Chestertown Archives - New York Almanack

Robert Codgell Gilchrist was born into an extremely wealthy well-connected Charleston family in 1829. The oligarchic families of South Carolina had made their wealth on tobacco, rice, indigo, and shipping and Charleston harbor was one of the centers of the southern slave trade. Robert Gilchist’s father had received a federal Judgeship from President Martin Van Buren and he owned an opulent home.

Each summer the wealthy Gilchrist family journeyed north to avoid the hot humid subtropical summers of Charleston. They stayed with maternal family members in the Great Northern Wilderness of New York. (The term Adirondacks is said to have been first used by geologist and surveyor Ebenezer Emmons in 1838 and took some time to come into general use). [Read more…] about The First (Short Lived) Suspension Bridge Across The Hudson River

One of the popular parts of the Chester Challenge in the Southeastern Adirondacks is the hike around Palmer Pond. The pond is located west of Chestertown, Warren County, about a mile from the Hudson River at the end of a dirt road called, oddly enough, Palmer Pond Road.

At the parking lot and trail gate there is a sign-in kiosk with a map of the trails. The trail begins on an old road, which also provides motor vehicle access for use by people of all abilities (with a permit).

As one hikes the gently undulating roadway and crosses the outlet through a beaver meadow, the pond comes into view. The trail continues through an area that was many years ago heavily logged, to a small clearing with a picnic table. Here a short track leads down to Palmer Pond.