Hudson Highlands centered on the present-day location of Albany during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the last ice age, 12–15,000 years ago. At the time of its existence the lake filled the valley up to what is now the contour line, roughly where the Saw Kill today drops through a series of cascades to Camp Rising Sun in Red Hook. The retreat of the lake as it flowed southward to become today's river left the glacial outwash plain the stream flows through from there to the river's current escarpment at Annandale and eventually into the Hudson. Early human use As the glaciers melted and the Hudson formed, animals and plants that came back to the region found tributaries like the Saw Kill good places to re-establish themselves and gradually followed them into the interior. The Native American tribes that settled in the region afterwards found them similarly useful, as paths between settlements. They also hunted and fished the stream for sustenance. Archeological investigations at Montgomery Place, south of the stream's mouth, have found evidence of the land's use as a hunting ground 5,000 years ago. 1620s–1803: Development The Dutch began settling the region in the 1620s. The first settlers followed the lead of the Indians in using the tributaries as transportation routes and food sources. However, as more Dutch settlers arrived, they began to see the stream as an ideal place to build mills, particularly the sawmills that gave it its name. Land speculators bought water rights to the Saw Kill before anything had been built. The Saw Kill and the majority of the land north of the Saw Kill watershed was sold to Colonel Pieter Schuyler in 1688. His patents for Rhinebeck lasted until 1840. The deed paperwork refers to the Saw Kill as the Metambesem, the Algonquin name for it, which has not otherwise survived. Schuyler's patents slowed agricultural development rates along the Saw Kill, despite rapid agricultural expansion in Dutchess County starting in 1750. Sawmills and gristmills were nevertheless built. By 1777 they were present not only near the stream's mouth but upstream at the present-day locations of Red Hook Mills, where Mill Road crosses and the stream is still impounded into a small lake, and Rock City. Mills were commonplace along the stream by the end of the 18th century. Milling died down by the end of the 19th due to decreased profitability. Pressure for industrial expansion on