A feature article on caving in the Albany area appeared in the May 28, 1986 Times Union. Part of the article dealt with hydrologic investigations I was conducting in Clarksville Cave. A solicitation appeared inviting those interested in caving to call me. Approximately one month later I received a call from Richard Shoddy of Colonie, N.Y. He told me that he had an 1817 or 1818 description of the Clarksville caves documented by either his great or great - great grandfather, Teunis Houghtaling. The descriptions had been handed down from generation to generation. Richard Shoddy's mother's name was Iola Houghtaling. Iola's father's name was Teunis Houghtaling, a descendant of the cave surveyor.
I graciously accepted Richard Shoddy's invitation to see his ancestor's cave descriptions. Two aged parchment papers record Teunis Houghtaling's hand written accounts of his exploration of Cave No 1 (Gregory's Cave to Brinley's Sump) and Cave No 2 (Ward's Cave). Paper was apparently valuable at the time, since a deed appears on the reverse side of his Cave No 1 description. The deed appears to have been written during the same general period as the cave descriptions, which contain no year of date. The deed, however, contains the-dates 1817 and October 10, 1818. This places Teunis Houghtaling's cave survey work at 168 or 169 years before present, the oldest known cave descriptions in the northeast.
Teunis may well have been among the first white men to explore Clarksville Cave. This appears to be verified by chiseled initials, names and dates engraved in the cave walls, as carefully recorded by members of the Helderberg-Hudson grotto. The earliest dates located thus far are found in Gregory's Cave. Six names or initials date between 1816 and 1821. one of the six is somewhat hard to read and may be 1815.
Much flavor is lent to Teunis Houghtaling's written descriptions by not significantly altering the style of his hand scrolled accounts of the two caves. Therefore, misspellings, word capitalization and lack of periods or sentence breaks have been left as they appear in his original work. Richard Shoddy has a more recent reference to his ancestor's work which discusses his two cave descriptions and his accompanying map. An effort is being made to locate the map. Teunis Houghtaling's cave descriptions follow:
Wonderful are the Works of Nator
Description of the Cave No I facing the
Turnpike Road Taken on the 31 of October Last
Cave No 1
When Decending the Mouth of the Cave we
pass threw a Narrow, passage With a Steep Decent of about 15 feet Perbindicular
then threw a Chasm of 50 feet in Length Supported with or by Solid. Limestone
Rocks then opens to a Spacious Room of 18 feet in Length 15 feet Wide and 7 or
8 feet High then we proceede threw a Curious arch of Solid Limestone as
Compleate as though Artificially Carved in Length 180 feet and from 3 to 6 feet
in Diamiter then opens to another Room of 20 feet Long 18 or 20 feet Wide and
20 feet High after passing this Room We Approach Another Grand Large Room of 60
feet Long 12 feet Wide and from 10 to 16 feet High the Roof of these Rooms is
of Solid Limestone Rock through which the Water is Continually percolating and
Congeals in Solid Columns Resembling Icicles on the Eves of houses and are
Continually Increasing in Number and Magnitude
the Whole Length of the
Cave is 348 feet or 350
50
18
180
40 (number hard to read on original paper)
60
348
Recent hydrologic investigations have revealed the important relationship between the amount of water which rises in the Lake Room in Ward's Cave and the amount of water flowing in the Onesquethaw Creek west of Stove Pipe Road (Rubin, 1987). Significant water losses occur through the fractured limestone pavement of the creek bed. The greater the creek flow, the greater the amount of streambed infiltration and thus water which rises in the take Room. (Diffuse fracture infiltration from the northwest is also significant.) Following the construction of the Wolf Hill Dam in the 1950's, a significant amount of the normal water flow to the Onesquethaw Creek upstream of Stove Pipe Road was diverted to Bethlehem's Vly Creek Reservoir. This in turn was probably responsible for reducing both the amount of water received by the cave during periods of normal and base flow and the water levels throughout the cave. Therefore, the water level in Brinley's Sump may have been historically higher, perhaps precluding entry by Teunis Houghtaling and his fellow compatriots.
Description of Cave No 2 About 120 yards North of the Cave No 1
In Approaching the Mouth of the Cave is a Horizontal Hole in the Earth of about
20 feet in Diameter and About 16 feet in Deapth then in Decending the Mouth of the
Cave is a Steep Decent of 20 feet Which opens to a Rough and Masfive Room of 45
feet in Diameter and 16 feet in Heigth after passing this Room the traviler
Meets with a Stream of Fresh Running Water of a Depth of 2 feet Crossing the
Chasm then in Persuing the Curiosity the traviler finds a small Running Stream
of Water for the Distance of 200 feet Discharding itself in the Stream Crossing
the Chasm then in traversing this Dark and Lonesome Cavern the beholder Meets
With Curiositys undefinibable and Soon opens to a Large and Spacious Room of
270 feet in Length and from 8 to 10 feet in Diameter the Roof of this Grand
Cave is of Rock at some places Smothe and hansome at others Rough and Massive
throug the Roof of the Cave The Water is Continually trickling Down and
Congeals in Icicles as if Frozen and Where it oozes through the Side of the
Cave it has incrusted over the Rocks in the form of Eligant Drapery After
traversing About 1000 feet through Narrow and allmost Impraprable Arches from
the Mouth of the Cave
Teunis Houghtaling
on the back of Houghtaling's Cave No 1 description paper a number of notes appear which Houghtaling apparently made during the course of his cave mapping. These are then used in his formal descriptions. Some of these follow:
feet to the first Room
1 Room 18 feet Long 15 feet Wide 6 or 7
High
from the first Room to the 2 Room is an
arch of 180 feet Long
2 Room 20 feet High and 18 feet Wide and 20
feet Long
arch from the 1 to the 2 Room is 81 (or 21
- original difficult to read) Lengths
2 Room 60 feet Long 12 feet Wide and from
10 to 16 feet High
Houghtaling's notes indicate that he was using some sort of measuring device for accuracy.