Today, New York City has the largest unfiltered surface water supply in the world — and Lake Sagamore is a part of the City’s reservoir system. The lake collects water from about 12 square miles in an area extending westward past the Taconic Parkway. Around 1830, the City of New York decided to satisfy its […]
The Reservoir System and the Development of Lake Sagamore Read More »
Lake Sagamore is in good health. Yet because of its small size and “softness,” it is relatively vulnerable. Two main factors protect our fragile lake: first, the care taken by residents to minimize human impact; and second, the fact that the lake watershed — an area of some 12 square miles extending beyond the Taconic
Our Lake – Ecological balance Read More »
Lake Sagamore, with maximum depths of around 18 feet, is a persistently stratified lake. Every summer, a layer of warm, well-aerated, sunlit water forms on top of the cooler and thus heavier water at depth. The two layers mix somewhat during storms, when wind and rain move things around, but the disturbance never reaches the
Our Lake – A quick look underwater – a two-layered lake Read More »
In the years since the farmers exited the area, forests have rapidly returned (although still not fully mature), bottom-lands have become reservoirs, and residential developments have replaced more accessible farms. It is said that the population of the Kent-Carmel area has only recently approached the numbers of 200 years ago. Yet, despite these changes Putnam
Somewhat after the French and Indian War, other better known failures of the English Crown led to the American Revolution. The American colonel Henry Ludington lived in what is now Carmel. On April 26, 1777, his daughter Sybil, age 16, rode over 40 miles through back roads—from the area of that would become Kent to
Colonial era: In the 17th century, our general area was inhabited by the Wappinger Tribe of Indians. Their Sachem bore the English name of Daniel Nimham. On Route 301, just east of the firehouse, is Nimham Road leading to Mount Nimham. In these early colonial years, most of the families that came to the area from
Colonial Period; Of Indians, Heroes, and Spies Read More »
The cliffs, granite ponds, and rock-strewn rolling slopes of the Lake Sagamore area were created by vast glaciers, pushing southwards from central Canada in sheets of boulder-studded ice over a mile thick. During the past 2 million years, four “ice ages,” each lasting hundreds of thousands of years, were briefly interrupted by warmer intervals. The
Geology – How did all those boulders get there? Read More »