Twitchell Lake is one of highest inhabited lakes in the Adirondacks, surrounded on three sides by the Forest Preserve, and located in Big Moose, New York. New York Almanack has published over 40 articles on its history, but now there is a new website to showcase that history.
“Omeka” is a Swahili word which means “to display or lay out wares; to speak out; to spread out; to unpack.” Omeka.net is a popular open-source web-publishing platform used by colleges, libraries, museums, and historical societies to create online exhibits and digital collections.
The Twitchell Omeka website displays the multiple ways history unfolded in this little corner of the Adirondack Park. The website is organized around five exhibits: (1) Mapping Twitchell, (2) Twitchell Through Time, (3) Window on Wilderness, (4) Twitchell Photo Archive. and (5) Engaging with Adirondacker’s.
“Mapping Twitchell” geolocates memorials and sites on topographical maps, with the original 171 lots sold by Gilded-age tycoon, William Seward Webb, to the area’s first Europeans – four Brooklyn clergymen, a couple of feisty guides, two legendary hotel-builders, and an unscrupulous real-estate mogul.
A timeline of maps adds depth to this exhibit, with featured pages on the lake’s first survey and map by Verplanck Colvin, an 1870 shanty built by Beaver River guide Hiram Burke, and an interesting collection of those first deeds.
“Twitchell Through Time” takes the visitor from the 1700s to the present on three timelines – people and biography, news and events, and research and history. A fourth timeline on Adirondack logging is expected to be added soon.
Pages here address where the name “Twitchell” came from, the discovery of important early survey markers nearby, and two Webb-initiated lawsuits that monopolized campfire chats for almost ten years. Picture galleries of three early hotels grace this online exhibit.
“Window on Wilderness” invites the visitor on a tour of “Forever Wild,” that phrase in our state constitution crafted to protect our wilderness heritage. The website’s nature pages takes readers through seasons of flora and fauna on the shoreline and along trails, with special features on ferns, the monarch butterfly, and the common loon.
Here also is the story of how volunteers worked together to clean up the lake from high fecal contamination in the 1950s to water pure enough to drink today. Special pages in this exhibit offer a map of area hiking trails with an extensive wildflower photo gallery.
Dark sky legislation is advocated for here as part of a call to conservation and wilderness preservation. There is also a page of animal recordings, from the call of the loon to a chorus of bullfrogs and growl of a bear.
The “Twitchell Photo Archive” organizes a cache of pictures, antique and contemporary, in eight collection categories – camps, hotels, events, lake views, people, roads, plants and animals, and shots of life in the hamlet of Big Moose and beyond. This is a work in progress, with more pictures being added throughout the year.
Finally, “Engaging with Adirondacker’s” invites visitors to submit a story, ask a question, or offer feedback. Contributions of historical materials that deal specifically with the history of Twitchell Lake are sought. Pre-recorded short stories capture humor, challenges, and life-lessons.
A year- round calendar of events in the central Adirondacks temps visits to the nearby communities of Inlet, Eagle Bay, and Old Forge. A treatment of lake volunteerism in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Ranger covers boating safety, fishing and hunting, and wildlife management.
A Kid’s Page offers rainy-day activities provided by educator Sheri Amsel, author of The Big Adirondack Activity Book. This exhibit concludes with a long list of the organizers Adirondack friends and neighbors – each geo-located on a topo-map with links to their websites.
The new website is a detailed picture of one of the Adirondacks’ unrecognized Great Camps, the 19-bedroom inn that Earl Covey built in 1899 using half-logs milled onsite. A quarter of the cabins on Twitchell Lake were built by him using this architectural method which perfectly matched the camp to its wilderness setting.
Twitchell Lake’s website offers an extensive collection of historical documents, articles, and photographs related to the Adirondack Mountains and should give the viewer a good sense of almost being there.
The new website will complement a book planned to be published in early 2027.
Read more about the Adirondacks.
Illustrations, from above: “Twitchell Lake Sunrise,” 2003 photo by Noel Sherry; and an early postcard of the Twitchell Lake Inn, built by Earl Covey in 1898.
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