Montville Falls is a 90-foot veiling horsetail waterfall on Dresserville Creek in the hamlet of Montville, about 0.7 mile east of Moravia in Cayuga County, New York. It stands on private land and is closed to all public access.
The falls
The falls drop in two drops, the taller of them 75 feet; older tallies listed 75 feet in total. Other guides describe a main drop of about 60 feet over a rock face broken by crevices, followed by roughly 14 feet of cascades before the creek levels out in its gorge. The rock here is hard limestone, which the water has cut along its cracks into sharp geometric angles, and a second branch splits off near the crest and rejoins the main stream at the bottom. USGS topographic maps have wrongly placed the falls on neighboring Decker Creek since the 1971 Moravia quadrangle.
Getting there
There is no public access. The falls are privately owned and closed to the public, and a 2019 update confirms that the whole creek and the land around it are private, with no parking or access from the cemetery or the old mill and no public fishing access. Older directions that start from those points are out of date.
When to go
A small hydroelectric project at the falls diverts much of Dresserville Creek, and the flow may no longer be consistent. The water often drops to a trickle and the falls look best in spring or fall after heavy rain.
History and name
Montville was once a mill village powered by the creek. A transcribed county history records that Elias Rogers and George Lathrop made cast iron plows in works moved to the foot of Montville Falls, until the July storm of 1833 swept the establishment away.
Nearby
Punch Bowl Falls is about 0.2 mile away, and Pierces Falls and Moravia Falls, both on Decker Creek, are each about 0.5 mile away.
Distances are straight-line.