PHOTO: Artifacts from the lost village of Lake Kitchawan., a hoe, a door latch and a hand-cut spike and a nail — all from the 19th Century. CREDIT: Maureen Koehl
Window into History: Lost Village of Lake Kitchawan
keeps its secrets
By Maureen Koehl on May 12, 2015
Lewisboro Ledger
It’s hard to imagine the changes in the land that can take place over decades, and maybe centuries. In that period of time, abandoned pastures grow up to forestland, streams change course, and ponds morph into swampland. About all that remains constant are the rock outcroppings and general topography. Our wonderful stone fences stand testament to our forebears, houses collapse or burn, but their stone foundations remain, and these remnants of a century ago are what I set out to explore with lifelong Lake Kitchawan resident and history buff Ron Egloff on a recent spring day. We were in search of the Lost Village.
Located between Lake Kitchawan in Lewisboro and Trinity Lake in Pound Ridge is an area called the Lost Village. Once a settlement of at least four families, it is said the area was decimated by illness close to the turn of the 20th Century. The homes of the families of basketmaker Matthew Austin, farmer Harry Austin, Stephen Bouton, seller of wild huckleberries and other local produce, all of Pound Ridge, and of Clarence DeForest of Lewisboro dotted the hills and valleys of what is now part of the Stamford watershed property. As we walked along what used to be a farm road, Ron pointed out several of the foundations that he used to explore as a kid from Lake Kitchawan. Back in the days, artifact hunters dug up pottery shards, broken window glass, and other detritus left when homes are abandoned. We didn’t dig deep enough through the leaves to find charred wood or melted glass, but in an article from a circa 1979 Ledger article by editor William Lynch III, he reports finding such items and also seeing a log roof covering one of the foundations.
Jay Harris, in her book of Pound Ridge history, God’s Company, describes the Lost Village, also referred to as The Regions. She writes the area was occupied from the 1840s to the 1890s. The reason for the abandonment of the settlement, Harris says, was likely illness, probably TB or dysentery or typhus, maladies that were rampant in those times. Were the houses torched to combat the spread of disease? Was a devastating fire caused by a lightning strike? We may never know, but a history mystery has been left to current generations to solve. Where there were once lilacs and fruit trees and huckleberry bushes, invasive barberry rules the land!
The family names were once a strong presence in our two towns. DeForest is still on the maps as DeForest Trail at the southern end of the Lake Kitchawan community, and A. T. DeForest was the owner of the lakeside store that became the Lake Kitchawan Casino.
Lake Kitchawan has had other secrets to reveal over the decades. In the early 1970s a college student at SUNY Purchase saw a bone sticking out of an area where work was being done on one of the canals leading from the lake. An official archaeological dig revealed 10,000-year-old mastodon bones. A jawbone, teeth and other bones were discovered and are now housed at Trailside Museum in the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation and the Pound Ridge Historical Society Museum.
There is one last mystery to be solved before we leave Lake Kitchawan. Ron told me about three large, probably flat-bottomed boats sunk in the lake. As near as can be determined, the boats are about 30 feet long with a 10-foot beam. Where did they come from? What was their purpose in the rather small lake with no access to a larger body of water? Do they date as far back at the early 19th Century, as Ron thinks they might, and if so, might they have been used for transporting logs down the lake from a hillside logging operation?
One thing we do know — this area of our town was always a well-used area. Long before the steep hillsides were developed as summer places, and then, after World War II, permanent residences, Native Americans roamed freely in search of game and foraged for nuts and berries. Stephen Bouton wasn’t the first one to exploit the huckleberry crop! Over time, area residents turn up spearpoints and arrowheads when preparing their gardens in the spring. With the discovery of the mastodon bones, we know that large game was present. Where there is one mastodon, there must have been a companion. The history books tell of giant beavers in the area as well.
Curious to know if our town records showed any large outbreaks of disease in the area, I tried a very limited search and found little concentrated disease contemporary with the supposed end of the settlement. I did find one note about poor 40-year-old Mariah DeForest, a housewife and pauper, who was committed to the Westchester County Poor House in 1875. The woman apparently suffered from St. Vitus’ dance. The prognosis was not good.
However, there was no address given, so we really can’t place poor Mrs. DeForest in the Lost Village, but we can continue to wonder about this mysterious place.
Lewisboro Ledger
It’s hard to imagine the changes in the land that can take place over decades, and maybe centuries. In that period of time, abandoned pastures grow up to forestland, streams change course, and ponds morph into swampland. About all that remains constant are the rock outcroppings and general topography. Our wonderful stone fences stand testament to our forebears, houses collapse or burn, but their stone foundations remain, and these remnants of a century ago are what I set out to explore with lifelong Lake Kitchawan resident and history buff Ron Egloff on a recent spring day. We were in search of the Lost Village.
Located between Lake Kitchawan in Lewisboro and Trinity Lake in Pound Ridge is an area called the Lost Village. Once a settlement of at least four families, it is said the area was decimated by illness close to the turn of the 20th Century. The homes of the families of basketmaker Matthew Austin, farmer Harry Austin, Stephen Bouton, seller of wild huckleberries and other local produce, all of Pound Ridge, and of Clarence DeForest of Lewisboro dotted the hills and valleys of what is now part of the Stamford watershed property. As we walked along what used to be a farm road, Ron pointed out several of the foundations that he used to explore as a kid from Lake Kitchawan. Back in the days, artifact hunters dug up pottery shards, broken window glass, and other detritus left when homes are abandoned. We didn’t dig deep enough through the leaves to find charred wood or melted glass, but in an article from a circa 1979 Ledger article by editor William Lynch III, he reports finding such items and also seeing a log roof covering one of the foundations.
Jay Harris, in her book of Pound Ridge history, God’s Company, describes the Lost Village, also referred to as The Regions. She writes the area was occupied from the 1840s to the 1890s. The reason for the abandonment of the settlement, Harris says, was likely illness, probably TB or dysentery or typhus, maladies that were rampant in those times. Were the houses torched to combat the spread of disease? Was a devastating fire caused by a lightning strike? We may never know, but a history mystery has been left to current generations to solve. Where there were once lilacs and fruit trees and huckleberry bushes, invasive barberry rules the land!
The family names were once a strong presence in our two towns. DeForest is still on the maps as DeForest Trail at the southern end of the Lake Kitchawan community, and A. T. DeForest was the owner of the lakeside store that became the Lake Kitchawan Casino.
Lake Kitchawan has had other secrets to reveal over the decades. In the early 1970s a college student at SUNY Purchase saw a bone sticking out of an area where work was being done on one of the canals leading from the lake. An official archaeological dig revealed 10,000-year-old mastodon bones. A jawbone, teeth and other bones were discovered and are now housed at Trailside Museum in the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation and the Pound Ridge Historical Society Museum.
There is one last mystery to be solved before we leave Lake Kitchawan. Ron told me about three large, probably flat-bottomed boats sunk in the lake. As near as can be determined, the boats are about 30 feet long with a 10-foot beam. Where did they come from? What was their purpose in the rather small lake with no access to a larger body of water? Do they date as far back at the early 19th Century, as Ron thinks they might, and if so, might they have been used for transporting logs down the lake from a hillside logging operation?
One thing we do know — this area of our town was always a well-used area. Long before the steep hillsides were developed as summer places, and then, after World War II, permanent residences, Native Americans roamed freely in search of game and foraged for nuts and berries. Stephen Bouton wasn’t the first one to exploit the huckleberry crop! Over time, area residents turn up spearpoints and arrowheads when preparing their gardens in the spring. With the discovery of the mastodon bones, we know that large game was present. Where there is one mastodon, there must have been a companion. The history books tell of giant beavers in the area as well.
Curious to know if our town records showed any large outbreaks of disease in the area, I tried a very limited search and found little concentrated disease contemporary with the supposed end of the settlement. I did find one note about poor 40-year-old Mariah DeForest, a housewife and pauper, who was committed to the Westchester County Poor House in 1875. The woman apparently suffered from St. Vitus’ dance. The prognosis was not good.
However, there was no address given, so we really can’t place poor Mrs. DeForest in the Lost Village, but we can continue to wonder about this mysterious place.
