Tioronda Falls
Location: In the city of Beacon; Dutchess County; Hudson Valley Region; New York.
Maps: Google Map; Topographic; Trail Map; Interactive map.
GPS Coordinates: N 41.48905 / W 73.97217
Directions: Take NY-9D into Beacon, then head south on Tioronda Ave and follow it for 0.8 miles. Pass Cherry St on the right and then slow down as you reach the bend. Look for a brown sign for the park. Turn left and head under the single lane rail bridge. There will be an abandoned industrial complex on your right. Head further down this road to a parking area on your left, right next to the creek.
Parking: A parking lot at the end of South Ave, across from the abandoned industrial park, has room for 12 cars.
Weather
Information / Accessibility / Accommodations
Number of falls: 1 natural waterfall topped by an old industrial dam.
Size/Types: An estimated 2 ft drop down a man-made stone dam followed by an estimated 9 ft tall cascade down several irregular steps as the creek turns 45° around a bend. Total height estimated at 11 ft.
Best time to visit: Year-round.
Waterway: Fishkill Creek. It originates in the town of Union Vale, fed by several tributaries in the upper Clove Valley. It flows generally southwest, culminating in a small estuary on the Hudson River just south of Beacon. The total length of its path is 33.5 miles. Its 193-square-mile (500 km²) watershed extends partially into Putnam County to the south. The watershed has become heavily developed in the last decade, and while the creek is not used in any municipal water supply, conservation efforts are ramping up to protect the water quality, which will, in turn, increase the health of the Hudson.
Time: About 15 minutes to walk to the falls from the parking area. The trail extends past the old industrial complex in the opposite direction towards the Hudson, ending at Dennings Ave near a solar farm. There are no waterfalls in that direction.
Seasons/Hours: Year-round, daylight hours. There is no lighting at night.
Admission: Free.
Handicap Accessibility: Not chair accessible. The gradient is mostly flat, but the trail is gravel and dirt.
Pets: Pets are allowed if on a leash. Please clean up after.
Swimming: Not allowed.
Accommodations: Restaurants and shops can be found in the city of Beacon to the north, just up Tioronda Ave where it meets Main St.
Description
AKA: Madam Brett Falls
Just downstream from Fishkill Overlook Falls in downtown Beacon, NY, is a secluded natural area that was once a growing industrial offshoot of the city’s booming hat manufacturing industry. This 12-acre park, managed by Scenic Hudson, is named after Madam Catheryna Brett, one of the area’s early European settlers. The park is home to Tioronda Falls, a beautiful waterfall that once powered a series of mills that were the precursor to the giant brick ruins of the Tioronda Hat Works facility that now characterize the park. The falls, topped with the crumbling concrete dam that channeled water through the mills, is now a picturesque focal point for visitors to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Husdon Valley’s natural resources. The park features a well-maintained trail that takes visitors through a short journey to the falls, or past an old factory building meandering through wetlands, woodlands and towards the Hudson River.
Since destruction and cleanup of the old factory building here, including replacement of the old South Ave bridge that spanned the creek here for over a century, is in the works, a trip to Tioronda Falls will undoubtedly lose some of its character. While the falls is far from the biggest and tallest in the region, it’s the character and history of the surroundings, as well as ease of access, that make it a recommended stop—the sooner the better.
History
The name Tioronda is a Native American name meaning “little stream that flows into big water.” Some sources claim that the name was given to what is now Fishkill Creek by Henry Schoolcraft an American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, so it may not have been what the native Wappinger tribe called it prior to white settlement.
Catheryna Rombout Brett (1687-1764) was the daughter of Francis Rombouts, the 12th mayor of New York City and a prominent land baron. At the age of four, she inherited a one-third share of the expansive Rombout Patent, located in what is now southern Dutchess County. In 1703, when she was 16, she married Roger Brett, a former British naval lieutenant. In 1709, the couple left the family home in New York City and moved to where the city of Beacon, NY is now located, becoming the first permanent white settlers in the area. They constructed a grist mill along the south bank at Tioronda Falls, establishing a landmark that would serve as a foundation for settlement of the valley. Roger Brett, taking a supply-filled sloop from NYC back to their home at Tioronda in June of 1718, sank in the Hudson, not far from Beacon. Catheryna took over ownership of their properties, including the mill, and earned great success and notoriety until her death in 1764.
For a time this area was home to a small hamlet known as Byrnsville, then Tioronda. By 1867, the settlement consisted of a general store, about 13 homes, a cemetery, a saw mill and grist mill (known as the Tioronda Mills) on the north side of the creek. Catheryna Brett’s mill stood on the south side along with a church and school. Up until the late 1800s the primary industry of Tioranda was agriculture. A wooden bridge spanned the creek for much of this time, having to be rebuilt numerous times as it was destroyed by floods. Around 1870, a steel bridge with wood planking and bowstring trusses was constructed to replace it. The bridge was maintained for over 100 years, with some effort to preserve it beginning in the 1970s, but in 2006 the city of Beacon road crews began to dismantle it. This, as well as decades of replacing sections of it, excluded it from being added to the National Historic Register. Since then it has been closed in its partially dismantled state. Large steel beams stand where the old bridge crossed hovering over the crumbled stone trestles. Eventually they will construct a new bridge.
Lewis Tompkins, owner of the Dutchess Hat Works, purchased the Tioronda Mills property and opened Tioronda Hat Works there in 1878. The Tioronda plant was built to take advantage of the lower Fishkill’s waters to dye and clean wool, as water and space upstream at the Dutchess Hat Works Property at Fishkill Overlook Falls was becoming scarce. Over the next several decades, the Tioronda location expanded with new buildings. It was sold to the Merrimac Hat Company around WWII, and after the war, as the hat industry waned, was sold to Beacon Terminals Corporation, who used the buildings for storage. In 1997, a real estate developer acquired the Tioronda plant, as well as other old hat factories around Beacon, but nothing came of the Tioronda property and it sat vacant for decades, primarily due to the high cost of cleanup required. I could not find a date for when Madam Brett Park was established here, but I suspect it was sometime in the 1990s.
On January 31, 2017 a fire broke at at the abandoned Tioronda Hat Works, destroying much of the remaining structures. In 2023, it was announced that an environmental cleanup effort is in the planning stages for the old factory site, which will include the removal of 3,740 cubic yards of contaminated soil. A new developer has acquired the property, but has not made any plans for development public.
Hiking / Walking Trails
Difficulty: Easy.
Markings: Some signs. A almost straight gravel trail from the parking area directly to the falls.
Distance: Less than 1,000 ft from the parking area to the falls and back. About 2 miles to walk all the white trail in the other direction and back.
Description: From the parking area, follow the gravel trail into the woods (opposite direction from the old factory ruins). Follow this path along the creek for about 460 ft and you’ll come to a concrete observation platform for the falls. The path leading up to the crest of the falls is closed off.
To follow the white trail in the other direction, head across the road from the parking area and south (near the creek) of the ruins where there is a boardwalk. The boardwalk takes you past the ruins of the Tioronda Hat Works and into a wooded area. When the trail bends, there are two junctions connecting the red loop, which is just 700 ft and has an observation platform overlooking the creek. The white trail hooks north and ends at Dennings Ave. and a solar farm.
Map: Trail Map; Interactive.
Tioronda Falls Interactive Map
Interesting Stuff
Madam Brett Homestead
Located at 50 Van Nydeck Avenue. In 1709, Roger and Catheryna Brett (Daughter of Beacon founder, Francis Rombout), along with their children and enslaved individuals, moved from New York to Dutchess County and commissioned a Long Island architect to construct a Dutch-style house. This house remained within the Brett family for seven generations until 1954. Today, the Madam Brett Homestead stands as the oldest house in Dutchess County and is preserved by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Architectural highlights include original scalloped shingles, Dutch doors, and sloping dormers. The interior features original Georgian, Empire, and Victorian furniture, a collection of 18th-century Chinese porcelain, silver tea sets, early doll collections, textiles, tools, a punch bowl gifted by Lafayette, and items belonging to Catheryna Brett.
The property also includes five remaining acres (of her original inherited 28,000) with a perennial garden, a brook, and one of largest trees in the state, speculated to have been planted during Catheryna’s time.
Craig House and Tioronda Freeschool
General Joseph Howland (1834-1886), an ancestor of Pilgrim and signer of the Mayflower Compact, John Howland, served as New York State Treasurer after the war. He married Eliza Woolsey of New York and traveled through Europe and the Holy Land in the mid-1800s. Upon his return to the States in 1859 he settled his family in Tioronda, where he commissioned architect Frederick Clarke Withers to construct his home (which can now be seen from NY-9D). Some time after his death, the home was donated for the good, falling over the ownership of the University Settlement, a social services program for immigrants and low-income families. In 1915, it opened as the Craig House, the first licensed private psychiatric hospital in the US. It operated until 1995. A developer purchased the land in 2003 with plans to turn the mansion into a private residence and other residential developments on the property. During the initial stages, the estate’s carriage house and workshop were demolished.
Located on the south side of the creek, south of the Tioronda Falls on South Ave, is the Tioronda Freeschool. Built in 1864 by Union General Joseph Howland, using Withers again as an architect, the building has several similarities to the Craig House. The oldest schoolhouse in Beacon, it has a church-like appearance, no doubt from Howland’s deeply religious influence. The school opened serving as a primary and religious studies school for children, complete with a chapel for prayer. During the flu epidemic of 1918, it was used by the American Red Cross to treat the afflicted. The school was a part of the Craig House property and it served as a sanitorium, and then was abandoned along with it. Under the new ownership of a developer, it has since undergone some renovations to become a private residence.
Photography Tips
Silky Water Effect
- To get that smooth cotton-candy look to the falls, you need to use a Neutral Density (ND) filter on your lens. The ND filter will block some of the light from entering the lens without altering the color, and thus allows your shutter to stay open longer. This blurs the water and creates a soft white gloss to the foamy areas of the falls. Check out the article for all of the details.
More tips
- See the Articles for more photography tips.
Who to Contact
Scenic Hudson
Phone: 845-473-4440
[email protected]
