During the 19th century the stream took on a different alternate name, one that persists today, according to Fried. Locals began calling it Kaidy Kill or Cater Kill, finding the full name too challenging. An 1899 map gives both the long and short names for the stream. This created some confusion with Kaaterskill Creek, a tributary of the Hudson that flows down from the Catskill Escarpment in Greene County to the north—one guidebook author from that time describes Verkeerderkill Falls as being tall, the height of Kaaterskill Falls. The shorter name was so common, Fried recalls, that a woman he interviewed for his research who had been born in nearby Ellenville early in the 20th century recalled it always being called Kaidy Kill and did not even know the stream had a full name until he showed it to her on a map.