Murderers Creek (or Murderer's Creek) is a creek in

upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region of New York (state), New York that lies north and northwest of the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area of downstate New York. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, ...

, United States, that flows into the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

in Greene County, New York, just north of the town of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. It should not be confused with

Moodna Creek Moodna Creek () is a small tributary of the Hudson River that drains eastern Orange County, New York, Orange County, New York (state), New York. At 15.5 miles (25 km)Nolan, J. Kelly; April 2004; ; Hudson Basin River Watch; retriev ...

, which is in Orange County and is also sometimes called "Murderer's Creek".

Name

The first reference to the name "Murderer's Kill" is from July 18, 1673 in a deed of land to Wyntje Harmense. First governmental reference to the creek is in the New York State Act of March 7, 1788, as "...at the South Bank of the Mouth of the Murderer’s-Kill, at Lunenburgh" (Lunenburgh was the original name of Athens). The name is thought to derive from

Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or , there was no overarching sta ...

, "Mother's Creek", and ''kille''. It may have also been from the Middle Dutch meaning "muddy" similar to the river of the same name in Delaware, although the possessive apostrophe indicates otherwise. In 1813, the body of a young woman named Sally Hamilton was found in the creek about half a mile north of its mouth. Local lore has it that the modern name of the creek originated from this event. Although the name predated the event by 140 years.

References

{{authority control Rivers of New York (state) Rivers of Greene County, New York