I grew up in the middle of Otsego County in the middle of New York State in a town called Gilbertsville. We moved there when I was 4 years old, in 1945, and at this writing (03/17/03) my entire family - parents and brother - still live there.

It was an idyllic rural village in the historic Butternut Valley, named for the Butternut Creek which ran through it, which in turn was named for a clump of three Butternut trees that were the cornerstone of the 18th century land patent in which the village was to develop.

Growing up along this section of the Butternut Creek has had a profound impact on me, but it has taken me over half a century to bring some closure to this fascination. More on that in a bit.

Click image for closer look.

This view was taken around 1885 and reveals one of the most picturesque sections of this quiet stream as it meanders along the Butternut Valley between Morris and Gilbertsville.

The creek is so narrow and twisting along this part of the valley that it gave rise in the dim past to an oft-repeated legend:

"An Indian stood on the banks of the Butternut Creek and shot an arrow into the air, which crossed the creek seven times before it struck the ground."

If you have ever travelled along the road that clings to the side of the valley between Morris and Gilbertsville, and have looked down upon this stream, you can see how it turns back upon itself many times - over and over. In the view above you can see at least three of these sharp meanders. It is easy to accept the legend, and wonder if perhaps it was not legend at all, but simply a statement of ancient fact!

Another early postcard view even more strongly suggests the legend, while myth, could have been true. Here a modern bow shot would cross the creek six times in a straight line.

It is a seven mile trip, as the crow flies, from Morris to Gilbertsville, and a trip I made often, by car and sometimes by bicycle, in the 1940s and 50s. One of the reasons for the journey was the annual Otsego County Fair, reputed to be the oldest in the State. And after I moved away from Gilbertsville, I would make sure, on my return visits, to take the long way around, via Morris, so I could look down from the highway at the meandering stream, and recall, as I came close to home, the Indian legend and my childhood spent along its banks.

The creek seemed deep and placid, for one so narrow, and I sometimes fantisized of following it by boat. Certainly Indians had used it since prehistoric times as a route of easy transport, as numerous archeological sites had revealed their activities along the creek for thousands of years. I could imagine their bark canoes and dugouts drifting along the seven miles from Morris to Gilbertsville - many more than seven miles by water, of course.

Last fall (2002), after a summer of very active flat-water kayaking in the Adirondacks and other locations nearer to Albany, I determined, on one of my trips back home, to come the next year and run the creek by kayak. At this writing I intend to do just that, at the first of the warm weather this spring.

This will be a sort of re-discovery - a "pilgrimage" of sorts back into the Indian legend and back into the experience of the first days of spring, when I was a teenager, along the Butternut Creek in my hometown. I would grab a fishing rod and stroll into the warming sun, walking along the banks of the stream, feeling the first real evidence of Spring and hearing the calls of the redwing blackbirds as they flitted from reed to reed in the still dry and un-reborn marshes.

If this goes well, I will add on a journal of my pilgrimage to this page. At the very least, perhaps this little bit will have interested you in visiting the place someday.