History of the Field Station

The enthusiasm surrounding the first Earth Day and Erik Kiviat's studies of the Bard lands inspired Reamer Kline (president of Bard College from 1960 to 1974) to build a program of study around the immediate region surrounding the College. With funding from the Kellogg Foundation and the Charles E. Merrill Trust, an ecological studies program was created in the Natural Science Division and a field station was built on the Hudson River (Botstein, 1982).

The Field Station, which was completed in 1972, was designed to enhance environmental science and education at Bard with a focus on the Hudson River and its associated wetlands. Located at the mouth of Tivoli South Bay, this location affords research and teaching access to freshwater tidal marshes, swamps and shallows, perennial and intermittent streams, young and old deciduous and coniferous forests, old mown fields, and other habitats. The bay is a regionally important spawning nursery for anadromous fish and provides stopover habitats for migratory waterfowl, marsh and land birds. The bays, islands, and shores also have a diverse flora, housing a number of rare and endangered species. The mingling of estuarine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms in the fresh-tidal wetland communities provide a rich resource for scientific studies.

The building was designed by Dick Griffiths (then Director of Buildings and Grounds) and included a classroom-laboratory, work room, faculty office, bathroom, and storage-work basement. The station was equipped with a Boston Whaler and canoes to facilitate access to the river and some basic equipment necessary to conduct research in water quality and ecology. It serves as a strategic base from which to access more distant locations for research and education purposes and represents an entry point into a state-maintained trail system with educational signage. The Field Station is accessed via an unpaved road (Bay Road) which is a branch of Blithewood Avenue, a main thoroughfare of Bard’s campus.

Erik Kiviat (then instructor of natural history) directed the Field Station from 1974 to 1978. Research in the early years of the Field Station focused on the ecology and management of the Hudson River freshwater tidal marshes, inception of the Dutchess County Zoological survey to document rare and uncommon vertebrate species, and the initiation of a water quality monitoring program on the Saw Kill Creek that involved local residents and the Bard community. Bard faculty William Maple (interests in evolutionary ecology of reptiles and amphibians; at Bard from 1973 until retirement in 2014) and Michael Rosenthal (interests in water quality; at Bard from 1965 to 1984) were integrally involved.

Expansion of the facility into a major biological research facility began in the 1980s, coinciding with the creation of the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (HRNERR) in 1982. HRNERR was the first multi-site reserve in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS; originally known as the National Estuarine Sanctuary System). Tivoli Bays is one of the four HRNERR sites (along with Piermont Marsh, Iona Island, and Stockport Flats) and the Bard College Ecology Field Station was the only research facility with easy access to a reserve site. In 1981, HRNERR identified the Field Station as an ideal location from which the reserve could conduct research and monitoring. A $115,000 grant was obtained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (overseer of the NERRS program) to expand the facility.

The expansion included renovations of the teaching lab, caretaker’s room, wet lab, specimen storage, and workshop. A north wing addition included room for a library, dry specimen storage, and a dry lab. A south wing addition provided additional office space and a meeting area, an educational display near the main entrance, and a kitchen and bunk area for visiting scientists (Sullivan, 1984; Preli, 1984). Construction was completed in late 1986, and the Field Station was dedicated on April 19th in a ceremony led by Bard President Leon Botstein (Barbour, 1986).

Since 1981, the Field Station has been operated by Bard College in collaboration with Hudsonia Ltd., the private, not-for-profit research institute founded by Erik Kiviat and Bob Schmidt (faculty in environmental studies and zoology at Simon’s Rock from 1984 until he retired in 2014). HRNERR was based at the Field Station from 1985 until 2006, when the Reserve headquarters were moved to the Norrie Point Environmental Center in Staatsburg, NY (NYSDEC, 2019). The Field Station is comanaged by Erik Kiviat (Executive Director, Hudsonia Ltd.) and Bruce Robertson (Associate Professor of Biology, Bard). Bruce Robertson has served as the Ecology Field Station Director since his appointment in 2014 when the previous director, William Maple, retired.

History of the Land

The Bard College Ecology Field Station is located on the southwest corner of campus, on the edge of Tivoli South Bay at the mouth of the Saw Kill, a tributary to the Hudson River.

SLAVERY ACKNOWLEDGMENT
FOR BARD COLLEGE IN ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON

The College acknowledges that its origins are intertwined with slavery, which has shaped the United States and American institutions from the beginning. Starting in the 16th century, European traders trafficked approximately 12 million Africans to the Americas, where they were held as property and forced to work as enslaved laborers. Their descendants were also held as slaves in perpetuity. The exploitation of enslaved people was at the foundation of the economic development of New York and the Hudson Valley, including the land now composing the Bard College campus. In the early 18th century, Barent Van Benthuysen purchased most of this land and was a slave owner. Later owners of the property also relied on Black workers they held in bondage for material gain. Montgomery Place, which became part of the College in 2016, was a working farm during the 19th century that likewise profited from the labor of enslaved people.

The founders of Bard College, John Bard (1819–99) and Margaret Johnston Bard (1825–75) inherited wealth from their families and used it to found the College. That inheritance was implicated in slavery on both sides. John’s grandfather Samuel Bard (1742–1821) owned slaves. His father William Bard (1778–1853) was the first president of the New York Life Insurance Company, which insured enslaved people as property. Margaret’s fortune derived from her father’s commercial firm, Boorman and Johnston, which traded in tobacco, sugar, and cotton produced by enslaved labor throughout the Atlantic World. Other early benefactors of the College, such as John Lloyd Aspinwall (1816–73), also derived a significant proportion of their wealth, which they donated to the College, from commercial ventures that depended on slavery. John and Margaret Bard devoted their lives and monies to educational pursuits. In his retirement John Aspinwall redirected his fortune and energies toward humanitarian pursuits.

Recognition and redress of this history are due. As students, teachers, researchers, administrators, staff, and community members, we acknowledge the pervasive legacy of slavery and commit ourselves to the pursuit of equity and restorative justice for the descendants of enslaved people within the Bard community.

Map of Bard Lands from "Ecology of Bard Lands" by Erik Kiviat (1987).

The Tivoli Bays is a unique combination of embayments, bedrock islands, wetlands, bluffs, and upland creeks. Designated as a Natural Heritage Area in 2007, the biodiversity of Tivoli Bays is believed to have existed for at least 1000 years (Funk, 1992). Archaeological finds indicate that sturgeon from the Hudson River were a food source for native Americans 1,400 years ago (Archaeology of Fishing along the Estuary Exhibit). Artifacts dating as far back as 7,000 years ago provide a record of prehistoric occupation of this site (Lindner, 1992).

The Munsee (Lenape) and Muhheaconneok (now known as Mohican) inhabited the Hudson Valley prior to the arrival of the Dutch and English in the early 1600s. Colonization brought about pandemic, violent conflict, land theft, and forced dislocation by 1734 (The Native Northeast Portal).

Jacques Gérard Milbert, “The Lower Falls at Montgomery Place,” Lithograph on paper, c. 1825, Stevenson Library Digital Collections, accessed January 31, 2023, https://omekalib.bard.edu/items/show/1578.

The first recorded “owner” of the land that includes what is now the Bard College campus was Pieter Schuyler, who held the rights of ownership from 1688 to 1724 (Danz, 2015). Early settlers exploited the land’s resources and used the Saw Kill to power Annandale’s mills during the 18th century. By 1770, Robert R. Livingston had a gristmill on the north bank at the mouth of the Saw Kill, which became the Armstrong saw mill in 1800. The proximity of this site to the Hudson River made it possible to load lumber, then grain and flour directly onto ships during high tide before the embankment was built when the Hudson River Railroad arrived in 1851 (Levine, 2023). John Cruger purchased the land in 1833 and retained the mills and land along the creek when he sold the southern portion in 1835 to Robert Donaldson and his wife Susan Jane Gaston who renamed the property Blithewood Estate. Cruger’s land included the island (i.e., Cruger Island) where he chose to build his estate (Rafti, 2015; Goddard, 1988; Kiviat, 1987).

In 1841, Donaldson and Louise Davezac Livingston (owner of neighboring Montgomery Place) pooled their resources to buy the mill and stream rights from Cruger. Their intention was to tear down the mill and restore the Saw Kill riparian area to a more natural state, primarily for the purpose of connecting the two larger properties so as to reduce trespassing (Rafti, 2015; McGill, 2017; Goddard, 1988). Their agreement “that covenants shall be inserted in the conveyance and all subsequent conveyances that the Saw Kill and the water power shall not at any time hereafter be used for milling or manufacturing purposes…” is believed to be one of the earliest conservation easements made in the United States. This covenant, along with the 1987 open space/scenic conservation easement placed on the Montgomery Place property by Scenic Hudson, have helped to preserve the high ecological integrity of the lower Saw Kill area, where the field station now sits. This area is now part of the Tivoli Bays Wildlife Management Area and the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

History of the Saw Kill

The Saw Kill

The Cataract

Alexander Jackson Davis, “The Cataract,” Watercolor on paper, 1847, Stevenson Library Digital Collections, accessed January 31, 2023, https://omekalib.bard.edu/items/show/1675.
Sawkill Watercolor

Alexander Jackson Davis, “Sawkill Watercolor,” Stevenson Library Digital Collections, accessed January 31, 2023, https://omekalib.bard.edu/items/show/1676.

Wilhelm Heine, “View over Cruger 's Island”, 1853, Stevenson Library Digital Collections, accessed January 31, 2023, https://omekalib.bard.edu/items/show/968.

Cruger Island

Cruger Island was sold by Cruger’s last remaining descendant to Louis Gordon Hammersley in 1920. After amassing 1,000 acres for a manor on what is now the northern part of Bard’s campus, Hammersley used the island as a dock for his yacht (NY Times, 1920).

Bard College Center for Experimental Humanities Digital History Lab, “Ward Manor Cemetery”, accessed January 31, 2023, https://projects.eh.bard.edu/dhl/wardmanor.html.

In 1926, William Ward of the Ward Baking Company purchased the estate and donated Ward Manor to the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, “for the establishment and maintenance of a home for the aged, a home for convalescents, and summer outing camps”. Summer camps were operated on Cruger Island through the 1950s (Comer, 2019; Majer and Tritch Roman, 2017; Columbia University Community Services Society Records Collection, New York Heritage Digital Collection).

In 1960, Central Hudson Gas and Electric purchased Cruger Island and all but 90 acres of the adjacent Ward Manor estate (RHA, 1960), which Bard bought. Cruger Island was considered as a site for coal or nuclear power plant (RHA, 1966) and then later as an alternate location for a hazardous waste disposal facility. Central Hudson abandoned those plans and sold the land to New York State (Rosenthal, 1980; Rosenthal, 1981; Faber, 1981), creating the Tivoli Bays State Nature and Historical Preserve within the Mid-Hudson Historic Shorelands Scenic District (NYSDOS.1993). Tivoli Bays is also part of the Estates District Scenic Area of Statewide Significance and the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, which is listed in the National and State Registers of Historic Places.

Tivoli Bays

In 1982, Tivoli Bays was designated a Hudson River Reserve site in the Hudson River National Estuarine Sanctuary by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and New York State. In 1986, the national program, established through the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act, was renamed the National Estuarine Research Reserve System. The Tivoli Bays site is managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as part of the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (NYSDEC, 2019). This area is designated as a Natural Heritage Area, Wildlife Management Area, Significant Coastal Fish and Wildlife Habitat, Bird Conservation Area, and Important Bird Area.

Source: https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/tivolimap.pdf