Floods have been a fairly frequent occurrence in Rensselaer County, especially along the Poesten Kill and Wynants Kill and at their mouths which are impacted by the flooding of the Hudson River.
Two whales that ascended the river and were stranded during exceptionally high water in the Hudson in 1647 died there. In 1654 flooding all but destroyed the West India Company’s garden below Fort Orange and in 1666 Jeremias van Rensselaer reported that “fully forty houses and barns have been carried away, among which our house in which we lived, the barn and the brewery, the new as well as the old are lost also, so that hardly any traces can be found of where they have stood.” [Read more…] about Rensselaer County Floods: A Short History
Between the more formidable island of Papscanee (previously spelled Papsickene, now a peninsula nature preserve) and where the Hoosac River meets the Hudson, more than a dozen streams flow into the 
Noted local historical archeologist David R. Starbuck has said that the interconnected routes from the Richelieu River at the north end of Lake Champlain to Albany has the highest density of military sites in North America in the 1700s.
of the Poestenkill which flows through the center of Rensselaer County and enters the Hudson River at Troy, will offer a book talk and signing this Thursday (October 22nd, 6:30 to 8 pm) at the Rensselaer County Historical Society in Troy (57 Second Street, Troy). The event is free and open to the public. Copies of