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In-Depth Information
figure fossil stems and leaves from
outcrops in the Manorkill and Schoharie
Creeks near Gilboa (
88
).
In 1852, Samuel Lockwood came to
Gilboa as minister of the Reformed
Church. Lockwood stayed for less than two
years, but during that time his interest in
geology and natural history led him to
walk through the countryside and
examine the rock outcrops, where he
found the natural cast of a tree stump and
other plant fossils. One of his specimens
was eventually described by the famous
Canadian paleobotanist John W Dawson as
Caulopteris lockwoodi
(Dawson, 1871). In
October 1869, one of the regular floods
which sweep down Schoharie Creek
devastated the riverside mills, roads, and
bridges. A gang of men working on the
bridge repairs, blasting the rock outcrop
to establish footings, uncovered a veritable
forest of tree stumps in growth position.
The find came to the attention of James
Hall, then State Paleontologist, who
immediately organized to bring several
stumps to the State Museum of Natural
History in Albany. Dawson (1871)
described the stumps as belonging to the
tree fern
Psaronius
. A new tree stump
locality, at Manorkill Falls, was discovered
in 1895 by Charles S Prosser, during a new
state geological survey of the Devonian
rocks in eastern New York.
As the century turned, little more
geological work was done in the area,
but the growing city of New York looked
to the Catskills as a source of water for its
ever-expanding population. A New York
88
ONTARIO
VERMONT
NEW YORK
Toronto
L. Ontario
Rome
Rochester
Niagara Falls
NH
Utica
Syracuse
Buffalo
Albany
L. Erie
Ithaca
Gilboa
MASS.
Binghamton
CONN.
PENNSYLVANIA
Location of Gilboa on
Schoharie Creek
NEW
JERSEY
100 km
100 miles
New York
88
Map of New York, showing the location of Gilboa.
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