The Vernooy Kill Mill.

Seventy-three years before the Declaration of Independence, someone dammed this creek and built a grist mill on it. The walls are still standing.

A guide and a group of visitors at the foot of the mill's standing dry-stone wall, a birch growing straight out of the stonework — The tour, at the wall. Three centuries on it is still standing, with a birch growing straight out of the stonework.

What you are actually looking at.

A grist mill is a machine made of landscape. It needs falling water, stone that can be cut, and enough grain within a cart ride to be worth building. The Vernooy Kill had all three, and for well over a century the mill here was the reason anyone lived in this part of Ulster County at all.

On the tour we walk the site slowly and read it: where the race carried water off the kill, how the drop was used, what the surviving stonework tells you about how it was built and by whom. Then the harder half of the story — how a working settlement empties out, how the forest takes back a clearing, and how quickly a place can become invisible.

It is a good tour for a class studying colonial history, because almost nothing about it is abstract. You can put your hand on it.

Practical details

Length: About an hour, plus the walk in
Terrain: Forest trail, uneven footing, no climbing
Cost: Free
Bring: Shoes you don't mind wetting, water
Guide: The trail's official NY DEC forest steward

Ferns growing out of the mill's dry-stone wall in summer — Laid dry, without mortar — which is why it is still up, and why the ferns get in.

The mill sits on the same trail as the Five Waterfalls walk, so the two are often combined — see the walking tour.

For schools & groups

Bring your class.

Most of what we run is arranged directly with a teacher, a scout leader, or a homeschool group — you tell us roughly when, and we find a date that suits the weather and the season. Groups of up to about twenty work best. Everything is led by the trail's official NY DEC forest steward.

Tell us the age range and rough group size and we'll come back with what we can do and what to bring.

Request a date →

Who it's for: School groups, homeschool co-ops, scouts, and families
Group size: Up to about 20
Cost: Tours and hikes are free. Workshops are free or low cost.
Where: Kerhonkson, NY · Ulster County