Clark Reservation State Park

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the land around the park belonged to Onondaga people. In the late 18th century, these lands were divided into military tracts to be awarded to soldiers returning from the Revolutionary War. Joshua Clark noted the lake and its precipitous cliffs in his 1840 book about Onondaga County.{{cite book |title=Onondaga, or, Reminiscences of earlier and later times: being a series of historical sketches relative to Onondaga ; with notes on the several towns in the county, and Oswego

|first=Joshua Victor Hopkins |last=Clark |publisher=Stoddard and Babcock |location=Syracuse |year=1840 |pages=237–238 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zHEFAAAAQAA&pg=PA237 |quote=Green Pond - About one and a half mile west of the village of Jamesville, in this town, is perhaps one of the most singularly located bodies of water in Western New York.}} In 1879, James Macfarlane purchased the area around the fossil waterfall and the lake, and opened a small resort hotel in the park.{{cite book |title=The Geologist's Traveling Hand-Book: An American Geological Railway Guide, Giving The Geological Formation At Every Railway Station, With Notes On Interesting Places On The Routes, And A Description Of Each Of The Formations |last=Macfarlane |first=James |chapter=A New Summer-Resort |year=1879 |publisher=D. Appleton and Co. |url=https://archive.org/details/geologiststrave01macfgoog |page=[https://archive.org/details/geologiststrave01macfgoog/page/n224 221] |quote=The property has lately been purchased by James Macfarlane, Esq., of Towanda, Pennsylvania, the geologist, and he will soon cause it to be prepared for visitors in 1879.}} Macfarlane, a well established geologist, had included an appreciation of this area, and an advertisement for the summer resort, as an appendix to this geological guidebook that he had written and published in 1879. Macfarlane (1819–1885) was a noted attorney, coal geologist, geological guidebook writer, and enthusiast of the area near what was then called Green Lake (later renamed Glacier Lake to avoid confusion with the nearby Green Lake in Fayetteville, NY).{{cite journal |title=An Obituary Notice of James Macfarlane |last=Lesley |first=J. P. |author-link=John Peter Lesley |journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society |volume=23 |issue=122 |date=April 1886 |pages=287–289 |jstor=983240 }} The resort's offerings included picnicking, boating, fishing, croquet and archery, but it closed after a few years.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}}

The central part of the current park, amounting to {{convert|75|acre|ha}} and including Glacier Lake and the fossil waterfall, was bought by Mary Clark Thompson in 1915. Thompson had learned that the fossil waterfall was being considered for a limestone quarry; just to the east were the enormous limestone quarries of the Solvay Process Company. Thompson gave this tract to the New York State Museum, with the stipulation that the land be preserved as a memorial to her father Myron H. Clark, who had been governor of New York State from 1855-56.{{cite book |title=Twentieth Annual Report, 1915, of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QGMAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA258 |date=April 19, 1915 |publisher=J. B. Lyon Co. |location=Albany}} In 1915, John M. Clarke was the New York State geologist and director of the State Museum; he had worked for some years to secure the purchase and gift to the State of the area around Glacier Lake, and he was apparently instrumental in arranging for Thompson's purchase and gift.{{cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.41.1054.382 |last=Clarke |first=John M. |title=A New Glacial Park |date=March 12, 1915 |journal=Science |volume=41 |issue=1054 |pages=382–3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJUCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA382 |pmid=17817544|bibcode=1915Sci....41..382C }}{{cite book |title=From Niagara to Montauk: the Scenic Pleasures of New York State |chapter=Clark Reservation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TuWZUzI-UoYC&pg=PA97 |last=Roseberry |first=Cecil R. |pages=97–99 |publisher=State University of New York |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-87395-496-9 }} Clark Reservation became a state park in 1926.

The New York State executive budget plan for 2010-2011 called for Clark Reservation State Park to be closed as a budget-cutting measure.{{cite press release |title=Statements from Governor David A. Paterson and Commissioner Carol Ash |url=http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/press_02191001.html |publisher=New York State Governor |date=February 19, 2010 |access-date=2010-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100304142519/http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/press_02191001.html |archive-date=March 4, 2010 |url-status=dead }} The park closings were reversed for the 2010 season by legislation passed on May 28, 2010.{{cite news |title=New York state to fund parks with fees on companies that make electronics, generate hazardous waste |url=http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/new_york_state_to_fund_parks_w.html |work=Syracuse Post Standard |last=Goldberg |first=Delen |date=May 28, 2010}}

File:Asplenium scolopendrium americanum.jpg in Michigan; Clark Reservation has largest population of these endangered ferns in the U.S.. |alt=Photograph of a moss-covered outcrop; there's a fern with large, narrow, shiny leaves growing in the center. Behind the outcrop is a deciduous forest in springtime; the ground is littered with brown leaves.]]

Clark Reservation is known for the diversity of fern species which grow there; in a 1994 survey, 26 fern species were identified.{{cite journal |title=Ferns of the Clark Reservation |last1=McMullen |first1=Joseph M. |last2=Carr |first2=Bernard P. |last3=Wheelock |first3=Diane |journal=NYFA Newsletter |publisher=New York Flora Association |date=February 1994 |volume=5 |issue=1 |url=http://www.nyflora.org/Newsletters/NYFA%20Newsletter%20Vol%205_1%20%2894%29.pdf }}{{Dead link|date=July 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} The park is presently the principal site in the United States preserving American hart's tongue fern.{{cite report |title=American hart's-tongue recovery plan |last=Currie |first=Robert R. |date=September 1993 |url=http://www.fws.gov/northeast/nyfo/es/amhtfrecovplan.pdf |publisher=U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service |location=Atlanta, Georgia |access-date=2010-02-28}}{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/4126917 |last1=Kelsall |first1=Nathan |last2=Hazard |first2=Christina |last3=Leopold |first3=Donald J. |title=Influence of climate factors on demographic changes in the New York populations of the federally listed Phyllitis scolopendrium (L.) Newm. var. Americana |journal=Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society |volume=131 |issue=2 |year=2004 |pages=161–168 |jstor=4126917}} This fern is quite rare in North America; its presence on the continent was first discovered in 1807 by botanist Frederick Pursh at nearby Split Rock in Onondaga County. The second half of the 19th Century was a period of popular enthusiasm for ferns that has been called "pteridomania". Discovery of additional "stations" for hart's tongue, and indeed rediscovery of the original Split Rock station, were subjects of considerable interest in the 19th century.{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2475874 |title=Pursh's Station for Scolopendrium rediscovered by the Syracuse Botanical Club |journal=Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club |volume=6 |year=1879 |issue=57 |last=Rust |first=Mary Oliva |pages=345–347 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V8gWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA345 |jstor=2475874}} The station near Glacier Lake was first reported in 1866 by J. A. Paine, and several stations are now known within Clark Reservation.{{cite book |title=Fernwort Papers: Presented at a Meeting of Fern Students, Held in New York City, June 27, 1900 |publisher=Willard R. Clute |location=Binghamton, New York |last=Maxon |first=William R. |author-link=William Ralph Maxon |chapter=On the occurrence of the Hart's Tongue in America |year=1900 |pages=30–46 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M5g_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA30}} The author, William Maxon, was raised in Central New York and graduated from Syracuse University in 1898. This is one of his first papers. In a career of nearly fifty years at the Smithsonian Institution, he became an internationally recognized botanist specializing in ferns. Because of its rarity, censuses of the fern in this region of New York have been reported periodically since 1916. In 1989, this species was declared as endangered in the United States.

The most thriving site for hart's tongue through about 1925 was not Glacier Lake, but a second similar lake about {{convert|2|mi|km}} due east.{{cite book |last=Parsons |first=Frances Theodora |author-link=Frances Theodora Parsons |title=How to Know the Ferns: A Guide to the Names, Haunts, and Habits of our Common Ferns |date=1899 |publisher=Charles Scribner & Sons |url=https://archive.org/details/howtoknowfernsa01parsgoog |oclc=221160457 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howtoknowfernsa01parsgoog/page/n185 153] |quote=The other published northern station of the Hart's Tongue is at Jamesville, some fifteen miles from Chittenango Falls, near a small sheet of water known locally as Green Pond, christened botanically Scolopendrium Lond.}} As with Glacier Lake, this lake was known by several names, including Green Pond, Green Lake, East Green Lake, and Scolopendrium Pond. The botanist R. C. Benedict wrote in 1915, "the lake itself is of equal geological interest and, from the standpoint of the hart's tongue fern, is of greater interest than the west lake region because the best specimens in the country grow near the east lake."{{cite journal |title=Another state park needed |journal=Science |volume=41 |issue=1066 |pages=827–8 |doi=10.1126/science.41.1066.827 | pmid=17835987|last=Benedict |first=R. C. |date=June 4, 1915 |bibcode=1915Sci....41..827B |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJUCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA828}} This lake was threatened by limestone quarrying in 1915 when Benedict wrote his letter to Science, and Benedict had been seeking support for the creation of another state park to protect Green Pond. Clark Reservation had recently been preserved from the same threat. By 1925 the threat to the eastern lake had become reality, and this lake was destroyed by expanded limestone quarrying. Just prior to its destruction, about 1000 hart's tongue ferns were transplanted from its vicinity to Clark Reservation.{{cite journal |title=Survival of Hart's-Tongue Fern in Central New York |last=Faust |first=Mildred E. |journal=American Fern Journal |year=1960 |volume=50 |pages=55–62 |issue=1 |jstor=1545243 |doi=10.2307/1545243|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/part/230164 }} One author has claimed that the conversion of Clark Reservation into a state park in 1926 occurred because of interest in preserving the American hart's tongue fern.{{cite journal |title=Impacts of Urban Runoff on Native Woody Vegetation at Clark Reservation State Park, Jamesville, NY |last1=Franco |first1=Carol |last2=Drew |first2=Allen P. |last3=Heisler |first3=Gordon |journal=Urban Habitats |url=http://www.urbanhabitats.org/v05n01/runoff_full.html |date=May 2008 |volume=5}} In 1930, a state law was passed protecting hart's tongue fern in Onondaga County and also neighboring Madison County;{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/1543869 |title=A New York State Fern Law |last=Overacker |first=M. L. |journal=American Fern Journal |volume=20 |issue=3 |date=Jul–Sep 1930 |pages=115–117 |jstor=1543869 |publisher=American Fern Society}} nonetheless, destruction of habitat in the nearby Rock-cut gorge had destroyed still another station of these ferns by 1945.

File:Glacial2j.jpg

The fossil waterfall and many of the topographical features of Clark Reservation were created about 10,000 years ago, near the end of the most recent ice age (the Wisconsin glaciation). A few miles west of Clark Reservation, glacial Lake Cardiff occupied the deep, Onondaga trough. Just east of Clark Reservation lay a similar glacial lake occupying the Butternut trough. Both troughs run north-south, aligned with the advance and retreat of the ice sheets that have scoured New York.

The retreating ice sheet blocked the northern ends of both glacial lakes,{{cite book |last=van Diver |first=Bradford B. |title=Upstate New York: Field Guide |page=125 |publisher=Kendall/Hunt |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-8403-2214-2 |quote=This beautiful little park contains some of the most impressive glacial meltwater erosional features in the state.}} so as Cecil Roseberry describes, "The southern environs are furrowed with rock channels slashed by torrents of glacial meltwater seeking an escape route which they finally found to the Mohawk Valley." These rock channels are now called "the Syracuse channels".{{cite book |title=Megaflooding on Earth and Mars |chapter=Proglacial megaflooding along the margins of the Laurentide ice sheet |last1=Kehew |first1=Alan E. |last2=Lord |first2=Mark L. |last3=Kozlowski |first3=Andrew L. |last4=Fisher |first4=Timothy G. |editor1-last=Burr |editor1-first=Devon |editor2-last=Carling |editor2-first=Carl |editor3-last=Baker |editor3-first=Victor R. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2009 |pages=104–123 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fuC04-ZOs9EC&pg=PA104 |isbn=978-0-521-86852-5}} Because the elevation of the land in this region generally decreases from south to north, a series of channels was created by the northerly retreat of the ice sheet; each succeeding channel is lower, and more northerly, than the previous one. Smoky Hollow, which is a gorge lying about a mile south of Clark Reservation, was an early channel created by flows of water from Lake Cardiff into the Butternut trough when the ice sheet still covered the present Clark Reservation. The threshold for water to flow through this channel is at {{convert|790|ft|m}} above sea level.{{cite book |editor1-last=Prucha |editor1-first=John J. |title=New York State Geological Association 36th Annual Meeting May 8–10, 1964 Guidebook |last1=Muller |first1=Ernest H. |chapter=Surficial geology of the Syracuse field area |page=29 |publisher=New York State Geological Association |url=http://www.nysga.net/files/32068346.pdf |access-date=2010-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723231247/http://www.nysga.net/files/32068346.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-23 |url-status=dead }} As the ice sheet retreated, the waters found a new, lower channel running through Clark Reservation, with a channel threshold of about {{convert|720|ft|m}}. A waterfall formed, and its plunge pool ultimately became Glacier Lake. As the ice retreated further northward, a still lower channel (Rock-cut channel) was carved where Interstate 481 is currently located (channel threshold of about {{convert|550|ft|m}}). The channels at Pumpkin Hollow, Meadowbrook, and at Green Lakes State Park have the same origins. Roseberry writes, "The abandoned gorges indicate a complex series of glacial rivers parallel to the receding ice front, producing waterfalls when they dropped over north-south ridges."

The {{convert|180|ft|m}} relief of the fossil waterfall at Clark Reservation is somewhat larger than that of Niagara Falls ({{convert|174|ft|m}}). As at Niagara Falls, the well defined falls occurred because of the presence of a capstone layer of limestone that was resistant to erosion by the flowing river.{{cite book |editor1-last=Prucha |editor1-first=John J. |title=New York State Geological Association 36th Annual Meeting May 8–10, 1964 Guidebook |last1=Chute |first1=Newton E. |last2=Brower |first2=James C. |chapter=Trip C: Stratigraphy and structure of Silurian and Devonian strata in the Syracuse area |page=95 |publisher=New York State Geological Association |url=http://www.nysga.net/files/32068346.pdf |access-date=2010-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723231247/http://www.nysga.net/files/32068346.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-23 |url-status=dead }} The lip of the fossil waterfall is on the Edgecliff member of the Onondaga formation of limestone. As one descends the steps along the south face of the gulf, the rock strata switch about 20 feet down to Manlius formation limestones.Clark Reservation limestone is one of the types of "Manlius formation" limestones that are found throughout this region of the country. See {{cite journal |last=Laporte |first=Leo F. |title=Recognition of Transgressive Carbonate Sequence Within Epeiric Sea: Helderberg Group (Lower Devonian) of New York State |journal=AAPG Bulletin |year=1967 |volume=51 |doi=10.1306/5D25C04D-16C1-11D7-8645000102C1865D}}

Roseberry writes that this "limestone is deeply waterworn and fissured, mutely telling the force of the deluge which hurled itself over the brink." The limestone shelf leading to the precipice at Clark Reservation is an example of a "karst" topography created by water's dissolution of limestone and related rocks. Among its features is a deep depression in the limestone that is known as Dry Lake. Dry Lake is about {{convert|12|m|ft}} deep and occupies {{convert|2|ha|acre}}, and offers an unusual habitat for plants. As Franco, et al. report, "It is believed to be a karst feature created by dissolving limestone that formed a sinkhole basin. The bedrock is 300–400 million years old (Van Diver 1985) and its fissures allowed for rapid post-glacial water drainage."

• List of New York state parks

{{reflist|22em}}

• {{cite web |url=http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/126/details.aspx |title=New York State Parks: Clark Reservation State Park |access-date=2009-09-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225172151/http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/126/details.aspx |archive-date=2010-12-25 |url-status=dead }}
• {{cite web |url=http://www.dec.ny.gov/education/1850.html#Clark |title=New York State DEC: Clark Reservation State Park Nature Center}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.friendsofclarkreservation.org/|title=Friends of Clark Reservation|access-date=2019-01-13}} Website of a private, non-profit, volunteer organization that supports Clark Reservation.
• {{cite web |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_spier/560550429/ |title=American hart's tongue fern at Clark Reservation |last=Spier |first=David |year=2007}} Photograph of American hart's tongue fern.

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{{Protected areas of New York}}

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Category:State parks of New York (state)

Category:Meromictic lakes

Category:Nature centers in New York (state)

Category:Parks in Onondaga County, New York

Category:DeWitt, New York