History, Natural History & the Arts
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents in the around New York State. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations and volunteer search and rescue groups, Forest Rangers locate and extract lost, injured or distressed people.
What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers. [Read more…] about Recent Statewide Forest Ranger Mission Highlights
Over the years I have put my canoe into Adirondack waters at the Lows Lake Lower Dam (Bog River Dam, 1907) and paddled the meandering Bog River Flow upstream to Hitchins Pond. From there you can carry around the Lows Lake Dam (Upper Dam, 1903*) and out on to Lows Lake.
Occasionally a day paddle and a short hike around Hitchins Pond is in order. I often walk the old Maple Valley Railroad bed, part of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company established by Abbot Augustus “Gus” Low in 1900. If you know where to look, there are rail sidings where A. A. Low’s maple sugarhouses once stood. [Read more…] about Adirondack Wildfire: The Destruction of Long Lake West
The Club Camp is often mentioned as the first permanent structure built on Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks. The word permanent is rather ironic as this hunting and fishing establishment had a relatively short history of just 28 years. Today the camp’s origins, visitors, and sad end seem largely forgotten. [Read more…] about The Union Club’s Camp on Big Moose Lake
William F. Fox was born in 1840 in Ballston Spa, Saratoga County, and graduated from Union College in Schenectady in 1860. He served in the Civil War as Captain, Major and then Lieutenant Colonel in the 107th New York Volunteers and later wrote a number of books on both the Civil War and forestry.
Fox’s 1902 History of the Lumber Industry in the State of New York, written under the auspicious of Gifford Pinchot, is considered among the first authoritative works on the logging industry in New York. [Read more…] about William Fox Helped Create Modern NYS Forest Rangers
A substantial fire has closed the 1920s Palisades Interstate Park New Jersey Park Headquarters building in Alpine, N.J., across the Hudson River from Yonkers. No one was hurt in the blaze, but one Park Commissioner has said some of the Commission’s on-site records have been destroyed. The building was significantly damaged.
“All the historic things in the building are lost forever – the chief’s records and the records are gone,” Palisades Park Commissioner Sophie Haymann said, standing outside the smoldering 100-year old building. The Commission’s archival holdings are a largely untapped Hudson Valley treasure, but most are stored off-site. [Read more…] about Fire Damages Palisades Park Commission Building, Archives
The National Park Service (NPS) has released findings and a follow-up corrective action plan for the December 2018 visitor center fire at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, NY. The loss of the visitor center impacted the staff and operations at the park, as the building housed many aspects of park operations including staff, historic house tour ticket sales and a bookstore.
The NPS investigation into the cause of the fire was inconclusive, however they concluded that there did not appear to be any indications that it was intentionally caused. Several accidental causes of the fire were considered, including furnace malfunction, original equipment installation issues and storage practices. The report says the building had a monitored fire detection and alarm system and portable fire extinguishers and Park leadership and staff followed applicable NPS structural fire policies. [Read more…] about Sagamore Hill Fire Findings Released By Park Service
The Club Camp is often mentioned as the first permanent structure built on Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks. The word permanent is rather ironic because this hunting and fishing establishment had a relatively short history of just 28 years. Today the camp’s origins, visitors, and sad end seem largely forgotten.
According to Joseph F. Grady’s The Adirondacks: Fulton Chain-Big Moose Region (1933), the Club Camp was constructed in 1878 at the request of several sportsmen from New York City who had been spending summers on the lake in previous years.
At the time, Big Moose, near Old Forge, NY, was difficult to reach — the railroad would not arrive in the area until 1892. Before 1878, only lean-tos or shanties were available on Big Moose, notably that of businessman William “Billy” Dutton, which was built in 1876, and that of guide Jack Sheppard which was set up around the same time. [Read more…] about A Short History of Club Camp on Big Moose Lake
When Abraham Hasbrouck (1707-1791) awoke on the morning of May 19, 1780, he looked at the sun, and probably saw a reddish glow around it.
He recorded in his diary that by eight in the morning, “the sun was darkened.” It became so dark that one thought it was night time. Hasbrouck continued in his diary entry that it was not a solar eclipse. Citizens like, Richard Miller Devens, to the Northeast in New England, not only saw the reddish glow around the sun, but remarked, ”a black scum floated on rivers.” General George Washington camped to the south in New Jersey also commented about the unusual nature of the morning. Abraham Hasbrouck, living in Kingston, New York in Ulster County, had no idea that he was witnessing what would become known as, “The Dark Day.” [Read more…] about New England’s Darkest Day
Fire! Fire! The words still strike fear into people, but in the 19th Century, the alarm of a fire in a community sometimes brought disaster. Unfortunately, large fires were very commonplace.
Fires in the early 19th Century sometimes leveled blocks of homes in Albany, and in the mid-19th Century, a spark from a steam engine set the old wooden Green Island Bridge over the Hudson River on fire and westerly winds blew hot embers into Troy causing the great conflagration that destroyed much of the center portion of the city. Building codes changed due to fires like these. [Read more…] about A Short History of Watervliet Water Works
Ginger Adams Otis’ new book Firefight: The Century-Long Battle to Integrate New York’s Bravest (2015 Palgrave MacMillan) offers a fresh look at New York City’s firefighters’ critical Civil Rights history.
Firefight is a narrative from veteran reporter Ginger Adams Otis that delves deep into the struggle of black firefighters to truly integrate the FDNY – the largest fire department in the U.S.
It sheds light on the long, painful effort to achieve the still-elusive post-racial America and shares the untold history of the black men and women who battled to join the Bravest. [Read more…] about Firefight: The Battle to Integrate the NYFD