Siegel-Kline Kill

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At Siegel-Kline Kill, you can search up in the sky, down in the water, and all around you to see interesting wildlife!

The fields and forest edges are home to birds like the Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Northern Mockingbird, Cedar Waxwing, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, and Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. Hollow trunks in the Sycamore Trees along the Streamside Trail provide nesting space for birds like Owls, Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, and Common Mergansers.

Animals like Flying Squirrels, Porcupines, and Raccoons also like to make their homes in Siegel-Kline Kill’s Sycamores. The Munsee word for Raccoons, “wtakw lunjeew,” means ‘soft hands’ and describes how sensitive raccoon paws are to sensing vibrations under water when feeling for prey.

What kind of prey might the Raccoons be searching for? In pre-colonial times, the Kline Kill would have been fished for species like White Suckers, Creek Chub, Fallfish, American Eel, and Brook Trout. The Mohicans used spears or bows and arrows for fishing, and looked for Eels by torchlight. Today, the Kline Kill is stocked with Brown Trout by the New York State Department of Conservation.

Some of the most interesting plants at the property are found in the floodplain forest next to the Kline Kill, a tributary of the Kinderhook Creek.

The largest trees are the American Sycamores, whose name in Munsee is “amoxoolheew” or ‘canoe maker.’ Trees like the Slippery Elm, Cottonwood, Quaking Aspen, and Bigtooth Aspen share the streamside with the Sycamores, providing shade to keep the water cool. These trees are sources of medicine, food, and fiber for the Mohican people. Lower in the forest canopy, you may find shrubs like the American Elder, American Groundnut, and Hackberry.

The center of the property is an open meadow that is mowed by a local farmer for the hay.

The Kline Kill, “Nakawahkoosik” or “Nakawahkoosi-Seepoos” or ‘Sandy Hill River’ and area where it meets the Kinderhook Creek seems to have been a place of importance to the Mohicans.

An large area of land called “Pompoenik,” mentioned repeatedly in colonial records until the end of the 18th century, was located at this confluence in the floodplains of the Kinderhook, and would have supported a great acreage of maize and other crops: The name likely derives from “Panpahnek – ‘Where the River Overflows.’” Local Mohican people continued to live and farm in the Kinderhook Creek watershed until at least the 1750s.

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.

Eventually, the property was converted to a dairy farm, with the farmhouse located southwest of the parking area.  There was a large barn that has since burned down near the road, just west of the visitor parking area.  George Kittle operated the dairy farm from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, grazing dairy cows, growing corn and hay, and selling beef cattle.

CLC purchased the property in a bargain sale in 2006 and opened it to the public in 2009.