Dave Waite

With a lifelong interest in upstate New York history, Dave Waite has researched and written about topics ranging from hermits in the Adirondacks to stage coaching in the Mohawk Valley. He has had over forty articles published by a wide range of organizations including the New York State Archives, St. Lawrence County Historical Society, Saratoga County History Roundtable, and Warren County Historical Society.

Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

May 9, 2022 by Dave Waite 4 Comments

The adventure began with an exchange of letters in the spring of 1877 between a sportsman in Syracuse, NY, and Byron P. Graves of Boonville, a town on the western border of the Adirondacks. The purpose of this correspondence was to hire a guide and transportation for a two-week hunting and fishing trip into the Fulton Chain of Lakes for the man and his 11-year-old son Ned.

The sportsman was Ansel Judd Northrup, a 43-year-old attorney who would later write the book, Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks (1882), where this story was first told. The final communication from Northrup, in the form of a telegraph, simply read, “Engage Brinckerhoff, will reach Boonville, morning train, July 5th.” [Read more…] about Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

The Whitetail Deer Paddock in Saratoga’s Congress Park: Some History

May 2, 2022 by Dave Waite Leave a Comment

It is difficult to imagine tame whitetail deer roaming freely through Congress Park in downtown Saratoga Springs, yet in its early years, it was both a common sight and an eagerly anticipated part of experiencing the city for both young and old.

It all began with a gift. [Read more…] about The Whitetail Deer Paddock in Saratoga’s Congress Park: Some History

The Showboat Era on Lake George 1933-1937

April 27, 2022 by Dave Waite 1 Comment

When the sidewheel steamboat Horicon II was launched on Lake George in 1910, she was both the longest and fastest passenger vessel to ever sail the lake. Over the next 29 years, she would be used for transportation of cargo and residents around the lake, as well as cruises for tourists.

The construction of a road on the west side of the lake, as well as the region’s rapidly increasing mobility with the introduction of the automobile, brought a dramatic decline in passengers. In response to this trend, in 1932 the Delaware & Hudson Railroad, owners of the steamboats on the lake through the Lake George Steamboat Company, announced that they would not be running boats that year. [Read more…] about The Showboat Era on Lake George 1933-1937

Laura Smith Ellsworth: Devoted Spiritualist

March 11, 2022 by Dave Waite Leave a Comment

These days clairvoyant is not a term that is often used in describing a doctor’s ability to diagnose disease. Yet, in the last half of the 1800s it was not uncommon to seek out a “clairvoyant physician” when a person was concerned about changes in their health.

Laura Smith Ellsworth, a self-proclaimed spiritualist, medium and clairvoyant physician who would devote her life to spiritualism, grew up in Charlton, in Saratoga County, NY. The daughter of Henry and Jane Smith, the youngest of their three children, Laura was born in 1862 and baptized in September of the same year at the Charlton Freehold Presbyterian Church. [Read more…] about Laura Smith Ellsworth: Devoted Spiritualist

The Thirteenth Lake Hotel: A History

January 30, 2022 by Dave Waite 10 Comments

In the summertime, the parking lot at the end of Thirteenth Lake Road in the town of Johnsburg, Warren County, will be crowded with the cars and trucks of people there to hike, paddle, and camp.

Few of these visitors realize that sixty years ago when they stood on the shore, they would have seen a large, modern-looking hotel sitting on the hillside overlooking the lake. This is the story of that enterprise and those who kept it up and running for over 100 years. [Read more…] about The Thirteenth Lake Hotel: A History

A Saratoga County Cemetery Mystery

January 13, 2022 by Dave Waite 3 Comments

Along Plummer Road in the town of Milton in Saratoga County sits the Powell-Wiswall Cemetery, a peaceful rural cemetery where local residents have been laid to rest since the early 1800s.

Standing like a sentinel over it all is a large statue of Christ. On two sides are engraved the names Ella Frances Wood-Mann and her husband Enos Rogers Mann. This monument sits adjacent to Wood family plots, where over the years Ella’s parents and other family members have been laid to rest. [Read more…] about A Saratoga County Cemetery Mystery

The Sacandaga River Steamboats Whip Poor Will and Colonel

November 1, 2021 by Dave Waite 2 Comments

It has been over 90 years since the Conklingville Dam was completed and the river that flowed through the Sacandaga Valley became the Great Sacandaga Reservoir.

When visitors hear of this river that once ran through the area, they likely visualize it as a small meandering creek passing quietly past the picture-perfect farms and tiny settlements that dotted its shore. [Read more…] about The Sacandaga River Steamboats Whip Poor Will and Colonel

The Saratoga County Law and Order League’s Campaign Against Gambling

October 4, 2021 by Dave Waite Leave a Comment

In the 1870s social reform movements swept across the nation. Law and Order Leagues, and other similar organizations, sprang up to campaign against issues as varied as baseball on Sundays, drinking, gambling, and sex trafficking.

Forty years later, members of the Saratoga County community formed their own Law and Order League to address many of these same “evil” influences on society. The leader of this organization was George H. West, the son of Galway, NY farmer Matthew West. The younger West had been elected to the New York Assembly where he served in 1899 to 1900. [Read more…] about The Saratoga County Law and Order League’s Campaign Against Gambling

The Short Eventful Marriage of Henry and Eliza Vrooman

April 15, 2021 by Dave Waite Leave a Comment

On April 15th, 1842, Henry A. Vrooman, a forty-one-year-old farmer living in West Charlton, Saratoga County, passed away in his home near the intersection of what is now Eastern Avenue and Sacandaga Road. He was laid to rest in the nearby West Glenville Cemetery. Only eight months earlier he had married forty-year-old Eliza McClelland, a widow with two children from nearby Blue Corners on the western edge of the Town of Charlton. It was a roller-coaster eight months. [Read more…] about The Short Eventful Marriage of Henry and Eliza Vrooman

The Secret Criminal Life of Nelson Knickerbacker

March 8, 2021 by Dave Waite Leave a Comment

Beginning in the early 1860s, break-ins began taking place at businesses across Saratoga County, New York. The method was always the same, an office was entered and the safe was emptied and then re-locked. The only outward evidence of the theft was the owners’ inability to open the safe. [Read more…] about The Secret Criminal Life of Nelson Knickerbacker