The Early Cayuga Lake Watershed

Nancy Reddy, Berkshire, NY

Nancy Reddy

The waters of the Buttermilk, Cascadilla, and Fall Creeks, along with some 140 other tributaries covering 785 square miles of terrain feed a watershed cut and shaped by glacial movement. They flow into the longest and widest of the Finger Lakes, northward to Seneca Creek and ultimately into Lake Ontario. The lake itself, “Tiohero” or "Clear Water", as the native people called it, reaches a depth of four hundred thirty five feet. Forests of hemlock, beech, and sugar maple once graced the landscape where dramatic topography culminates in breathtaking waterfalls. This is the Cayuga Lake watershed, an area my ancestors knew well. Some stayed and lived out their lives entirely within the bounds of the watershed. But my family tree branched outward like the tributaries themselves and six generations would pass before we would return to this part of central New York.

Early explorers remarked that the lake “abounds with swan and geese through the winter”, was “as clear as crystal” and that in the spring “nothing is seen but continued clouds of all sorts of game.” This was home to the Cayuga Indians who settled along the shores of the lake before white settlers arrived. They left little imprint on the land. But Revolutionary War campaigns and the spread of Europeans westward through New York brought irreversible changes to the population and the landscape. The systematic eradication of the natives and the establishment of the “Military Tract” providing land payments to veteran soldiers meant an influx of white settlers claiming their rights to the land. The new settlers would enjoy plentiful fish and game, excellent timber for building materials, rich soils for their crops, and waterpower for mills and other industry. Later they would discover minerals, gypsum and limestone.

John Gee, a soldier who fought with Sullivan at the Battle of Newtown in 1779, drew lot No. 21. It was bounded on the west by the town of Dryden and on the south by Virgil Creek. He came to this watershed in the year 1795 and in the following year brought his father, mother, wife, and six children to live in a log home sixteen feet by twelve. Their legacy at that place is Gee Hill Road and an adjacent cemetery of the same name. The nearest gristmill was at Chenango Point; flour had to be brought up by canoe to Dryden and moved from there on foot. To open up the wilderness, surveyor Joseph Chaplin had been hired to cut a road from Oxford to Cayuga Lake. By 1796 the “Bridle Road” reached the inlet.

Following a period of court disputes over rightful ownership, the Military Tract was settled rapidly as lots were subdivided and sold off. Forests were thinned to make way for crops. Early farmers turned trees into potash, which could be used in the glass and soap industries. Much of the developing industry revolved around the natural amenities of the watershed. Paper, saw and gristmills were built where the streams supplied sufficient water to run them and given its strategic geographic location, Cayuga Lake quickly became a vital commercial hub. Even the Gee family took advantage of the boom, building the first sawmill in Lapeer. Eventually the water mills were abandoned and the regional economy declined. Had it not been for the depression of 1837 my ancestor, Minor T. Gee, might have remained within the watershed like so many of his cousins. But he left, heading for land farther west. The establishment of Cornell University in 1865 proved to stabilize the local economy.

For more than thirty years in the early 19th century the watershed was home, also, to Joshua Gee, his wife Jane and their thirteen children. They lived “between the lakes,” in the narrow strip of hilly land lying between Seneca Lake on the west and Cayuga Lake on the east. Joshua and Jane arrived before the creation of Tompkins County and purchased land within the present-day towns of Ulysses and Enfield. Most of the Gee family lived within three to five miles east or west of the county line separating Schuyler and Tompkins Counties and many are buried throughout the region. Jane Gee is buried at Old Log Meeting House Cemetery where Podunk meets Perry City Road. Her headstone leans to the right and forward, protected from the acid rain that has ruined so many stones in the area.

Farms and small towns of the 19th century slowly gave way to development and sprawl. Six counties, fifty municipalities, and 120,000 people now impact the watershed. Many potential sources of pollutants threaten its health. Erosion, silt and sediment have all impacted water quality and the species that call the Cayuga Lake watershed home. In the 1790s more than ninety-seven percent of the land was forested. Only tiny remnants of this original forest remain. Urbanization, lumbering, and fire have altered the vegetation. The modern forests are now expanding as marginal farmland is left fallow.

Local agricultural and tourism depend on both the quality and quantity of water in the watershed. Fertile soils sustain orchards and vineyards, livestock and dairy farms and Cayuga Lake draws visitors from around the world to its shores. The beautiful scenery provides ample opportunities for recreation: bird watching, camping, hiking gorge trails, biking the hillsides, boating and fishing. Over 6,000 acres of wetlands lie within the watershed. Seasonally, it is home to over three hundred species of birds including migratory waterfowl.

Driving along Route 13 between Dryden and Ithaca, part of the “Bridle Road,” it is difficult to imagine the days before the automobile. Two hundred years ago my ancestors traveled these hills and valleys. John Gee settled near Virgil Creek in Cortland County at the eastern extent of the Cayuga Lake watershed. John’s cousin Joshua and his wife Jane settled near Taughannock, Fivemile, and Enfield Creeks along the western Tompkins County line. They depended on the watershed for their livelihood and survival, floating logs down stream to the mill, hauling water, fishing and harvesting ice from the lake and ponds. Season after season, through flood and drought, for generations the Cayuga Lake watershed has provided sustenance to flora and fauna, natives and immigrants.