New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

John Warren

John Warren is founder and editor of the New York Almanack. He's been a media professional for more than 35 years with a focus on history, journalism and documentary production. He has a master's degree in Public History and is on the staff of the New York State Writers Institute, a center for literary arts based at the University at Albany. John lives in the Adirondack Park. His weekly Adirondack Outdoors Conditions Report airs across Northern New York on the North Country Public Radio network.

The Pottersville Fair: Gambling, Races, and Gaslight Village

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Pottersville Fairgrounds with acrobatsThose traveling on the Adirondack Northway (I-87) between Exits 27 and 28 probably don’t realize they are passing over Pottersville, the northern Warren County hamlet that borders southern Schroon Lake.

For a hundred years, from the 1870s into the early 1960s, the tiny village was home to amusements that drew thousands. The most remarkable of them, the Pottersville Fair, drew 7,000 on a single day in 1913. Later it hosted a large dance hall, roller skating rink, and the Glendale Drive-in, while nearby Under the Maples on Echo Lake was host to circus acts and an amusement park that was a forerunner of the Gaslight Village theme park in nearby Lake George.  [Read more…] about The Pottersville Fair: Gambling, Races, and Gaslight Village

Gaslight Village: Lake George Fun Yesterday

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gaslight village, lake george, nyGaslight Village in Lake George, NY was opened in 1959 by Charles R. “Charley” Wood.

Charley already owned a number of other investments, including Holiday House on the shores of Lake George, and Storytown, U.S.A., an amusement park with a Mother Goose rhymes theme (later expanded with Ghost Town, a western boot-hill theme, and Jungle Land, an animal park) which he opened in 1954. He later went on to build the Tiki Resort (one of America’s last original Tiki bars), a short lived wax museum, the Sun Castle resort, and more. [Read more…] about Gaslight Village: Lake George Fun Yesterday

The 10 Deadliest Accidents in the Adirondack Region

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Sinking of Lake George Steamboat John JaySome of tragic accidents have occurred in the Adirondack region.

Here is a list of the ten believed to have been among the deadliest: [Read more…] about The 10 Deadliest Accidents in the Adirondack Region

On December 2, 1859 John Brown Was Hanged

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john brown illustrationOn this day in 1859 John Brown was executed for leading an anti-slavery raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, part of the radical movement of tens of thousands of Americans struggling to undermine the institution of slavery in America before the Civil War. [Read more…] about On December 2, 1859 John Brown Was Hanged

The Last Days of John Brown: Martyr, Revolutionary or Terrorist?

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John_Brown_hangingThis week marks the anniversary of John Brown’s execution. Had Brown escaped from Harpers Ferry rather than been captured he might well today be just a footnote, one of the tens of thousands that struggled to undermine the institution of slavery in America before the Civil War.

It’s often said that just one thing secured Brown’s place in the hearts of millions of Americans that came after him – his execution and martyrdom. There is another equally important reason Americans will celebrate the life of John Brown this week however – he was right that slavery would end at a heavy price. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: Martyr, Revolutionary or Terrorist?

The Last Days of John Brown: A Speedy Trial

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carrying john brown to prison from courtFollowing the capture of John Brown and his associates at Harpers Ferry they were first held in the armory’s guardhouse.

The next day, October 19th, 1859, they were taken to the County Jail in Charles Town, about eight miles away. On October 25th (after being questioned by Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise, Virginia Senator James M. Mason, and Representative Clement Vallandigham of Ohio) John Brown was led into court for arraignment. He was manacled to Edwin Coppoc and escorted by some 80 militiamen with bayonets fixed. Brown was still suffering from his wounds and needed to be supported at the bench. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: A Speedy Trial

The Last Days of John Brown: Southern Fears

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nat_turner_woodcutThere were about 4 million slaves in the United States at the time of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859.

Slavery in the United States, and especially in the South, rested on complex and often convoluted political, social, and economic systems, enforced by violence.

Perhaps because forcing people to work for you for free was so dependent on violence, the South was continuously racked with fear – fear that the people one kept enslaved (or those enslaved by others) would rise up against them. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: Southern Fears

The Last Days of John Brown: The Famous Beard

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Ole Peter Hansen Balling 1873 portrait of John Brown National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian InstitutionFor reasons of political expediency, Republicans in the North initially distanced themselves from John Brown and his raid to free people enslaved around Harper’s Ferry.

Many joined the chorus of (often pro-slavery) voices proclaiming Brown insane, no doubt in part to protect their own political party, for as John Brown’s biographer David S. Reynolds put it, “the implication was that Republicans, and by extension many Northerners, were lawbreakers who threatened national peace.”

The truth of course, was that Brown had probably already planned a raid into Virginia to free slaves there before the Republican Party was founded in 1854. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: The Famous Beard

The Last Days of John Brown: Prisoners And Fugitives

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llustration from Harpers Weekly Nov 12 1859Ten men were killed during John Brown’s anti-slavery raid in Virginia in October 1859. All but two were buried in a common grave on the Shenandoah River, Harpers Ferry.

The body of Jeremiah Anderson, who was bayoneted in the final storming of the engine house, was handed over to a local medical school – his last resting place remains unknown. Watson Brown’s body was given over to Winchester Medical College where it remained until Union troops recovered it during the Civil War and burned the school in reprisal. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: Prisoners And Fugitives