CAYUGA COUNTY --
A 53 year old man from East Amherst was found dead at the bottom on the Decker Creek gorge Man dies taking pictures of gorge in Cayuga County in Moravia, Cayuga County on Friday afternoon. State police in Auburn say the body of Charles Barney was taken to the Onondaga County medical examiner's office. Investigators believe Barney was in the area to take pictures of the waterfalls and apparently slipped to the bottom of the gorge.
The website nyfalls.com says this about Decker Creek gorge: Considered public watershed, the accessible Decker Creek Falls, two small limestone cascades, are a nice treat in this rarely-accessed slice of wilderness. The falls, one 9 ft and the other 6, are right next to each other and surrounded by thick, peaceful forest. The limestone bedrock here evens out the boulder-spotted creek bed and gives the waterfalls a step-like structure. The same website gives this history of the gorge: Near where Montville Falls is located, along Mill Creek, a man named Jethro Woods invented the first cast iron plow in 1819, drastically increasing the productivity of farmers and the reliability of their equipment. Unfortunately for Woods, he had to fight patent infringements his whole life and died a poor man. Montville was once a large manufacturing center, using the power of Mill Creek to build numerous factories along its banks. It rivaled the village of Moravia for dominance until the mills began to close along the creek as electric power ushered in modern industry.
