Kayaking in Greenwich

I am not one to generally complain about winter. It is my 3rd favorite season, after Spring & Fall, but even I am beginning to feel a bit of the cabin fever. That said, I thought I would share a post with lots of green.

Last summer, my parents, daughter & I decided we wanted to get out the kayaks &paddle around a bit. (OK, we dragged my daughter along.) Luckily we didn't have far to go. We strapped on the 2-person kayak, hopped in the truck & headed a couple of miles down the road to the Battenkill. We put in on Pulp Mill Lane in Clark's Mills (see map below). It was a lovely day.



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Kayaking downstream from the put-in spot along Pulp Mill Lane

Kayaking past the old railroad trestle

Railroad trestle along the riverbank on the Pulp Mill Lane side

The Easton side of the Battenkill

Turn-around spot- Just beyond is a waterfall that powers Easton H&V plant

Passing the put-in spot on Pulp Mill Lane

Another waterfall & an old H&V mill building

Warning sign- especially important this coming spring as the snow melts

There is a small island just below the warning sign.

It is a lovely, calm little spot to kayak. Just be careful. & always respect the water.

Oh, & we saw some swallowtail butterflies drinking water.




Stay tuned: Next time I have some interesting H & V artifacts to share.

Iroquois Pulp & Paper

I tend to write these blog posts by the seat of my pants. I rarely have an idea of what I am going to write about before I come to work on a Thursday evening. That's probably why some posts are awesome & some are mediocre at best.

Anyway, as I began searching through the beautiful clutter that is this historians office, without a clue what tidbit would present itself to me, I came across the ephemera from the bicentennial, sesquicentennial, and centennial celebrations. As I was carefully thumbing though the items, I found myself leafing through the Village of Greenwich Centennial Program from Summer 1809. On the back cover, I spotted the most amazing image. It took me a moment to realize, truly see what I was staring at.

The image of the Iroquois Pulp and Paper Co. in Thomson startled me. The mill is laid out along the Hudson River. Northumberland is in the foreground siting along the Saratoga County side of the river. When you look closely, you can see the Champlain canal and the island it created. Behind the factory, are the mill houses, and just to the right of the water tower is the large white cupola of the big Victorian. But what is most shocking to me is the openness. The miles and miles of treeless fields. Now it is very wooded and overgrown.

Iroquois Pulp & Paper, manufacturers of hanging papers c.1809

I wonder if I could get a photograph now from a similar vantage point, maybe on Stark's Knob?