As you drive up the old Albany Post Road (Rt.9) from NYC to Albany, you eventually reach Dutchess Co. and the quaint little village of Rhinebeck, NY. Just before the village center, you cross over a small, shallow creek. The creek flows along almost unnoticed today, as overgrowth impedes just about every view. The once interesting bridge that spanned the creek was paved over long ago and complemented with unflattering highway guardrails.
It wasn’t always this way…
For a century and a half (~1710 to 1870), this small stream, known as the Landsman Kill (“kill” is early Dutch for creek), powered the industry that sustained life in the area. Twelve waterfalls and by the most detailed count, fifteen mills , along its short course once provided the community’s lumber, grains/flour, cornmeal, oil, plaster, textiles, and later, paper. Milled goods likely also found their way to points up and down the Hudson River aboard the ever-present river sloops and later, after 1807, th