Native Brooks. 75 



formed. In olden time, just after the first pond was made, 

 the place was particularly favorable for a naturalist ; for in 

 these days it is occasionally visited by the great blue 

 herons, many rare plants grow there, and the phaeton 

 butterfly flies feebly in June. Trout have been caught in 

 some numbers, even in recent years, and the common 

 sucker abounds. A night rambler, with a lantern, will 

 discover, in the month of May, scores of them swimming 

 upstream to spawn, and when a shallow place is approached 

 there is a scurry among the fish, accompanied by much 

 splashing, as they make for deeper water. 



About 1796 John McVicker, who lived in the Dongan 

 mansion, constructed a canal through the valley from 

 Silver Lake to bring more water for the mill on " Mill 

 Creek," and it was not so long ago that the trees were 

 felled and turned into bungs for beer-barrels at the mill on 

 Clove Pond. Clove Valley Brook once flowed through a 

 deep ravine, and it is evident that there was less swamp 

 then than there is to-day, for the numerous dams made to 

 collect the water into ponds have also caused the muggy 

 meadows. 



The brook system, one branch of which drains the 

 region about Four Corners or Centreville, as it used to be 

 called is quite extensive, and its exact watershed is hard 

 to define. The main stream forms for a considerable 

 distance the boundary -line between Castleton and North- 

 field, and in the days of Gov. Dongan was known as 

 Palmer's Run. It formerly received the entire drainage 

 from the Clove Valley, and its waters have at one time or 

 another turned the wheels of many different mills. A 



