Over a century ago, the Normanskill was dammed by Watervliet to create a reservoir that flooded Guilderland farmland

Rising in wetlands near Duanesburg, the Normanskill flows 45.4 miles downstream through the towns of Guilderland, New Scotland, and Bethlehem to its confluence with the Hudson River.

Native Americans called the stream Tawasentha or “place of the dead,” a name inspired by a sacred native burial ground near its mouth. Here they found abundant food supplies in its pristine waters and along its wooded banks, their presence proven by the numerous archeological remains found nearby.

Change came with the arrival of the Dutch in the early years of the 17th century. When, in the 1630s, Albert Andriessen Bradt established a mill at the creek’s mouth, the stream became known to European settlers as Norman’s Kill due to the Norwegian ancestry of Bradt, called the “Norman.” With the advent of the fur trade, the waterway became a major Native American trading route to Fort Orange where Albany is today.

Sometime before his death in 1734, Evert Bancker, the former Albany mayor and merchant, came up the Normanskill to establish what was likely the first farm in Guilderland. It was located along the creek approximately across from the entrance to modern-day Tawasentha Park. (A state historic marker denotes the place.)

He was followed by settlers such as Jacob Vrooman and Abraham Wemple who also established farms on the fertile lands along the waterway in the years before the American Revolution. Eighteenth-Century settlers were described as “of the Normanskill” in the absence of a more specific address.

After the Revolution, the fertile soil produced huge quantities of broom corn. Later farmers switched to hay, oats, and rye.

Frenchs Hollow

The waters of the melting Ice Age glacier had cut through bedrock to create a ravine that by 1800 had become known as Frenchs Hollow. Named after Abel French who, having taken advantage of the water power, had begun operating grist and saw mills in this location by the end of the 18th Century.

The grist mill remained in operation here until the early 20th Century. French’s early textile mill failed, replaced by Peter K. Broeck’s larger textile mill, erected nearby.

After the factory failed, the empty building became used for social gatherings until the turn of the 20th Century. The hollow itself was a place of natural beauty where generations of Guilderland residents fished, swam, and picnicked.

Watervliet seeks clean water

During the first decade of the 20th Century, typhoid had become an increasingly serious health issue in the city of Watervliet as the result of contamination of the city’s water supply. Watervliet’s water source was then the Mohawk River near Dunsbach Ferry, water which had become more impure as the upstream cities and industry expanded.

Searching for a replacement source of safe, pure water, in 1912 or 1913 the city fixed on the Normanskill in Guilderland where it would be practical to dam the Frenchs Hollow ravine. In addition, the area to be flooded behind the dam was relatively inexpensive farmland that could be acquired by eminent domain if necessary.

The Watervliet City Council agreed to purchase the land projected to be about 700 acres necessary for “not less than $477,000 or more than $562,000.”

November 1913 brought news in The Enterprise that surveyors were working at Frenchs Hollow because of Watervliet’s plans to locate a dam there. Yet the next summer, the project did not seem final when the Enterprise stated, “The City of Watervliet is again agitating the question of securing a new water supply from French’s Mills.”

A 1914 map entitled “Map of Watervliet, NY & Vicinity showing proposed Municipal Water Supply from the Normanskill at Frenchs Mills” was published. Watervliet taxpayers seemed to be objecting because of the high cost of securing water privileges and acquiring land, while the Watervliet Hydraulic Company, apparently a private entity supplying Watervliet’s water from the Mohawk, was also opposed.

A major expense had been added to the project when the New York State Conservation Department insisted on a requirement for the project that a filtration plant had to be constructed in addition to the dam and the infrastructure needed to pipe the water from the reservoir to the city of Watervliet. The cost of the whole project was estimated by the Enterprise’s editor to possibly run as high as $500,000.

The next year, 1915, brought another surveying crew who put up at Borst’s Hotel in Guilderland Center. Once Watervliet had acquired the old French property at the hollow, officials next purchased the nearby farms of Richard Van Heusen and Herman Vincent just outside of Guilderland Center.

A few months later, the notices of auctions scheduled to take place at their soon-to-be vacated farms for the dispersal of their farm equipment were advertised.

Construction underway

By then, the contract to construct a concrete dam 35 feet high at the hollow had been awarded to a New York City firm and work had begun by 1916. A notice of a man’s death on the West Shore tracks identified him as a “laborer on the construction work of the new reservoir for the City of Watervliet at Frenchs Hollow.”

Considering that, except for steam shovels and possibly dynamite, other work had to be done with hand tools, this was a major construction project that would take many months. The derelict factory building was demolished and a pumping station built on its site. The dam seemed to have been completed by 1917 at the latest.

Acquisition of more than 600 acres of land along the Normanskill and the Bozenkill, a major tributary, was necessary. Land purchases were still being negotiated in 1916 when the Enterprise editor commented that the price of farmland “has taken a big jump lately on account of the building of the new Watervliet Reservoir and dam.”

His update noted that some farms had been acquired or were about to be acquired. In the area which would become the upper end of the reservoir, a farmer named John Moore planned to relocate to a farm at Parkers Corners and at least three members of the Sharp family lost all or part of their ancestral farms.

Holdouts

However, members of the Woodrich family, the last owners of the historic Wemple farm in Fullers, were not about to be forced to give up their approximately 56 acres plus without a fight.

Designated the “Wodrich Estate” in the Enterprise’s two mentions of this dispute, Guilderland historian Arthur Gregg later identified the last owner of the historic property as Richard Woodrich.

The family seemed to be from out of town, seeing as they had not only hired two Albany lawyers, but additionally a New York City law firm to fight the proposed acquisition or possibly the price the Watervliet officials offered to pay for their land. Another lawyer represented the property’s tenant.

To settle the dispute, the Albany County Court appointed a three-man committee including William Brinkman of Dunnsville to view the property and take testimony. The matter went to the New York State Supreme Court where the Watervliet Water Board requested the condemnation of the Woodrich property.

With the city having the power of eminent domain, the Woodrich family didn’t stand a chance. The final outcome of the case received no mention in the Enterprise. In the 1930s, Gregg mentioned that the Woodrich Estate received $16,000 for 60 acres with the family retaining that part of the property along Route 20.

Writing in “Old Hellebergh,” Chapter 18, Gregg offered a poignant description of the demolition of that treasure of Guilderland’s heritage, the 18th-Century Wemple homestead:

“…The house was built by the Vroomans in 1780 out of very large, extra sized brick made right there out of the clay from the bank near the barn. Some of you witnessed the destruction of this solid old house at the construction of the reservoir twenty-five years ago, and marveled at its workmanship. The farm was known at various periods as the Wemple, the Sigsbee, the Myers Farm, and, at the time of the flooding, belonged to Frederick Woodrich.”

The town of Guilderland recently refurbished an historical marker to denote the site.

Election Day 1918 found Frederick J. Van Wormer seeking re-election as Guilderland town supervisor. A Republican Party advertisement characterized him as a “scrapper” for having taken on the city of Watervliet, managing to get the city to restore the damage done to town highways in the process of construction of the dam.

Also, never mentioned, but pipes had to be laid across town land and Route 20 to bring the water to Watervliet. In addition, the state of New York was forced to build a new higher iron bridge at the upper end of the reservoir due to the rising water levels at the point of the Normanskill’s flow into the reservoir where the Osborn Corners-Schenectady Road crossed it.

Now Route 158, the road had already become a state route at the time of the dam’s construction.

What right did Watervliet have to come into Guilderland, build a reservoir here ,and force local farmers to give up their farms? Obviously an agreement was made with the Guilderland Town Board in 1912 or 1913, but the details are unavailable.

Riparian rights?

In the years after 1960, when Guilderland’s rapid growth sent town officials on a quest for additional water supplies, the Watervliet Reservoir was again in the news. A statement by Guilderland Town Supervisor Carl J. Walters in 1977 announced that the town was limited by law as to how much water it could purchase from Watervliet.

He claimed, “This limitation of 2,000,000 gallons per day was set many years ago when Watervliet purchased the reservoir from the town. Hindsight tells us that the sale of the water supply was not a prudent move by the local officials at the time.”

The late Fred Abele, a very reliable local historian, focused on a different aspect when he claimed in a 1984 “McKownville: News and Comment” column that Watervliet had retained riparian rights dating from the time of the formation of the town of Guilderland in 1803.

(In 1788, the state of New York divided the entire state into towns; the town of Watervliet included most of what is now Albany county as well as most of what is now Niskayuna in Schenectady county.)

Apparently, when the town of Guilderland was created from the town of Watervliet, the water rights did not automatically pass to the new town. Noting he had been a member of the townwide Water Advisory Board for a number of years, perhaps Mr. Abele had access to information not generally known.

This legal point may be the reason why the Guilderland Town Board members of 1912 or 1913 acquiesced when the city of Watervliet announced its intention to create a reservoir in the midst of our town.

Today, a portion of Guilderland’s water supply comes from the reservoir. In addition, a hydroelectric plant generates power on the site. Perhaps, in the long run, it has worked out for the best for both Watervliet and Guilderland that the reservoir was created on the Normanskill.