Fishkill Creek and Fishkill Point

Text from William Wade

Fishkill Landing, opposite Newburgh, contains three churches, eight or ten stores, and eight or nine hundred inhabitants. Matteawan is a celebrated manufacturing village on the Fishkill, a mile and a half east of the landing. Glen-ham, noted for its woollen cloths, is three miles distant; and six miles from the landing, is Fishkill, with its population of eleven thousand. This village was also for a time, the headquarters of the Revolutionary army, and a church is still shown in which Enoch Crosby, the spy, was confined for a time: his escape from captivity, it may be remembered, is described by Cooper in his romance of " The Spy," under the name of Harvey Birch.

Several sources note that Fishkill Creek which flows into the Hudson was a source of water power for several industries. In 1902 according to Dutchess County A Pictorial History, "the runoff from melting snow transformed tranquil Fishkill Creek into a raging flood."