When I moved to Carmel, NY in the early days of Covid-19, in the Town of Kent, I discovered that my house was part of a large tract of land that was part of a colonial village, Cole’s Mills, founded in 1747. It was obliterated when the Carmel Dam turned the adjacent West Branch of the Croton River into a reservoir, and the only trace was on old maps and in library archives. A year ago I began an effort to install a historical marker just a few steps from my house, and made presentations to the Kent Board, Kent Historical Society, and completed a successful fundraising effort. Today, along with more than a dozen members of the Cole Family, the marker was unveiled.
I also created a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coles_Mills,_New_York. Some highlights:
Cole’s Mills was settled by Elisha Cole in 1747. Elisha and his wife Hannah Smalley, both Wampanoag Native Americans, moved from Harwich, MA on Cape Cod. They built a grist mill at the outlet of Barrett Pond into the West Branch of the Croton River in 1748. A carding mill, saw mill, and school house were added in subsequent years. Elisha and his sons were members of the 7th Regiment of the Dutchess County Militia, under Colonel Henry Ludington, during the American Revolutionary War. The land was leased from Mary Philipse Morris, confiscated after the Battles of Saratoga by the Commissioners of Forfeiture, and sold back to the tenants in 1782.
In 1888, NYC purchased the land and water rights of Cole’s Mills from members of the Cole family. By 1890, work had begun on Reservoir D, now known as the West Branch Reservoir. Building the West Branch Reservoir required clearing Cole’s Mills and the nearby basin of buildings and vegetation, relocating Dickson Road (now Dixon Road) over a new bridge at Cole’s Mills, and building an 1,800-foot causeway, now part of New York State Route 301, which runs above the reservoir. The reservoir was put in service in late 1895 and construction completed in 1896. Cole’s Mills was fully submerged when the dam was completed and the reservoir was filled.
The incursion by New York City and its reservoirs destroyed the hamlet of Cole’s Mills and reshaped the physical and cultural landscape of the town of Kent. Prior to the reservoirs, Kent had ninety-four farms, with 7,952 acres of cultivated land. A rural landscape of mills and dairy farms was transformed back into forest dotted by homes at a safe distance from the waterways. The NYC Department of Public Works targeted health “nuisances” throughout Kent beginning in 1893. Cole’s Mills was called an example of “the worst case of several here” with a house and mill in close contact with the water. Local residents were cast as villains and farmlands were sold off at discount rates. Putnam County’s center of commerce shifted from Kent to Brewster, and a planned railroad was rerouted from Boyd’s Corner and Cole’s Mills to Brewster.
Cole’s Mills and its 150 years of history was erased by the NYC reservoir system. This marker is one way to revive its memory and celebrate Kent’s long history of patriotism and essential contribution to New York City’s world class water system.
