Tin Brook
Tin Brook | |
---|---|
Town of Montgomery, Village of Walden | |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | S of Coldenham |
• coordinates | 41°30′42″N 74°09′07″W / 41.5118°N 74.1520°W |
• elevation | 420 ft (130 m) |
Mouth | Wallkill River |
• coordinates | 41°34′31″N 74°11′26″W / 41.5753°N 74.1905°W |
• elevation | 260 ft (79 m) |
Length | 9 mi (14 km) |
Basin size | 19.2 sq mi (50 km2) |
Tin Brook is a 9-mile-long (14 km)
Several possible origins have been proposed for the name, which appeared on local maps as early as 1774.[3] The most likely points to an early landowner along the midlands of the stream variously named John Tinne, Thinne or even John Tinbrook. Another theory suggests that it was named by the Dutch settlers who were the first European inhabitants of the Hudson Valley and that it comes from the words meaning "thin breeches" in that language. Supposedly one of them had reconnoitered south from New Paltz and found the soils around the brook to be thin, or insufficiently deep for the kind of farming they preferred.[4]
Course
Tin Brook rises in a 535-acre (217 ha) complex of
It loops again very quickly, turning north after passing a trailer park. Now wider, it crosses 52 again between Berea and St. Andrew's roads. It then turns west and runs roughly parallel to the highway until it reaches the Walden village limit, where it turns south and crosses 52 for a third time in the midst of a residential neighborhood. Here it makes a long loop around the village's Wooster Memorial Grove park and comes so close to its upper course that it can be found on both sides of the main entrance road near 52. It meanders south again through some light industrial neighborhoods, then crosses 52 for the last time a short distance east of the park.
Then it turns west, running aside 52 (now West Main Street) for a block, then north to divide a residential neighborhood and a commercial property. In the woodlands north of the village, Tin Brook turns west for the last time, crosses under NY 208 and then drains into the Wallkill.
History
In 1724 Cadwallader Colden, a future colonial official whose 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) estate included much of the brook's headlands, proposed that the many rivers and streams of New York be tapped for canals to improve transportation across the colony. He decided to use his own land as a demonstration project, diverting some of the brook's waters into a pond which fed a short canal, the first in New York. Its rafts carried peat for fuel and stone to build his house, and whatever other freight was needed around the estate.[6]
In 1892, the brook provided water for Walden's first municipal electric utility, a
After heavy rains, Tin Brook sometimes floods near its mouth, particularly at Wooster Grove. Following
Ecology
Several New York State
References
- U.S. Geological Survey. February 2, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2016.
- ^ "Wallkill River Watershed Conservation and Management Plan" (PDF). Orange County Water Authority. p. 10. Retrieved February 2, 2016.
- ^ Eager, Samuel Watkins (1846). An Outline History of Orange County: Together with Local Tradition and Short Biographical Sketches of Early Settlers, Etc. T. E. Henderson. p. 274.
- ^ "Town of Montgomery". History of Orange County. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-07-20. at American Genealogy and History Project.
- ^ a b Ulster County Soil and Water Conservation District, 2005, Draft Wallkill Watershed Conservation and Management Plan Archived 2007-07-15 at the Wayback Machine, 24, retrieved February 12, 2008.
- ^ Wallace, Margaret V.S. (c. 1969). "The Erie Canal began in Little Britain, no, not in location, but in vision". Orange County Post. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
- ^ "History of Walden, New York". Retrieved 2008-02-11.[permanent dead link]
External links
- Media related to Tin Brook at Wikimedia Commons