Titus Mill-Pond and State Tidal Wetlands (New Rochelle, New York)

 water, pond

Titus Mill Pond is located at the northeastern end of New Rochelle Harbor in the city of New Rochelle. The waters in the harbor and pond are from Long Island Sound, with tides up to eight feet in the inlet and with no fresh water stream entering into it.

Lispenard-Titus Mill:

Titus Mill Pond was the former site of the Titus-Lispenard Mill. In 1708 Antoine Lispenard bought from Jacob Leisler's son a half interest in the peninsula between New Rochelle Harbor and Long Island Sound. Six years later he bought the other half. Across the inlet he built a dam and a tidal grist mill . Each incoming tide filled a millpond behind the dam, and then, as the tide ebbed, the water was released through a millrace to turn the mill wheel. Nearby the mill pond, on the neck itself, Lispenard built his home (Lispenard-Rodman-Davenport House), a stone house of one-and-a-half stories, with the front eaves extending to form the roof of a wide porch.

Lispenard died in 1758, but the mill continued to be operated by his son, David Lispenard, and son-in-law, Jacobus Bleecker, until 1774, when an interest in it was purchased by Abraham Schenk. It is not clear that he, was a Quaker, but the mill soon came into the control of Quakers; for one of them, Samuel Underhill, purchased it in 1776, and later it passed to Andrew Underhill. In 1797 it was purchased by Samuel Titus, who owned and operated it about forty years. Eventually, like other mills hereabouts, it became unprofitable, due largely to the effects of the opening of the Erie Canal and the rapid development of the milling industry in western New York. Later owners were Willett and John Secor and David Allen, but the mill finally had to cease operating, and it was torn down near the close of the nineteenth century.

State Tidal Wetlands:

The Titus Mill Pond State Tidal Wetlands are situated at the eastern edge of the pond, where the Davenport Neck peninsula connects to the mainland. The park is a New York State protected natural resource area, classified as a formerly connected tidal wetlands zone in which normal tidal flow is restricted by man-made causes, or in this instance, the Lispenard-Titus grist-mill and dam. It is an intertidal marsh, consisting of a vegetated, tidal wetland zone lying between the average high and low tidal elevation of New Rochelle Harbor and the Titus Mill Pond. The predominant vegetation here is low marsh cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora. The water in the wetlands is saltwater from Long Island Sound.