Harris

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Harris is home to a variety of animals, depending on which parts of the property you visit!

Explore the Salamander Loop, and you may be rewarded with catching sight of some of the amphibians that live in and around the property’s pond, streams, and seasonal woodland pools. These woodland pools, also called vernal pools, exist only in the spring due to melting snow and are popular breeding grounds for amphibians like Spotted Salamanders, Red Efts, and Wood Frogs.

The Hemlock forest at Harris is also home to many birds and animals. While there, you may hear, see, or experience signs of Barred Owls, Dark Eyed Juncos, Hermit Thrushes, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and several varieties of Warblers. In the winter, the Hemlock trees provide important shelter for Fishers and Bobcats and food for Snowshoe Hares.

While bats are not typically active during the day while Harris is open, the outcropping of cliffs along the Bat Loop is an important bat habitat. Harris is home to at least four species of bats, including the native endangered Indiana Bat.

As you enter the wooded trails of Harris, you step into a Hemlock forest. As the name suggests, this forest type is abundant with Eastern Hemlock trees, which produce a dense evergreen canopy above. While this shade is ideal for young Hemlock trees, it is unsuitable for other tree species, allowing Hemlocks to become the predominant type of tree in this forest.

In the Munsee language, the Eastern Hemlock is called the “stáhkwa” or ‘conifer’ and holds a high spiritual value for Mohicans and all Lenape People. The Hemlock tree is regarded for its many uses in daily life, from creating bedding with its branches to using its leaves and inner bark for medicinal purposes.

Beneath the shady Hemlock canopy, other types of plant life can seem sparse. However, the forest of Harris is also home to shade-loving plant species, such as types of mosses (Sphagnum and Stiff Clubmoss), Goldthread, and Spotted Coralroot. One of the many marvels of Harris, Coralroot is a rare type of orchid that thrives in the shade because it doesn’t photosynthesize! Instead, the plant gets its energy from other plants.

Harris is located in an area that likely would have been a gateway to late-winter hunting grounds in the Taconic and Green Mountains, as trails crisscrossed the landscape from the Hudson River eastward. The Hemlock forest is a source of Goldthread, an important medicinal plant, and Eastern Hemlock, an important source of medicine and objects for daily life, such as bedding and warming teas.

By the first half of the 18th century, the Van Rensselaer family claimed much of the upper Kinderhook Creek watershed and the upper Green River watershed as within their Lower Manor. The tract of land they claimed was large, spanning several counties all the way to the border with Massachusetts. They, and other Dutch patroons, relied on the labor of indentured people and enslaved Africans to manage these large tracts of land. Ships from the West India Company used the Hudson River as a way to transport enslaved peoples. Once manumitted, those original Black families continued to live, work, and create a vibrant community that survives to this day.

The Van Rensselaer land claim was hotly contested by the nearby Mohican descendants of the original sellers. They rightfully believed that the boundaries had been grossly exaggerated by the Van Rensselaers. The Mohican people were subject to genocide, coerced into assimilation, and forcibly removed from their homelands to what is now known as Wisconsin. They continue to retain their unbroken status as a Sovereign Native Nation. Despite removal, they continue to hold relationships with their homelands and settler communities.

The property was purchased at some point during the 19th century by John Gott, a Revolutionary War veteran, who began farming the land. Throughout the century, the farm changed hands several times, mainly producing sheep. After a sale in the late 19th century, the agricultural land began to revert to forest, but the old stone walls and foundations visible from the trail are likely remnants of those initial farms.

The origins of the pond at Harris remain to be a mystery. While it appears man-made, it is far from the old farmstead, which suggests it was created before the area became farmland. One theory of the pond’s creation is that it was caused by a crater made from magnesium oxide mining, a common practice in 19th-century bogs in the area. There is also speculation that underground springs may feed the pond, explaining why it sustains today.

The land was eventually purchased by Gordon Harris in 1966, who held it until donating the property to the Columbia Land Conservancy. In 2017, Harris officially opened to the public.