Water has thundered over the high falls since the end of the Ice Age, and early settlers called it the Great Falls. The first recorded transfer of land at High Falls was a land grant of 50 acres to Frederick Hussey in 1676. Jacob Hasbrouck was one of the first people to establish a permanent residence near the falls; his mid-eighteenth century stone house still stands north of Rondout Creek, and his mill was the first of many to draw power from the waterfall. High Falls was a farming community until the D & H Canal arrived in 1828. The discovery of natural hydraulic cement used in building the canal created a new industry and led to the development of a small hamlet on the south side of the creek. In the 1850's the Canal Company bought three large farms to reroute the canal, and the remaining land was subdivided into streets and lots. As the canal and cement industry prospered in the 1880's, so did High Falls, but the canal closed at the end of the century because of railroad competition, and the mills closed soon afterward. The quarries and kilns, the locks and aqueduct abutments, the mill ruins, and Simeon Depuy's tavern reflect how past generations lived.