The Highlands: Critical Resources, Treasured Landscapes

Introduction

Introduction Richard G. Lathrop Jr. Thirty miles north of New York City, the broad Hudson River constricts into a narrow gorge overshadowed by rugged rocky ridges rising up to nearly fourteen hundred feet. In 1609, Henry Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon were the first Europeans to visit and describe this dramatic landscape, known today as the Highlands (fig. I.1). In his journal Robert Juet (1609), Hudson’s first mate, described the narrows of the Hudson: “The Montaynes looke as if some Metall or Minerall were in them. For the Trees that grow on them were all blasted, and some of them barren with few or no Trees on them.” More than three hundred years later, in 1914, William Thompson Howell described the Highlands as “a sort of wilderness oasis, in the desert of cultivated country which surrounds them. They are only a pocket-edition wilderness, a few hundred square miles in area, but in a remarkable degree they have preserved their characteristics for three hundred years, during all the time they have been inhabited to some extent.” Perusal of modern-day satellite imagery reveals the Highlands as a dense green rampart smack dab up against the gray rectangular grid of the New York City metro region (see plate 1). Nearly one hundred years later, Howell’s comments on the Highlands as a “wilderness oasis” still hold, but why were they true then and why now? Adjacent to some of the most densely populated areas in the United States and undergoing increasing pressure from sprawling development, the Highlands region presents a compelling case study in how humans in concert with environmental forces have shaped and continue to shape a landscape. Equally compelling are the myriad efforts that have been undertaken through watershed protection, open-space preservation, and bioregional conservation planning to conserve the essential elements of that landscape. Simultaneously there has been a push to forge a broader regional multistate identity that spans more parochial interests. A 1992 report by the U.S. Forest Service concluded that the Highlands represent “a landscape of national significance,” helping to bring it to wider attention. Spurred by additional Forest Service studies and the concerted efforts of conservation organizations and state government , the U.S. Congress passed the Highlands Conservation Act in 2004 2 Richard G. Lathrop Jr. Figure I.1. The Half Moon at the Highlands. While relations with native Lenni Lenape Indians were reasonably amicable on the way upriver, Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon had a violent encounter with a local band on their way back downriver. Designer: Thomas Moran; Engraver: Robert Hinshelwood. From William Cullen Bryant and Sydney Howard Gay, A Popular History of the United States, vol. 1. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1881). Credit: Picture Collection, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. and President George W. Bush signed this landmark legislation into law. This act set the stage for a unique experiment in multistate land use and for conservation planning and management that is ongoing. So where exactly are the Highlands? Our view is more expansive than William Howell’s, encompassing a four-state region that extends from Pennsylvania , in the south, northeast up through New Jersey, New York, and into Connecticut (see plate 2). The Highlands come under many different local names. The epicenter of the Highlands region, where rock-ribbed ridges rise dramatically from the Hudson River, has been known since the colonial days as the Hudson Highlands. Crossing the Hudson River, the ridges and forests of the Highlands continue north into the northwest corner of Connecticut, where they take the name of the Taconics, Housatonic Highlands, or the Litchfield Hills before blending seamlessly with the Berkshires of Massachusetts . It is here that the Highlands reach their greatest elevation of more than twenty-three hundred feet above sea level. Back the other direction into New Jersey, the Highlands go under a number of local names: Ramapo Mountains, Sparta Mountain, Musconetcong Mountain. Across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, the Highlands narrow and take on the names of South Moun- Introduction 3 tain, the Reading Prong, and the Furnace Hills, referring to a series of ridges rising up to nearly fourteen hundred feet in height that extend to the banks of the Susquehanna River. Physiographically, the Highlands are generally defined by the extent of their underlying Precambrian crystalline bedrock and its upland terrain. Based on these primary...