Northern New Yorks Adirondack Park is a naturalists wonderland of high peaks, plunging chasms, pristine waters, and stunning vistas. In this collection of columns from the popular series the Adirondack Almanack, author John Warren reveals another side of this charming land. Stories of bank robberies, the Ku Klux Klan, gambling, buried treasure, rattlesnakes, and earthquakes abound. Showing careful research and a panache for storytelling, Warren takes the mountain path less traveled, where locals and visitors alike will be surprised by the hidden gems of the Adirondacks.
An inspiring collection of canoe journeys, packed with bits of regional history and environmental concern. As she flows through the Adirondacks, Duvall guides readers towards a fuller appreciation of water and a need for deepened advocacy; "water" evolves into a sacred entity.
The Adirondacks have been an Indigenous homeland for millennia, and the presence of Native people in the region was obvious but not well documented by Europeans, who did not venture into the interior between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, by the late nineteenth century, historians had scarcely any record of their long-lasting and vibrant existence in the area. With Rural Indigenousness, Otis shines a light on the rich history of Algonquian and Iroquoian people, offering the first comprehensive study of the relationship between Native Americans and the Adirondacks. While Otis focuses on the nineteenth century, she extends her analysis to periods before and after this era, revealing both the continuity and change that characterize the relationship over time. Otis argues that the landscape was much more than a mere hunting ground for Native residents; rather, it a “location of exchange,” a space of interaction where the land was woven into the fabric of their lives as an essential source of refuge and survival. Drawing upon archival research, material culture, and oral histories, Otis examines the nature of Indigenous populations living in predominantly Euroamerican communities to identify the ways in which some maintained their distinct identity while also making selective adaptations exemplifying the concept of “survivance.” In doing so, Rural Indigenousness develops a new conversation in the field of Native American studies that expands our understanding of urban and rural indigeneity.
The People & Places of the Adirondacks collection contains a variety of story types: original works of hard history, the lives of unusual people, noteworthy accomplishments, groundbreaking inventions, remarkable mishaps, oddities, and humor. They all have one thing in common: each is rooted in the North Country, defined here as the Adirondacks and foothills. The region's past is filled with relative or complete unknowns who were, in fact, highly accomplished individuals. Many of the chapters here reveal their stories, which are well worth preserving. Those and others are presented with a purpose that is threefold: to educate, amuse, and entertain. In this volume: Hats for Horses: Was it Really a Thing? You Bet!; The Mandrake Tupper Family's Remarkable Civil War Record; Chicken Theft: Once a Prison-Worthy Crime; Catamount Mountain: A Dynamite Movie Role; Homing Pigeons in the Adirondacks; Eddie "Phat Boy" Babbage: Big, Bold, and Beloved; The Greatest Rescue in Adirondack History; An Adirondack Photograph Makes Newspaper History; Ticonderoga Canines: Doggone Good Friends; Lake Champlain Fishing Shanties: Faster than a Speeding Bullet ...; John C. Austin: Wanted--But was He Dead or Alive?; No Bones Were Broken: True Tales of Tumbling Linemen; Rouses Point, Border Village: So Many Famous Visitors!; Garrett Cashman: The Birdman of Albany; George Cheney: Pioneer Recorder of World Music; Fecund Families of the North Country; Henry Harrison Markham: Wilmington to West Coast Governor; Rooftop Highway Déjà Vu; The Dueling Sheriffs of Hamilton County; Robert Emmett Odlum: Public-Safety Daredevil; Thomas William Symons: Building America from Coast to Coast; Rock Eaters? No Way ... But Anything Else Will Do!; Adirondack Swindles: Deceptive and Detestable; North Country vs. KKK: Battling in the Streets; It was Nearly Pok-O-Rushmore!; John L. Dunlap: A Character with Character; Leonard J. Farwell: Wisconsin Governor and Forever Tied to Lincoln; Taylor-Made Communications: Schenectady to Lake Desolation.
Paul Hetzler is the kind of naturalist with whom you would love to "walk in the woods." He knows so much about nature in all its wonders, complexities, and hilarities, and weaves considerable wit into his broad range of wisdom. This book is a classic, to be valued for hundreds of bits of natural science and lore unknown to the average person. Read one page and you will be hooked!
From 1859 to the present, the name Paul Smiths has meant different things to visitors and residents of the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York. In the 19th century, the name was synonymous with a grand hotel on the shores of Lower St. Regis Lake and the wilderness guide who was its founder. In the early 20th century, the hotel business expanded to include land sales, a railroad, a telephone company, and the Paul Smiths Electric Power and Light Company, which became the first electric provider in the region. After World War II, Paul Smiths College was founded to provide quality liberal arts and technical associate-level degrees to returning veterans and recent high school graduates. Today Paul Smiths College attracts students from across America to the only baccalaureate-degree-granting institution in the six-million-acre Adirondack Park.
The complete life story of serial rapist and serial killer Robert F. Garrow. Derived from a variety of sources, the story¿s core is based on 2,000 pages of official court testimony, ensuring accuracy and offering an intimate look at the life of the most feared criminal in the history of the Adirondacks.Included is complete coverage of: Garrow¿s childhood; his multitude of crimes and deviant behavior; his many court appearances; the Speculator, Witherbee, and Fishkill manhunts; his manipulation of the corrections and court systems of NYS; the national maelstrom involving his attorneys; and the repercussions across New York State when his deceptions were revealed posthumously.
Encompassing the lands immediately surrounding the upper reaches of the Beaver River from its headwaters at Lake Lila to Beaver Lake at the settlement of Number Four, Beaver River country is the largest undisturbed tract of forest in the entire northeastern United States. During the nineteenth century it was widely considered to be the very heart of the Adirondacks and was visited by thousands of tourists seeking outdoor recreation. The area boasted a busy railroad station, two grand hotels, an exclusive resort, and an elaborate great camp, as well as dozens of guides camps and sporting clubs. Pitts traces the generations of people who inhabited the region, from the ancestors of the Haudenosaunee, to the early European settlers, to the vacation communities and seasonal visitors. With each generation, Pitts shows how Beaver River country escaped the forces that fragmented and destroyed the wilderness in much of the Northeast. The forest and waters that attracted the early visitors are still there, preserved by a combination of happenstance and dedicated effort. Filled with rare vintage photographs, this book is a vivid portrait of this wild region, revealing how it came to be and why it survives.
Over 200 years of Adirondack History seen through the lens of one plot of land.Fifty Acres of Beach and Wood chronicles tales of iconic characters of Adirondack history whose footprints graced the shores of Indian Point on Raquette Lake.Discover the heritage of Indian Point imparted by the Mohawk Indians, Sir John Johnson, Farrand Benedict, Matthew Beach and William Wood, Professor Ebenezer Emmons, Joel Tyler Headley, Mitchell Sabattis, Nessmuk, Alvah Dunning, John Plumley and Adirondack Murray, and Verplanck Colvin.
Award-winning author Lorraine Duvall's recent book tells the story of a women's commune in northern New York. In 1974, seven women, with their eight children, left their jobs, friends, and families to live together communally on a 23-acre, rustic, abandoned resort in Athol, New York. They called their new home A Woman's Place, inspired by other feminists to take this independent action and leave behind the restraints of the patriarchal society of the 1960s and '70s. This was also the time when back-to-the-land intentional communities were started in rural areas of the United States and abroad. Most were co-ed. Only a few were women-only.Hundreds of women passed through the doors of A Woman's Place in its eight years of existence from 1974 to 1982. The popularity spoke to the need for women to congregate and take comfort in knowing that they were not alone in their struggles to thrive in a male-dominated world.Duvall tells a powerful story of communal living-the trials and tribulations, the joys and sorrows. Hearing about the personal lives of the women who were brave enough to begin anew at A Woman's Place will hopefully inspire women, and men, to take action in their own personal lives.
