• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

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

December 18, 2021 by John Warren 7 Comments

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Amusement Parks, bicycling, Chestertown, Gambling, Horses, Lake George, Pottersville, Schroon Lake, Schroon River, Sports History, Vice, Warren County

Gaslight Village: Lake George Fun Yesterday

December 12, 2021 by John Warren 5 Comments

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Amusement Parks, Chestertown, Delaware & Hudson Railroad, Gaslight Village, Lake George, Performing Arts, Pottersville, Warren County

The 10 Deadliest Accidents in the Adirondack Region

December 9, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondack Dams, Adirondacks, Aviation History, Chazy Lake, Clinton County, Dannemora, Essex County, I-87, Lake George, Saratoga County, Steamboating, Transportation History, Warren County

On December 2, 1859 John Brown Was Hanged

December 2, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Abolition, Civil War, Crime and Justice, John Brown, Political History, Slavery

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

November 29, 2021 by John Warren 2 Comments

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?

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Abolition, Civil War, John Brown, Military History, Slavery, The Last Days of John Brown

The Last Days of John Brown: A Speedy Trial

November 25, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Abolition, Black History, Civil War, Crime and Justice, John Brown, Slavery, The Last Days of John Brown

The Last Days of John Brown: Brown’s Fellow Prisoners

November 20, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

PrisonersWhile John Brown waited to hang for leading the raid to free people enslaved near Harpers Ferry, Virginia, his compatriots were led to the Charles Town court and tried before Judge Andrew Parker. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: Brown’s Fellow Prisoners

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Crime and Justice, John Brown, The Last Days of John Brown

The Last Days of John Brown: Southern Fears

November 13, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: John Brown, Slavery

The Last Days of John Brown: The Famous Beard

November 3, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Abolition, John Brown, Political History, The Last Days of John Brown

The Last Days of John Brown: Prisoners And Fugitives

October 23, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Abolition, Black History, Civil War, John Brown, Slavery, The Last Days of John Brown

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 10
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Help Finish Our 2022 Fundraising

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Ralph on Skiing Comes to the Sullivan County Catskills
  • Bernard McCann on Old Fort Niagara During the Civil War
  • Ellen Brown on The Adirondack Park Agency At 50: State Leaders Are Missing The Point
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Black History Historiographic Genealogies: Sources & Resources
  • Your New Neighbor on Saratoga Corruption & The Destruction of Cale Mitchell
  • Joyce Kelly- Feeley on Troy Orphan Asylum: Vanderheyden’s Legacy Exhibit Opening
  • Adrienne Saint-Pierre on Hibernation: How It Works
  • GARY SCHOEN on Moose Are Back in New York State: A Population Update
  • Deb Heller on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • John Warren on Civil War in the Mohawk Valley: The Battle of Oriskany

Recent New York Books

The Great New York Fire of 1776
The Sugar Act and the American Revolution
battle of harlem hights
Ladies Day at the Capitol
voices of wayne county
CNY Snowstorm book front cover
The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era
Expanded Second Edition of Echoes in These Mountains
historic kingston book

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide