enough because it was a beautiful lily pad there.  Well, I saw it floating down the Casperkill. I couldn’t stop that cat.  That’s the worst story…I haven’t really told the kids that one.  We’ve learned since that anything we plant that far down is a goner.  Needless to say we’ve had tons of furniture down there.  A nice swing, hammock, chairs, and we never know who inherits all this but they are gone (…) we started to chain our furniture up, but now we just give up.

Here are the kids actually tubing.  That was a big thing growing up, the kids would all just come to the yard.  Now this kid (pointing to someone in another picture) came to visit once, he was from Spackenkill High School.  When anyone came, I checked that they had swimming experience and parental permission.  So I had something signed, but I guess he fudged the signature because (…) as he’s pulling away he said, ‘I forgot to tell you, I can’t swim.’

So, next thing I know he’s out of the tube and he’s hanging onto a branch.  And this water—even though it’s not deep—it was the force.  He’s hanging onto the neighbor’s tree.  I had just gotten out of the shower and did not want to go in the stream, but I said ‘oh my god, he’s drowning.’  Meanwhile I’m screaming for my husband, but he says ‘oh they’ll be fine, don’t be overprotective.’  I said, ‘No, no, no, you don’t get it, you need to come now.’  And so next thing we know, the kid’s moved from the branch and he’s hanging onto my neighbor’s swing set.  And the current is just whipping him; he’s hanging on for dear life.  My husband and I both had to go into the current and get him off.”

Despite the floods and all of the unfortunate things they bring, Melody told us that for her family the Casperkill was still “the impetus for staying in this area.”

I would say the beauty of it is that it’s like a playground for young people…There was one day when my son happened to have his camera out and he said ‘gosh this is like National Geographic:’ there was an owl in the tree; there was a raccoon trying to get in the garbage; there was a chipmunk on the porch trying to get the cat food; there was a squirrel that was hanging off this umbrella trying to make a leap; and then of course there were the deer, every year they get my irises.

It’s also aesthetic. I just recently went out to put rocks in the stream to make a ripple sound, and it’s just peaceful. There’s something about the energy of the water passing that you just feel revitalized.  I mean, if there’s anything that I feel is healing, it’s being around water and just having that so close.  And then of course it draws: it draws children to it when they visit; it draws young adults, there’s something about the splashing and wanting to be wet; and it’s kind of like the great equalizer, water.  It just never disappoints.”

A bit further downstream, the Wellbrocks told us that the Casperkill has been an asset for them as well.  The Wellbrocks moved to Old Farms Road in the 1950s, when only a few speculation houses had been built on what was previously Hagan Farms.  With so few houses around, their sons were able to really explore and have fun in the creek.

Mrs. Wellbrock told us:

I know that the kids have had a lot of fun rafting, sleigh-riding.  I’ll never forget the time my son Dirk and his brother were taking the sled up to the top of that little hill over there and just sliding across.  The crick froze, or partially froze.  They came down the hill and hit a tree and Dirk went psh, right in the crick.  And everything below his waist was gone.  So he came in the house fast, frozen.  That was so funny.  Wasn’t funny at the time, though…”

The sledding hill was also apparently a good place to find arrowheads.  Mr. Wellbrock said that they’ve always thought that this area was “some sort of compound or village or something.”

In addition to the increase in the number of houses in their neighborhood, the Wellbrocks also say that they have noticed wildlife changes. “When we first came here, Dirk (their son) brought a huge fish, a carp, from the stream.”  They haven’t seen fish for many years, but they have noticed an increase in the number of deer around. “We have upwards of 6 or 8 in the yard at one time, and that’s a fairly new thing, we didn’t used to have deer here (…) It’s changed a lot over the years that we’ve been here.  It just is a different place now.”

The Casperkill along Old Farms Road in the winter of 1973

Special thank you to Melody Mordock and Anton Wellbrock for letting us use pictures from their personal collections.

Between 1951 and 1968, Vinnie Bihn’s parents ran an inn on Route 9 called the Rochambeau Motel. At the time, they lived in a house on a hill overlooking the motel property, which included a pond created by damming the Casperkill. The motel has changed owners, but Vinnie Bihn still lives in his childhood home. He has many fond memories of the motel:

When did your family come to live here?

We bought in ’41, I think, and moved up in ’49. My mother didn’t want us growing up in [New York City]. I was just an infant, so she wanted to get out of the city and moved up here. She hated it up here. She was a city girl. She didn’t get any of this, you know? So, we grew up here, but we always had deep roots in the city.

We used to grow vegetables up here and run down to the city during the war. There was a turkey-chicken farm down there (pointing) and this was all vegetables up in here. And they used to help support our restaurant [in New York City]. And that (pointing to another house across the pond) became a restaurant in 1941 or ’42, a German restaurant that wasn’t awfully popular even though it had a French name: Rochambeau.

Where was your motel?

Our motel was right where [the Mercury Grand] is. The landscape was totally different then. We had little cabins. It was a hill with pine trees, white pine, and there were cabins and then later on we built a unit up on top of the hill overlooking the road. But people didn’t know that there was a motel there because you couldn’t see it from the road. All you could see was the sign. And actually, for years we lived here and the motel was down there. And they ran an electrical line up and down there across the pond was “Ring bell and wait.” If somebody came in in January and there was two feet of snow and they rang that bell my father or my mother would have to go all the way down the lawn across the bridge to the bell. Yeah, it wasn’t until ’55 or ’56 that we moved down and had an office.

When did the motel cease to belong to your family?

Around 1967 or ’68, roughly. Now, it’s Mercury Grand but it was Best Western and Ramada before that. It started off as a Camelot; we leased the property for the Camelot. And then Ramada took over and they wanted to buy the property. Because they couldn’t use the Ramada unless they owned the property; you couldn’t be leasing it.

Who used to come to the motel?

Well, in the old days it was a lot of salesmen. We had regular customers that came out of the city.  You can’t understand what this place was like then. It was the wilderness to them. So we had regular customers that would come up. Actually, some of them were kind of semi-famous, even. And they all had their favorite cabins. But then, of course, IBM started going. So we rented to a lot of IBMers: either students who were up here, or families.  Our little motel units had kitchenettes, so a family could come up here and stay while they were looking for a house or having their house built. And they didn’t have to go out for dinner, breakfast or lunch. We had a little stove, little refrigerator, the whole thing. So we rented a lot to IBM. We did very well, for the most part.

Owning a motel, it’s crazy; you get crazy stories. You get characters.

They were these two middle-aged office workers from the city. And they would come and get completely blind for the whole weekend. They’d be out, they didn’t drive so my father would go out and get them. And they always won these trophies for the best dancers. They’d go to the bowling alley and they would dance. And they would be schloggered. Got home at about three o’clock in the morning. Seven o`clock and they were ready for mass. They were as sober and as straight and as neat as a pin. We never knew how they did that.

The Maynards, they were cute. They were this old couple that came up. They loved to fish. And he had Mitchell 300 which to me was like a Rolls Royce, and he would let me use it. And they would sit on the patio, on the wooden chairs, before they got burned, and they would hold hands and read the same book.

The Abraham Fort Homestead is a historic house built on property that is now the Casperkill Country Club. The Homestead, which is built in a style characteristic of the Revolutionary war period—made of stone and brick, longer than it is broad, a story and a half high, and a hall through the center of the house—was saved from demolition in May of 2004.

In her book Poughkeepsie: The Origin and Meaning of the Word, Helen Wilkinson Reynolds writes that the land the Fort Homestead stands on was sold by Christopher VanBommel to Johannes Abraham Fort in 1759, and that the homestead was “built either by the VanBommel Family between 1742 and 1759 or by Johannes A. Fort in about 1760.” (1)  Johannes A. Fort’s son, Abraham Fort, was a well-known Lieutenant in the Revolutionary war, and he succeeded his father in the house.  It is rumored that General George Washington slept in the house while Abraham Fort had the title to the property.  Following the Revolutionary war, several generations of Forts lived in the family estate; many of them are buried in a cemetery across Route 9 on South Gate Drive.

From the late 1700s through the early 1900s, the Fort Homestead property changed hands many times.  In 1911, Frank Dickerson Sr. bought the Fort property.  Because Dickerson owned a large tract of land adjacent to the homestead land, the purchase brought his total landholdings to 300 acres.  Frank Dickerson Jr. later wrote out a guided tour for the Fort Homestead (2).  In this piece he discusses some of the things he remembers about the Casperkill as it flowed by the Homestead:

Down the lane, past the chicken coops and the smoke house, [is the] the bridge over Casper Creek. The water is low now but in spring run-off the stream may be plugged with ice and over-flow the bridge. It’s a dangerous roaring torrent then. I love this creek (it’s also called the Kasper Kill) and like to swim in it on a hot day. I used to fish it, but when a cart full of lime overturned at the next farm upstream, it killed off all the trout. There still are a couple of them in the spring at the foot of reservoir hill. Maybe they will come back in the creek.”

In 1944, when the Dickerson family sold their 300 acres to IBM, the Casperkill was affected in new, even more severe ways.  IBM bought the land “for extension of the Country club and Post-war housing for IBM employees,”(3) and the acquisition brought the company’s total holdings in Poughkeepsie to 638 acres (a month later this number increased to 855 acres when IBM bought the Kenyon Estate, “Cliffdale,” two miles south of Vassar College). (4)

In a return visit to Poughkeepsie in 1994, Frank Dickerson Jr. wrote about the effect that IBM, and the suburbanization of Poughkeepsie, had on the Homestead property and the surrounding South Road area:

I returned to find that the South Road had become a six-lane highway, Route 9. It encroached on the house and the traffic noise was so bad that the owner (of the Fort Homestead) had erected a ten-foot stockade fence as a barrier…All of the out-buildings on both farms were gone, and the land had been cleared for a poorly maintained golf course. Even hills had been changed for the convenience of the golfers. The orchards and back woods are now a development of split-level ranch houses built on speculation. My nostalgia deepens as I grieve.”

In 2004, The Fort Homestead Association formed to prevent further damage from occurring. Early in that year the Ginsberg Development Corporation, which had been hired by the Casperkill Country Club to develop the Homestead property, decided that they wanted to demolish the historic Homestead.  After hundreds of local residents spoke out against the demolition, the Fort Homestead was saved and added to Town of Poughkeepsie’s historic landmark registry.  A reporter quoted local resident Meredith Sawyer, who said that the Fort Homestead was one of many “beautiful jewels to preserve” in the Route 9 area.  The reporter went on to emphasize that preservation efforts like the one being undertaken by the Fort Homestead Association are essential in order to “help neighborhood residents realize that [the area] has more to offer than just strip malls and traffic.” (5)

For more information about the Fort Homestead and to get involved in restoration efforts, please visit the Fort Homestead Association’s website.  You can also visit their facebook page to view more pictures of the historic house.

Information from:

(1) Reynolds, Helen Wilkinson. Poughkeepsie: The Origin and Meaning of the Word, Volume 1. Poughkeepsie, NY: Collections of the Dutchess County Historical Society, 1924.

(2) Information about, and quotes from, Frank S Dickerson Jr.’s “the Farm” are from personal communication with Judy Wolf, president of the Fort Homestead Association.  For more information about Frank S. Dickerson Jr.’s writings or to purchase “Consider the Angels,” a compilation of his poetry, please click here.

(3) “IBM Buys 300-acre Dickerson Tract; Housing, Club Extension Projected.” Poughkeepsie New Yorker 2 June 1944.

(4) “IBM Buys Kenyon Estate, ‘Cliffdale’.” Poughkeepsie New Yorker 1 July 1944.

(5) MacFarland, Ian. “Town Grants Historic Status.” The Weekly Beat [Poughkeepsie] 9 July 2004.

Image from:

The Dutchess County Historical Society.  Image #2002024005, Box #30.

Special thanks to Judy Wolf and Ginny Buechele for all of their help!!

South Road, c. 1900

Route 9 is a major north-south highway that runs parallel to the Hudson River through the City and Town of Poughkeepsie. The section of Route 9 that goes through the Casperkill watershed and over the Creek as it flows out of the IBM Country Club is known as South Road. A major traffic artery today, South Road was once a two-lane road traveled by horses and trollies. Watershed residents Vinnie and Kathi Bihn live right on Route 9. They recall what it was like when they were young:

Kathi Bihn: I can remember as a little girl sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car driving down Route 9 and the trees on each side touched at the top.  It was only two-lanes and it was like a country road: only a farm here and there.

Vinnie Bihn: When I was about 13 I would drive hay wagons up Sheafe Road across Route 9.  Now, the older guys would actually use Route 9 to drive hay wagons.  That was even in the early ‘60s.  It wasn’t until the late ‘60s that things really took off.

The expansion of Route 9 from a tree-flanked country road to the major highway it is today was gradual. Vinnie Bihn remembers it being three lanes wide when his family moved up from New York City in 1949: “There were two lanes and what they used to call the suicide lane, which was the passing lane in the middle. And then it became four lanes.”

In addition to the increase in the number of lanes, South Road was also transformed in other ways. The Bihns recall that there used to be a pronounced slope in the road as it passed by their property:

KB: That hill was very steep at one time, and then they kind of leveled it off.

VB: That’s how I used to make a few bucks in the wintertime. In the old-days it was two-wheel drive cars and they would get stuck, so my friends and I would go out – there was no way to make money back then as a teenager. We’d say to some guy: ‘two bucks to get to the top of the hill?’ And he’d say ‘yeah.’  And so we’d push him and once we got him rolling we’d jump on his bumper to give him weight and ride him up to the top of the hill. He’d give us a couple of bucks and then we’d run back down.

As South Road expanded, a number of shopping malls were erected along it. The Poughkeepsie Plaza, the Hudson Plaza, South Hills and eventually the Poughkeepsie Galleria filled the space once occupied by farms and inns. Vinnie Bihn remembers how this changed the way people did their shopping:

VB: My mother, and almost everyone in Dutchess County, would go to the City of Poughkeepsie to shop.  Montgomery Wards, Woolworths, they were all there and the supermarket was in the city.  That’s where you went.  It wasn’t until, I’m going to say late ‘50s, that my mother started going to the Empire Market, which is in Wappingers down on Route 9 and these malls started coming up.  But before that, you went to the City of Poughkeepsie; there was nothing on this road.  There was a gas station, a restaurant here and there; there wasn’t a whole lot on Route 9.  It was all farms.

For more information on highway development and other land-use changes within the Casperkill watershed, see Harvey Flad on the history of the watershed

Image from:

Ghee, Joyce C. and Spence, Joan. Poughkeepsie, 1898-1998. A Century of Change. NY: Arcadia Publishing(Sc), 1999, p.63.

You may have noticed an old stone building with red siding along Cedar Avenue.  In fact, the Old Kimlin Cider Mill is hard to miss, as the old barn sits so close to the road that you can almost reach out and touch it as you drive by. While the Old Cider Mill is not adjacent to the Casperkill creek, it is still an important landmark within the watershed.

The Kimlin family began operating a farm on the east side of Cedar Avenue in the early 1850’s, when they first came to the United States from Ireland.  It is unclear exactly what was produced at the original farm, but we do know that from 1925 to 1935 Ralph R. Kimlin expanded the farming operation into a cider mill and public attraction with a curiosities museum.  The 2-acre property had a small orchard, but the cider mill became such a big attraction for local residents and students from Vassar College, that the Kimlins also brought in apples from other local farms, such as the Hampton Farms on South Road.

Kathi Bihn, who grew up not far from the Kimlin Cider Mill, gave us some insight as to why the place was so popular, especially in the 1950s and 60s:

The whole thing was so creepy that it was neat. You just went to get spooked. The museum, especially, was so freaky; I went to see that as a kid.  They had all this civil war or WWI stuff on the wall, they had pistols, a big stuffed carp, a moose, a Siamese calf.  And all the Vassar girls would go on their bicycles and carve their names in the wood.”  Bihn told us that these oddities, coupled with the kindness of the owners, were what attracted people to the Mill…not necessarily the quality of the food.  “You could go and get cider and very stale cookies.  Ugh.  God knows when they made those things”

The Kimlin Cider Mill shut down in the late 1960s, although the property surrounding the barn remained open as a park.  Apparently Mr. Kimlin kept a flock of sheep in the pasture for several years with hopes of “preserving the traditional farm life that was once an integral part of life in the area, but which was already beginning to disappear at the time.”  Today, a group called ‘The Cider Mill Friends of Open Space & Historic Preservation, Inc.’ carries on Mr. Kimlin’s mission.  The group purchased the Mill and surrounding 1.8 acres of meadowland in 2008.  They got the site listed on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places and designated as a Town of Poughkeepsie Historic Landmark.  Although invasive plants have overrun the Mill, the Cider Mill Friends eventually hope to restore the historic site for future generations to enjoy.

Information from http://www.cidermillfriends.org/

You can check out their guestbook for more stories about the Mill.

For two weeks in the fall of 2007, the Palmer Gallery of Vassar College was taken over by BITTER-SWEET. Developed by New Jersey-based artists Ginger Andro and Chuck Glicksman, this multimedia installation used projection, reflection, scent and sound to explore the impact of human activity on the Casperkill. BITTER-SWEET derived its name from Oriental Bittersweet, an invasive plant that grows along the banks of the creek.

The press release for the installation described the significance of the plant thus:

This thought-provoking installation is designed to make viewers consider how, like Oriental Bittersweet, humans can be both beneficial and destructive for their environments. In the exhibit, artists Ginger Andro and Chuck Glicksman use the invasive plant as a larger metaphor for things that are both good and bad. For instance, while Oriental Bittersweet is recognized for its beauty and is often used in flower arrangements, it can also be extremely destructive to other plant life in its environment.

The idea for BITTER-SWEET emerged from an initial meeting between the artists and members of Vassar’s Environmental Studies Program. Andro and Glicksman were interested in the work that students were doing within the department, and the Casperkill Assessment Project came up as something that was capturing the attention of students and faculty at the time.  The artists decided to focus on the Oriental Bittersweet due to its metaphoric potential and aesthetic beauty.

A truly collaborative project between the artists, students and faculty; BITTER-SWEET combined artistic imagination with scientific research. One of the main features of the installation was a projection of benthic macroinvertebrates juxtaposed with interviews with student and faculty researchers. Another highlight was a display of the ‘scent of the Casperkill,’ which the artists distilled themselves.  Glass balls and mirrors added reflection to the mix.

Andro and Glicksman look back on the project with gratitude and satisfaction. For them, it was a truly educational experience; they went in knowing nothing about the Casperkill but came out having learned plenty from their collaboration with professors and students. For example, they learned about the impact of road salt and invasive species on the health of waters bodies. They have since become involved in their community to combat these issues.

The artists particularly enjoyed their interactions with students. Andro remembers approaching students in the hallway and asking them what they thought the Casperkill smelled like. “We got very varied responses, everything ranging from something from your dead grandmother’s attic to the most romantic scent you can imagine.”

To read the press release for BITTER-SWEET, see BITTER-SWEET exhibit at Palmer Gallery to use Casperkill plants as art

For more information on Andro and Glicksman, visit http://www.glicksmandro.com/

Images and video courtesy of Ginger Andro and Chuck Glicksman.

July is Dutchess Watershed Awareness Month.  Organized by the Dutchess Watershed Coalition, Dutchess WAM provides a great opportunity to get involved in local conservation efforts and learn about local history and environment.  Residents and community members are invited to participate in the many events and activities being held throughout the month of July in various locations within the county. All events are aimed at increasing public awareness of watershed issues.

Of the many Dutchess WAM activities, the Adopt-a-Spot program stands out for its hands-on nature.  Participants are asked to choose a location within one of the local watersheds and conduct a clean-up of the accumulated solid waste. Clean-up equipment, Dutchess WAM T-shirts and refreshments are provided free of charge by the organizers.

The following event description appears on the Dutchess WAM website:

Our watersheds are made up of more than just the creek – they include the parks, neighborhoods and street we live on. Clean up your spot in the watershed – all are invited to help make our watersheds a cleaner place to live.

To find out more or to schedule a clean-up (at any point during the month of July), contact Stephanie Cabey at Stephanie.Cabey1@marist.edu.

To see the full list of Dutchess Watershed Awareness Month events, visit http://dutchesswam.com/2010-events/

Jack Carlson has lived on New Hackensack Rd since 1999. Although his property is slightly outside the Casperkill watershed boundary, Mr. Carlson is a committed member of the Casperkill Watershed Alliance.

Nadine Souto: How did you become involved in the Casperkill Watershed Alliance?

Jack Carlson: I read an article in the Poughkeepsie Journal where they were offering a three-day course at SUNY New Paltz to be able to test the water quality in your area. And I thought that was a good thing because as a former chemistry teacher I know that water is the universal solvent so it would be nice to know what’s going on with the water in your area.  So I took the course and at the end of it there were a whole lot of people that were looking to grab us for different watershed groups from all over the area. And I hooked up with one lady whose name I can’t remember,  and I said I was from Poughkeepsie so she gave me a number to call and that’s how I hooked up with the Casperkill Watershed Alliance. I’m actually just a little bit out of the watershed area, by like a block. And the group’s first meeting was at Vassar, which is right in my backyard.

I guess I’m just sort of an ‘interested public’. That’s my role; I’m just an interested party.

Liz Jones: How long have you been involved?

JC: This summer will be a year.

NS: What is your interaction with the Casperkill Creek itself?

JC: We planted trees in various parts of the Casperkill that were showing a lot of erosion. We actually went down to the creek and planted all these trees and shrubs.  We made the holes and put them in there to help secure the creek in these critical areas. We did that in two different locations through the Trees for Tribs program. I also did water testing with people at Vassar. That was so cool, I really loved that.

LJ: What values do you see in the stream? Why do you think it’s important to preserve?

JC: Well, if you haven’t studied the water cycle, water always comes back. So if one area is polluted, chances are that other areas within the same watershed will be polluted, too. Especially people who use well water are going to get affected because they’re going to be drinking that water. A healthy ecosystem depends on a healthy watershed, so I guess that’s why I’m really interested in it. My values are to better the environment by thinking globally but acting locally. I’m not coining that phrase but that’s what I’m doing. I want a clean environment for my children. And if I take time out of my life to clean up the environment maybe (my children) will think that it’s important for them to do that, too.

LJ: Do you have a vision for the future of the CWA?

JC: I would like to see the membership expand. I would like to see more hands-on activities, like the plantings and other practical things to protect the watershed.

NS: What do you think are the most important problems that should be addressed?

JC: In one word, pollution. And to add to that, public ignorance of the importance of watersheds in the ecosystem. I think those are the most important.

For more information about watershed citizen groups in the area, visit http://www.dutchesswatersheds.org/

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 in what is today Arlington High School, Mr. Lynch recalls watching smoke rise from the Burnett Boulevard Extension Site. At the time, the area now occupied by the Rt. 44 and Dutchess shopping plazas used to be a dump site. Fires would burn there every once in a while, and sometimes the fire department had to be called in.

He also remembers skating on Vassar Lake in the early 1960’s, during a snowless winter which brought the lake surface to a “glassy smooth” freeze. His proximity to the college also means he remembers the 1997 sewage spill, which had a fatal effect on much of the wildlife in Sunset Lake:

I walk on campus at literally all hours of the day and my loop generally goes down College Avenue, down by Kenyon, and then Wimpfheimer, and then down by the golf course and back. And from time to time I’ll notice things that I think I should bring to the attention of someone. Well, in this one case I didn’t because it was so obvious, I figured I didn’t need to say anything. I was walking down the hill by Kenyon, and I’m smelling sewage. It really doesn’t smell good it all. But it’s so bad, somebody must know about it. So I never said anything. Then I find out a few days later that there was a sewage spill of some sort and all the fish in Sunset Lake are dead.

Mr. Lynch also has a longstanding connection to the Vassar Farm. He has mountain-biked all the trails on the Preserve, and has been an active member of the Poughkeepsie Farm Project since it started twelve years ago:

A big part of it is food justice and environmentally conscious farming techniques: mulching, composting, turning crops at the right time, planting in ways that would tend to mitigate pests. Like when I was picking my peas the other day I had to work my way through some oats. Asher (from the PFP) indicated that maybe they tossed in maybe a few more oats than they should have, but there was supposed to be some symbiotic relationship with the oats and keeping some pest out of it. They have school classes come and they give demonstrations and show them what’s going on at the farm. Then they have city seeds, which is a program for kids from the city, where they actually grow plants ‘til the end and then they go to seed and actually package the seeds at the end of it. They do all sorts of really neat things there. And it’s a cooperative sort of thing, so part of your membership is some amount of time helping with the harvest or other jobs. Up until the end of December last year I was the membership coordinator for six years. And I always go pick up my vegetables by bicycle.

Even before becoming involved in the PFP, Lynch’s family had several small parcels in the Vassar community gardens, going back to the late 1960’s:

My mother was the assistant director of food service during the years that Vassar ran their own food service. They even had an on-site bake shop. This was before ACDC and each dorm had its own dining hall. She was also in charge of all the catering on campus. At that time, the garden plots were only open to the Vassar community and it was free. Eventually they added a small charge to have some manure plowed under in the spring. The community gardens are probably about 3 times the size now than they were back then and I believe a little more open to non Vassar gardeners.

Lynch can recall aspects of the farm that are no longer in existence. Like the grassy slope to the right of the farmhouse (now completely forested), down which students used to sled; or the horse barn, where his former neighbor kept his horse. Years ago, he even used to collect water from a spring that feeds into the Casperkill. That was before there were constructed ponds on the Farm.

Lynch also remembers what Raymond Ave looked like before the 1964 reconstruction:

I remember the road being just a two-lane road and there being these gorgeous, monstrous trees on both sides. And you’ve probably seen information about those all being cut down to go to the four lanes. But at the time there was quite a dip and a little bit of a nasty curve right there at the outlet of Vassar Lake and a great big tree in that curve. And the reason it’s of significance to me, is that one of my high school friends’ brother had a car accident there. I know the newspaper article said something about the Vassar guard at the main gate, you know, hearing a car going by fast. I don’t know if he heard screeching brakes or if he heard the crash when the car hit this tree. The passenger died from the accident. I couldn’t tell you what year. That’s got to be before 1964 anyways. So that was a very different contour than it is today.

One of the main changes Mr. Lynch has noticed in the area has been the overabundance of deer and how they’ve “completely cleared out the understory on the Farm property, and everybody else’s property, too.” Regarding the January 2010 deer culling, Lynch notes that “Vassar wasn’t the first, but Vassar raised a lot of fire by becoming public.”