| Directions:
Follow NYS Route 26
south out of Lowville to the hamlet of Martinsburg and take a left
on the Glendale Road. Whitaker Park will be on your left a
short distance up the road. |
| County: |
Lewis |
| Town: |
Martinsburg |
| USGS Map: |
Glenfield |
| Waterway: |
Roaring
Brook |
| Latitude: |
N
43.73439o
|
| Longitude: |
W
75.44560o
|
| Drop: |
~40' |
|
These falls are beautiful and quite impressive, and they show what
thousands of years of erosion can do. This is very nice little town
run park where you can camp, picnic or just enjoy the falls or the
scenery of the Black River valley. Go straight at the
intersection where you enter the park. You will come to some
buildings, including two pavilions at the back of the park.
There is a parking area there. Follow the tire tracks to the
left of the pavilion on the right for about 500'. Look for
the wooden fence on the right. There is a
"Caution" sign which marks the top of the descent to the
river where you arrive near the top of the falls. The walk
from the parking lot to the falls is less than a quarter mile.
These falls descend through several drops. We were there in late July and the water was
only flowing on about half of the riverbed. The other half
of the bed allowed you access to the bottom through a series of
natural rock steps. As we were there, we were envisioning
what the water would be like in the spring and thought that we
should return at that point in the year. Then the thought
hit us that with the water covering the entire riverbed, there
would be no way to reach the bottom of the falls!
There is quite a bit of confusion about the name of this
location. The sign greeting you at the park identifies it as
Whitaker Park. Virtually everything you find on-line and in
print about this park calls it Whittaker Park. Even the road
sign says Whittaker. A telephone call to the Martinsburg
Town Clerk has clarified this. The family that settled in
that area and donated the land for the park was Whitaker, one
"t". No one seems to know how, why or when this
happened, but over time, the name acquired an extra "t"
and became Whittaker. This is further reinforced by a
picture of an old post card obtained from the Lewis County
Historical Society. "Whitaker Falls" is imprinted
on it. In honor of the family whose name
originally was the source of this park and falls, we will use the
original spelling.
The Roaring Brook flows into the Black River just downstream
from the Whetstone Gulf area. The Black River joins Lake
Ontario just west of Watertown in Dexter, New York.
|
