History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 16

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868

USA > New York > Dutchess County > History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 16

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The rocks of the Champlain division consist of a series of slates, shales, grits, limestones and siliceous and calcareous breccias and conglomerates. Some plutonic rocks which have been intruded among them have modified their aspect in many places, and formed metamorphic rocks. Along their east- ern line of outcrop these strata have been much

deranged in position since their deposition, having been broken up and tilted at various angles, bent, wrinkled and contorted in almost every conceiva- ble manner, and elevated into hills and mountain chains.

The rocks of the Hudson River group occupy a large part of Duchess county. They are mostly slates, shales, and grey, slaty and thick-bedded grits. The slates and shales are generally dark- brown, blue and black ; the grits are grey, greenish and bluish-grey. They are stratified and conform- able, alternating a great number of times without regularity. Prof. Mather, from insufficient data, said they contained few fossils except fucoids, and such, until recently, has been supposed to be the fact. But investigations made by Mr. T. N. Dale, Jr., in the spring of 1878, and subsequently by Prof. J. D. Dana, Mr. R. P. Whitfield, Curator of Geology in the American Museum of Natural His- tory, New York city, and Prof. W. B. Dwight, of Vassar College, has shown them to be highly fos- siliferous, and resulted in " the determination by paleontological evidence of the Hudson River group in the slates, and the calciferous chazy and Trenton groups among the limestones. These re- sults substantially confirm in general the views of Mather, and the earlier views of Prof. Hall, as to the horizon of these rocks, though the particular distribution and relative positions of these various formations when fully explored and mapped out, will be found to differ considerably from any pre- vious conceptions."*

The rocks of the Hudson River group, and of nearly all the Champlain division, are remarkably well developed in this county. They are well ex- posed to view, and capable of rigid examination and identification on the rocky shore of the Hud- son from the mouth of Ancram creek to Red Hook; the rocky islands below Red Hook Landing ; and from Red Hook Landing to Barnegat (now Clinton) Point. They range through the towns of Red Hook, Milan, Rhinebeck, Clinton, Hyde Park, Pleasant Valley, Poughkeepsie, La Grange and Wappinger. The grits, shales and slates, which are mostly composed of fragments of the lower rocks of the Champlain division, are interstratified, alternating a number of times. Most of the grits are calciferous and effervesce slightly with a strong acid when taken from a sound rock that has not been exposed to weathering. The coarse greenish grit that occupies so prominent a place in Rens- * The results of some Recent Paleontological Investigations in the Vicinity of Poughkeepsie, by Prof. W. B. Dwight, read before the Poughkeepsie Society of Natural Science, April 21, 1880.

ROCKS OF THE HUDSON RIVER GROUP.

selaer county becomes finer farther south and forms a mountain mass extending through the five towns first named. Veins of quartz abound in this rock, which has an aspect almost trappean ; also, more or less abundantly, in all the rocks of this group; but more frequently it is only the proper joints that are filled with quartz and calcareous spar. Rocks that have formerly been called greywacke, varying in texture from an argillaceous slate to a sand- stone, succeed the limestone of the Fishkill valley about three-fourths of a mile from the village of Fishkill, on the old post-road from New York to Albany. The dip is generally east-south-east from ten to fifteen degrees, but at Wappinger Creek it is nearly vertical. Some quarries of the grit rock, which is easily quarried into rhombic blocks and fragments, have been opened along the road for wall stone.

The grit and slate rocks of this group are seen abundantly in places three miles south of Pough- keepsie, on the post-road, and continue to be seen at intervals, emerging in ridges and hillocks through the quarternary formation, in Hyde Park, Rhine- beck and Red Hook. They are frequently inter- stratified with shales and sometimes with lime- stone and other rocks.

The strata dip at various angles from eight to ninety degrees, generally to the east-south-east, but in some places to the north-east, and even to the north. The latter are local variations, due in most if not all cases, to derangements of the strata along the transverse axes of disturbance. An exposure of these rocks between Lower Red Hook village and the landing, three-fourths of a mile, and again one mile from the village, showed well characterized drift scratches, the surface being otherwise smoothed off as if ground down by attri- tion. In these, as well as many other localities in this vicinity, the dip was eastwardly at a high angle. Singular contortions of these rocks may be seen on the shore a few rods below the landing. The rocks are bent and folded and packed together in such a way as cannot be easily described or represented. The strata are nearly vertical, and bent into regular and irregular curves and folds. The grit rocks, in strata from six to twelve inches in thickness, are in- terstratified with slaty grits and slate. A hundred yards below the Lower Red Hook landing, the grit rock is seen nearly vertical, immediately over- laid by nearly horizontal slate. The strata are very beautifully exposed to view between Red Hook and Rhinebeck landings on the shore of the Hud- son and the small rocky islands near it. Smoothed

and scratched surfaces may be seen where the over- lying clay has recently been removed from the rock. One locality was observed about two miles south of Red Hook landing, where two distinct sets of scratches were engraved on the rock, with directions of south ten degrees west and south twenty degrees west. The smoothed or scratched grit or greywacke was seen between Rhinebeck landing and village, west of the ridge of naked grit rock that paves the road west of the creek ; also at several places on the Rhinebeck and Pine Plains turnpike ; and two and three-fourths miles from Lower Red Hook village, on the road to Long Pond. A quarry of flagging and building stone has been opened about half a mile east of the lat- ter village in the slaty grits of this group. The stone is easily quarried in slabs of five to fifty feet square and three to eight inches thick.

A broken rocky ridge of grit and slaty grit, in- terstratified with. slate, extends from near Rhine- beck, by Hyde Park, to near Poughkeepsie, and is exposed in many places along the east side of the old post-road. The dip of the rock is eastwardly, generally east-south-east, at very variable angles from forty to ninety degrees. · At Lewisville, oppo- site Lewis' landing, the strata are vertical.

The smoothed and scratched greywacke and grit was observed on the ridges of Hyde Park; and about half a mile east of the post road opposite to half a mile north of De Graff's tavern, the grooves and scratches, which were perfectly similar in size, depth and direction, were interrupted by slips or slight faults of the rock of more recent origin. Prof. Cassels observed them in several places in that vicinity.

Flagging stones have been quarried from the slaty grits in Hyde Park. The rocks are well ex- posed between . Hyde Park village and landing, and along the shore from the landing for some distance north. The grit, composed of distinct particles of slate in addition to the usual materials, is interstratified with a fissile slate, almost like roofing slate, on this shore a little above the land- ing. The long narrow island and several smaller ones between Hyde Park and Lewis' landing offer fine exposures of the grits and slaty grits. Below Barrytown are two long, narrow, rocky islands called Magdalen, on which the strata are well exposed to view, dipping as usual to the east, south-east, or more nearly east at high angles. About a mile below Rhinebeck landing, thick layers of grit are interstratified with slate, and contorted. A few rods above this locality nodules

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

of argillaceous iron ore were observed embedded in the slate.

The fossils discovered by Mr. Dale in the Hud- son River slates in Marlborough Mountain, on the west bank of the Hudson, opposite of Poughkeep- sie, were identified by Prof. Hall, State Geologist, as the brachiopods, Orthis testudinaria, Leptarna sericea, Orthis pectinella, Stophomena alternata the gasteropod, Bellerophon bilobatus, and the fucoid, Buthotrephis subnodosa. "These fossils," says Prof. Dwight, "are all common both to the Trenton and the Hudson River groups, except the Orthis pectinella, which has hitherto been unknown in the Hudson River shale. They therefore defi- nitely fix the age of these slates as belonging to some member of the Trenton period and, under all the circumstances, are generally accepted as indicating the highest strata in that period, the Hudson River group."

The rocks of the Utica Slate group, which Prof. Mather classifies as a member of the Champlain division, consist of dark-colored argillaceous slates of several varieties, which may generally be dis- tinguished by their color, and form a large propor- tion of the slate of the Hudson Valley. They range from Vermont to New Jersey, and are well exhibited to view on the banks of the Hudson at Fishkill landing and at Poughkeepsie.

The slate of this group is highly carbonaceous and contains thin seams and fragments of anthra- cite. This has led to the delusive hope that coal in greater quantity exists in its locality, and some places where excavations for coal have been made are very apt to deceive those who are not profes- sional geologists and mineralogists. Small layers and lumps of antliracite are actually seen, and the fragments of rock present an appearance some- what similar to the carbonaceous matter near the outcropping edges of beds of anthracite. In some localities vegetable remains are found. Near Poughkeepsie a well was bored to a depth of two hundred feet in search of coal ; and in its vicinity ten or twelve excavations have been made, and $5,000 to $6,000 expended, in this object. A large piece of anthracite is said to have been found at the mouth of Wappinger Creek nearly ninety years ago. On the Annan farm in Fishkill an excavation was made in black slate glazed with anthracite in expectation that coal would be found. The locality is at the base of the Highlands, near the junction of the granite and slate rocks, and has, says Prof. Mather, in his report of 1843, " been called the coal mine for a century." It is,

he adds, more likely to deceive those not familiar with coal regions than any he had seen, except those at Hudson and Rider's mill in Chatham. Even as late as 1878, and probably to this day, the hope of finding coal in these slates was strongly entertained. A specimen of coal dug that year on the farm of Michael Herman, a short distance from Pleasant Valley, about sixteen feet below the surface, was supposed to indicate a valuable deposit of that combustible. Subsequent exami- nation, during the same summer, led to the dis- covery of a "three-feet vein of anthracite coal," at a depth of twenty-four feet, and evoked from a local journal the asseveration, "that there is coal in Duchess county in quantities to pay for mining is a settled fact."* Toward the close of the late war the search for petroleum was prosecuted in Fishkill with considerable energy. The Hudson River Petroleum Company, composed of "the most prominent, wealthy and enterprising men of that vicinity," was formed with a capital of $600,- 000, and pipes drove at Glenham to a depth of 150 feet when a section, having been driven through several boulders, was crushed, and operations dis- continued. Another well was started near the base of the mountains.t

About three and one-fourth miles north-west of Lower Red Hook on the road near the Nathan Beckwith farm, is a ridge of black siliceous slate, in some of the loose masses of which copper pyrites was rather abundantly disseminated. The same kind of rock was seen in place on the next swell of land to the west, and in several places between Lower Red Hook and Clermont.

The rocks of the Trenton Limestone group are limestones and shales alternating with each other. Some of the strata abound in fossils which are peculiar in character and distinguish the group from others higher in the geological series. The group thins out from west to east or is mostly replaced by the associated slates. The limestone is generally dark colored, compact or sub-crystalline, sometimes slaty, at times it occurs in strata two to four feet thick, separated by thin layers of black slate. Some of the strata are replete with fossil remains ; others are nearly destitute of them. Some of the thick strata are easily sawed and pol- ished, and make a beautiful black marble, others contain hornstone and chert in small nodules or irregular masses, that render it useless for such

* The Poughkeepsie Weekly Eagle, May 4th, 1878, and July 20, 1878 .- The Rhinebeck Gazette, 1878.

t The Fishkill Standard, 1864. The Poughkeepsie Eagle, Dec. 23. 1864 ; June 16, 1865 ; and August 5, 1865.

BLACK RIVER LIMESTONE-CALCIFEROUS ROCKS.

purposes. The rocks of the group occur on the banks of the Hudson, about one and one-fourth to one and one-half miles above Clinton Point. They are slate or slaty altered limestones, that would not be recognized as limestone without close exami- nation. The strata dip at a high angle to the east, like all the rocks in the vicinity. Among the fos- sils of this group are the Isotelus gigas, Calymene senaria, Cryptolithus tessellatus, Favosites lyco- podites and several other species, several species of Crinoidea, Orthocera striatum, Orthocera duplex ( C,) Trocholites ammonius ( C,) and several other species, Bellerophon apertus, Strophomena alter- nata, S. semiovalis, S. deltoidea, Delthyris microp- tera, Atrypa glabella, Orthis testudinaria.

The Black River Limestone is more extensively developed in the district than the Trenton Lime- stone. It is found not only in continuous strata, but in numerous limited patches. It is one of the most durable and valuable stones for buildings, locks, bridges and aqueducts, and is easily quarried and dressed. The limestone beds in Milan which are supposed to belong to this group, form a sur- face mass one hundred to two hundred yards in width, which is crossed by the Pine Plains and Rhinebeck turnpike, one and three-fourths miles west of LaFayette Corners. It is compact, fine- grained, sub-crystalline, and much is more or less " sparry," in consequence of its being traversed by veins. A similar limestone is found in the eastern part of Red Hook and in Clinton, ranging through the western part of Milan. The limestone near Lithgow on the road from Poughkeepsie and Amenia is another example. Another similar limestone, but blacker, occurs on the same road about a mile from Washington Hollow. The limestones near Fishkill, Matteawan, Sprout Creek, Poughquaick, etc., are further examples. These limestones in Fishkill, Beekman, Pleasant Valley and Washing- ton are more or less altered by metamorphic action. Conglomerate limestone, some blocks of which were nearly black, intersected by white and yellow veins, was observed in Clinton, and brecciated limestone in the eastern part of Rhinebeck. Numerous other localities of conglomerate and brecciated limestone were observed.

The Calciferous group of rocks is intermediate in composition, as it is in age, between the Trenton and Black River (or Mohawk,) limestones and the Potsdam sandstone. The rocks are cal- careo-siliceous, and sometimes one and some- times the other predominates and gives character to them. The water-lined lamina of deposi-

tion are very conspicuous in some of the strata of calciferous sandstone. The rocks of this group occupy a long narrow belt, extending from Clinton Point through Poughkeepsie, Pleasant Val- ley, Stanford and Pine Plains. The first continu- ous range of this limestone of much magnitude in the district is seen at Barnegat, where it crosses the Hudson, and from this fact it received the dis- tinctive name of Barnegat Limestone. Wappin- ger Creek forms its eastern boundary at Attlebury. It crosses the valley of Pine Plains under the great peat and marl marsh and Stissing Pond. It varies in its character from a sandy, granular, sub-crystal- line texture, to a perfect compact limestone, with a conchoidal fracture. It is usually gray, granular and sub-crystalline, with grains of sand and minute quartz crystals disseminated. Small cavities lined with quartz crystals are common. It is sometimes distinctly stratified, and even slaty near its junc- tion with the slate rocks, but frequently its beds are so thick, and the masses of the ledges so broken that scarcely any traces of stratification are visible. It was formerly important in consequence of its extensive application to the manufacture of lime, at and near Barnegat, where six, ten and even twenty* kilns are said to have been in operation. In 1843, there were six kilns which were kept constantly burning during the period of river navigation, and produced 720,000 bushels per annum. There were numerous other kilns in the county the aggregate annual product of which was then estimated to be 1,500,000 bushels. This lime was shipped mostly to New Jersey and applied to the sandy soils of that State proved a valuable fertilizer. The busi- ness in this county has declined, and for the last six years no lime has been burned at Barnegat.

These rocks, in which Prof. Mather says he was unable to detect a trace of fossil remains, and that Prof. Briggs discovered faint traces of shells, but too imperfect for determination, the more recent and careful investigation by Professors Dana and Dwight proved to be highly fossiliferous; and among the specimen fossils "were a number in a state of preservation sufficiently distinct to fix in- contestably the age of the rock as that of the Tren- ton epoch." In the spring of 1879, Professors Dana and Dwight visited the little quarry on the creek half a mile south-east of Pleasant Valley, where, nearly forty years before, the labors of Prof. Briggs had been rewarded with such meager results, and found the following fossils : Cyathophylloid corals, and several species of Crinoids, the latter

* Gordon's Gazetteer of the State of New York, (1836) 433.

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

in abundance; Orthis testudinaria, Orthis tricen- aria, Orthis junceum, and what were apparently fragments of Trilobites and also of the Brachiopod, Strophomena alternata. There were also masses of rock filled, apparently, with small rounded pebbles, which, on subsequent slicing, proved to be a Chætetes coral of remarkably minute structure .. At Rochdale, on the premises of Mr. Henry Titus, they found the same fossils as at Pleasant Valley, and in addition a great many specimens of a very singular and doubtless new fossil which appears to resemble most closely those organisms so little un- derstood, which are called receptaculites. During several visits to the latter place that summer, Prof. Dwight found abundant specimens of Stro- phomena alternata, Orthis pectinella, one En- doceras twenty to twenty-five centimeters in length, one Escharapora recta, one Ptilodictya acuta, a pygidium of a Calymene Trilobite, and several speci- mens which were probably Petriaia corniculum, besides additional individuals of fossils previously mentioned. He also found that the fine Chotetes mentioned existed in profusion in the rock. At Manchester he found a large slab covered with a beautiful fucoid, probably Buthothrepis gracilis. At Wallace's quarry, one and one-fourth miles be- low Salt Point, and in several cuts on the railroad between that place and Pleasant Valley, he found an entirely new set of fossils, and in a rock of quite different appearance from that at Rochdale and Pleasant Valley, there were great numbers of univalve discoidel shells sometimes intermixed with fucoids. There were also small Orthocerata, but an entire lack of the various species found at the other localities.

The fine Chatetes compacta, and the large crinoid Cleiocrinus magnificus, the latter of which was found by Prof. Dwight near Newburgh, were never before found in the State nor south of Canada.

Roofing slate* is an altered rock, intermediate in character, like its associates, between the rocks described under the Champlain division and those to be described under the "Taconic" system. The rock and its associates, which are similar to those already described under the Champlain division, are penetrated by quartz veins in great numbers, and by interlaminations of quartz. It ranges from Vermont through Washington, Rensselaer, Colum-

bia, Duchess, Ulster and Orange counties to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and is quarried for roof slate in many places, but not in this county.

The Taconic * system consists of slates, lime- stones and granular quartz rocks, which form a belt of mountainous and hilly country, of which the eastern and southern portions of this county form a part. The strike and dip of the rocks are in the same directions as those of the Champlain di- vision, and apparently overlie them. The dip is to the east, east-south-east, and east-north-east, at angles varying from fifteen to ninety degrees. Al- though the rocks all dip in the same general direc- tion, similar strata at no great distance are fre- quently reversed in their relative order of superpo- sition. This is more frequently observed on the opposite sides of ridges, hills and mountains. The talcose slates of this system are not confined to the belt described, but local patches are found in many places. The rocks of the system are more or less distinctly characterized when they approach to gneiss and granite and when quartz has been in- truded most abundantly among them. When the exact order of superposition of these rocks and the primary can be examined, it is found that the gran- ular quartz either rests upon, or pitches immedi- ately under, the gneiss or granite rocks ; that the limestones lie next in order to the gneiss or granite, either in super or sub-position and that the slates next follow. The observer may find much diffi- culty in verifying this, as the rocks are almost uni- versally much deranged from the position in which they were deposited. The connection may be traced on the south-west side of Mt. Stissing in Pine Plains and Stanford.

The sandstones of the Taconic system are grey, reddish, striped and white, and all are very hard, tough, indurated quartzose rocks. The limestones are grey and black, compact in some places ; crystalline, grey, and sparry or checkered in others ; and not unfrequently granular, whitish and crystal- line. The same continuous rock has undergone these changes at different localities, in proportion as it has been more or less subjected to the influ- ences that have modified it. The slate rock has undergone as great changes. It varies from argil- laceous slate, through graphic, plumbaginous,

*Roofing slate has been quarried in various places in the county ; and at least two companies have been formed for that purpose : the New York Slate Co., incorporated March 23d, 1810, to continue fifteen years ; and the Duchess Co. Slate Co., incorporated June 8, 1812, to continue twenty-one years. The' operations of the latter company were to be con- fined to North East .- French's Gazetteer of New York, 267.

* This name, given by Prof. Emmons to designate the rocks forming the Williamstown Mountain, which are very peculiar in their aspect, but blend in to the Champlain division on the one hand, and into the Pri- mary rocks on the other, is variously spelled; but we follow both the orthog- raphy and classification of Prof. Mather ; though Prof. Dwight says the recently discovered fossils within this county "are so many proofs that there is no Taconic system in geological history, as far at least as this its original and typical seat in the l'aghkanic Mountains is concerned."

SLATE FORMATIONS.

chlorite and talcose slate. Modifications of the latter two are most common, sometimes mingled with blue, green, red and mottled slates. It is more or less permeated by veins and branches of milky quartz, which often contains chlorite and brown spar disseminated in bunches.

A mountain mass of Taconic rocks ranges through Ancram to the east part of Pine Plains, the west part of North East, and the north-west part of Amenia. The north part, in Ancram, is called Winchell Mountain. It is composed of slate, talcy slate and chloritic slates, and is inter- sected by numerous veins of quartz. Limestone ranges along the base of the mountain on both sides. It is generally grey and blue, though in some places at the east base it is white. About one and a half miles north-west from the gate, which is on the mountain west of Amenia, the slate is chloritic, and is soon succeeded, as we approach the "City "* by talcose slate. A short distance north of the "City," the rocks are much broken up, and are talcy slate and talcy limestone. Both rocks contain cubic crystals of iron pyrites. The bluish grey and clouded limestone soon succeeds on the west, apparently pitching under the talcy slate. In some places this limestone was checked by veins of carbonate of lime and quartz. Lime- stone was seen in places from thence to Pine Plains, except at a place where the road crosses a small stream about half or three-fourths of a mile east of the Quaker meeting-house, and here slate was seen in place. A mass of alternating slate and lime- stone enters the town of Pine Plains from Ancram. Some of the slate is black with carbon, (graphic slate,) and in places plumbaginous. The limestone is grey and subgranular, blue and compact, and sparry.

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History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 16

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 868

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868