Dover Stone Church, Dover Plains, NY – Photography, Images and Cameras

Entrance to the site.

The Dover Stone Church Visitor’s Guide provides the following description:

Entrance: Large metamorphic rocks converge to form the entrance in the shape of a church’s cathedral window. The gothic appearance of the entrance gave rise to the name “Stone Church”.

“The Pulpit”: Inside the cavern is a rock ledge, affectionately given this name by Richard Maher, a Dover resident who wrote the book, “Historic Dover” in 1908.

Stone Church Brook: This brook which flows through the Stone Church cavern is a tributary of the Ten Mile River. The Ten Mile River flows southeast and is a branch of the Housatonic River in Connecticut.

Waterfall: Inside the cavern, there is a 30-foot waterfall cascading into a pool of waterthat flows through and out of the cavern entrance

An historic marker sign at the entrance to the park reads: “A cavern, with a waterfall, refuge of Sassacus, Pequot chief, fleeing from rout of his tribe at New Loudon, Conn. Afterward killed by Mohawks.”

From the road in Dover Plains it’s a short walk to the cave. Both the cave and the approaches to it are quite dark and it was difficult to take pictures. I’m not very good with flash photography and I don’t like to carry a tripod, but both of them would be have been useful here, particularly the tripod. The interior of the cave is very dark. Also the “30 foot waterfall” seemed to be AWOL – probably because we haven’t had much rain lately. It’s not too far away so maybe I’ll go back with a tripod after a particularly rainy day.