Shinny on the Old Mill Pond Nyack, NY 1880

[James Laverance]

You might be interested in reading this...

https://books.google.ca/books?id=ec...=onepage&q=mill pond black ice harpers&f=true

http://news.hrvh.org/veridian/cgi-b....2.4&cl=&srpos=0&st=1&e=-------20--1-----all/

Click to read more...

 

[Killion]

^^^ Thats certainly beyond charming, very Currier & Ives. Warming. Idyllic. Window into the past & really present for those of us who have ever been fortunate enough to have played Pond Hockey. For those who havent, evocatively captures the spirit of the activity.

 

[ecemleafs]

lol this is the town next to where i grew up. cant think of where this pond would be though.

 

[tarheelhockey]

lol this is the town next to where i grew up. cant think of where this pond would be though.

Looking at a map of the area, there's an "Old Mill Road" that runs along the banks of Lake DeForest. Unfortunately, Lake DeForest is a 1950s-era reservoir, so the landscape has undoubtedly changed dramatically since the 1880s. I highlighted the road and circled the approximate area where a mill might have been located, assuming the road still runs its original course.

That small, natural-looking pond is intriguing as it appears that it could have been part of the original, pre-reservoir landscape. If nothing else, it's visually representative of what the author would have seen as a young boy:

 

[ecemleafs]

i thought that area but im pretty sure thats in west nyack. i dont think nyack's borders are all that different from what they were in 1880.

 

[ecemleafs]

a quick google search showed an old mill pond at germonds and strawtown but thats west nyack as well.

 

[tarheelhockey]

i thought that area but im pretty sure thats in west nyack. i dont think nyack's borders are all that different from what they were in 1880.

a quick google search showed an old mill pond at germonds and strawtown but thats west nyack as well.

The wonderful online map archives at the Nyack Library (http://www.nyacklibrary.org/maps.html) help shed some light on the topography of late-19th C. Nyack.

First -- the author gives us the following directions to the pond (paraphrased):
1) Down the "hard packed" road, past teams of horses and groups of bystanders [IE, starting in town and heading down one of the main streets]
2) "O'er 'thank you, marms' I fly in clear mid-air", whatever that means... my immediate association is to school matrons. Perhaps an overly literary way to describe passing the sounds of a schoolhouse?
3) Around a curve and past the village church and parsonage
4) Under hemlocks, past a rail fence and in view of roadside weeds (IE, into a rural area]
5) Across the "Town Brook" bridge and down a hill to the pond

Based on this description, I believe the most likely location for these adventures is here:

Note that this is a map of Nyack proper in 1891, when the town would have been slightly more built-out than in 1880. Note several familiar features, parallel to the description above:

1) The village's "downtown" area converged at the eastern ends of High, Main and DePew. I think we can pinpoint the beginning of this fantasy journey as being somewhere around the eastern end of DePew Ave.
2) A schoolhouse facing onto DePew Ave.
3) A curve in a small brook, within sight of a Presbyterian church.
4) Just after the S-curve in the small brook, the city blocks become longer and more indicative of a rural setting. Not far from here is the 1891 town boundary followed by a cemetery called the "Nyack Rural Cemetery" (just off-screen from the image above.
5) Of course, the enlargement of the small brook into something that could be properly called a "town brook" and the presence of two small natural ponds.


I think it's safe to say that this is the location of our story. Today it looks like this:

And even though you can't see it in the overhead photo, Google Streetview confirms that this terrain is indeed situated on a rather steep slope... of the sort that a small boy might put to use with his sled on a snowy day. It's even possible that the town brook is still bubbling along somewhere under the surface of Catherine Street.

One last enticing detail on that old map... the presence of two "ice ponds" just north of town.

These were located in what is now a heavily wooded portion of the expanded Oak Hill Cemetery. Seems the local shinny players were spoiled for choice, as long as they were willing to walk a while in the snow.

 

[Theokritos]

(...)
5) Across the "Town Brook" bridge and down a hill to the pond

Based on this description, I believe the most likely location for these adventures is here:

Note that this is a map of Nyack proper in 1891, when the town would have been slightly more built-out than in 1880.

(...)

I think it's safe to say that this is the location of our story. Today it looks like this:

Great research. Some corroboration:

"Water coming down the Nyack brook has been a problem since the early days of the settlement. In the early 1800's a lumber mill was constructed on Main Street just opposite where Mill Street is today. (Hence the name.) The mill was in use till about 1890 when the property was sold and the Pavilion Hotel was built on the hill to the north side of Main. Actually, the eastern portion of Catherine Street was the original driveaway up to the hotel."
(Source)

Check out google maps, the street running into Main Street from the south (where "Enterprise Rent-A-Car" is located on the map above) is actually called (North) Mill Street.

 

[ecemleafs]

so those ice ponds are probably between 9W and mountainview ave now, just west of the oak hill cemetery. nice work tarheel.

 

[ecemleafs]

Great research. Some corroboration:



Check out google maps, the street running into Main Street from the south (where "Enterprise Rent-A-Car" is located on the map) is actually called (North) Mill Street.

some more nice work. crazy to think that was an early location for shinny/hockey/skating in NY. that is right next to where a really popular bar was lol. that location kind of starts the bar/restaurant strip going eastwards now.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Great research. Some corroboration:



Check out google maps, the street running into Main Street from the south (where "Enterprise Rent-A-Car" is located on the map) is actually called (North) Mill Street.

Good find! So the mill would have been in the portion of the brook around the words 'Wm GRAY" on the old map, or the blue roof above the words "Catherine St" in the Google image above.

so those ice ponds are probably between 9W and mountainview ave now, just west of the oak hill cemetery. nice work tarheel.

Specifically, somewhere behind the location of the Temple Beth Torah and Alliance Theological Seminary. On Google Maps there are brown leaves on the trees above the ponds (or their dried-up basins).

 

[ecemleafs]

so that picture and story seems like 100 or so kids played a stick game on the ice.

 

[Theokritos]

Good find! So the mill would have been in the portion of the brook around the words 'Wm GRAY" on the old map, or the blue roof above the words "Catherine St" in the Google image above.

Indeed. "Wm Gray" seems to be referring to William Gray who apparently bought the lot in 1887 at Public Auction after having gone to court against a certain Cornelia Smith who owned it until then. From the announcement of the Auction where the Smith property is outlined:

...along a certain brook or stream of water as it now exists in a southerly direction, and continuing along the same crossing, the mill-dam known as Smith's mill-dam...

 

[tarheelhockey]

Indeed. "Wm Gray" seems to be referring to William Gray who apparently bought the lot in 1887 at Public Auction after having gone to court against a certain Cornelia Smith who owned it until then. From the announcement of the Auction where the Smith property is outlined:

That seems to be the last piece of the puzzle. Well done

 

[Killion]

^^^ Yep. Nice detective work gang.

 

[tarheelhockey]

So this piece was written by the notable William Hamilton Gibson and published in 1880.

Seeing as he was born in 1850, probably safe to peg the playing of shinny in Nyack at circa 1860.

This helps me mentally reconcile Gibson's rather pastoral description of a location which would have been somewhat closer to being "in town" by 1880.

 

[James Laverance]

So this piece was written by the notable William Hamilton Gibson and published in 1880.

Seeing as he was born in 1850, probably safe to peg the playing of shinny in Nyack at circa 1860.

WOW! I never thought about it that way...

Maybe they were playing in the 1850's as well

"How clearly and distinctly I recall those toughening, rollicking sports on the old mill- pond ! I see the two opposing forces on the field of ice, the wooden ball placed ready for the fray. The starter lifts his stick. I hear a whizzing sweep."

 

[Theokritos]

So this piece was written by the notable William Hamilton Gibson and published in 1880.

Seeing as he was born in 1850, probably safe to peg the playing of shinny in Nyack at circa 1860.

This helps me mentally reconcile Gibson's rather pastoral description of a location which would have been somewhat closer to being "in town" by 1880.

Definitely 1850s/1860s. Some interesting details:

'How clearly and distinctly I recall those toughening, rollicking sports on the old mill-pond! I see the two opposing forces on the field of ice, the wooden ball placed ready for the fray.'

The object of play was a ball (as expected, not a flat object) and it was made of wood.

'Meanwhile the ball is beating round beneath their feet, their skates are clashing steel on steel.'

So they used skates.

'With a sharp crack I see the ball returned singing over the polished surface, and met half way by the advance-guard of the leading side.'

"Advance-guard", an actual 19th century term for a position or just a poetic synonym borrowed from military language?

'The would-be striker, with stick uplifted, jammed in the centre of a boisterous throng...'

"Would-be striker", now that's definitely poetic language, not hockey terminology.

'Ye gods! will any one come out alive? I hear the old familiar sounds vibrating on the air: "Ouch!", "Get out of the way, then!", "Now I've got it!", "hinny on yer own side!"'

"Shinny on yer own side", now that's definitely 19th century hockey language. First of all we learn they used the term shinny there and then. And second we learn they obviously employed the rule that the ball was only to be struck from right to left ("on yer own side"), never the other way round.

 

[mrhockey193195]

Grew up in Ossining/Chappaqua. This is amazing stuff guys, and this is why I love HF HOH.

 

[James Laverance]

^^^ I'm pretty convinced this is what we would call Pond Hockey today...
Yes they used a wooden ball though I'm pretty sure after being whacked at enough times it's formation would be similar to a wooden puck...

 

[tarheelhockey]

Nearly a decade later, I stumbled across this thread again and was able to pin down the locations of these ponds with even greater precision.

First — a big tip of the hat to Nyack Public Libraries which continues to make historic town maps freely available for researchers.

These three maps show the same view of Nyack, the first from an 1891 atlas and the latter two from a 2024 iPhone.

^^ note the two bodies of water labeled “ICE POND”, upper left.

As the streetscape has hardly changed since the 19th century, it’s easy enough to pick out the current location of the ponds.

Charmingly, one of them still exists and can be visited. The more northerly pond is listed as being on the property of a “J.P. Garrabrant”. Today, Garrabrant Pond is an extremely picturesque pond that sits behind a cottage on the same property — it appears to be a man-made addition from a later era. But just a quick dip through the woods brings you to a second, natural pond hidden among the trees. Its floodprint appears to be the exact size and shape of the 19th century “ice pond”. It is by all appearances the same little pond that William Hamilton Gibson and his friends used for shinny games around 1860.

The other, larger pond appears to have been located in the woods near the northern corner of Mountainview Ave and Forest Ridge Rd. Evidently a now-disused road (the remnants of which are still accessible) used to cut through the now overgrown area which was at one point clear-cut and leveled for development. It would seem that the pond was done away with as part of the leveling, so the site can still be visited but it is now just flat overgrown land.

So there you have it. If a Nyack local wants to recreate the scene from this story, they can take DePew Avenue up toward the turnpike, take a (nonexistent) exit onto Mountainview, right onto Woods, park, throw your skates and stick over your shoulder and tramp down through the trees till you see ice.