History, Natural History & the Arts
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will welcome Fulton County Historian Samantha Hall-Saladino as she presents a talk on the women of Fulton County and their roles in World War One and World War Two.
This free presentation will be held in the Enders House on Schoharie Street in Fort Hunter on August 23rd starting at 6:30 pm. [Read more…] about Fulton County Women in the World Wars
One of the real pleasures in researching and writing When Men and Mountain Meet was exploring the actual sites of the historic places mentioned in my book: the little town of Castorland on the Black River, the LeRay Mansion at Fort Drum, Gouverneur Morris’ Mansion at Natural Dam and David Parish’s house, now the Remington Art Museum, in Ogdensburg. And then there was finding Zephaniah Platt’s grave in the Riverside Cemetery in Plattsburgh, in Lake Placid the site of the 1813 Elba Iron and Steel Manufacturing works , Charles Herreshoff’s flooded iron ore mine in Old Forge and the complex of building foundations that made up John Thurman’s 1790 development at Elm Hill.
There was one site, however, that was a little harder to locate than the others; Sir William Johnson’s fishing camp “Fish House”. [Read more…] about The Mystery of William Johnson’s ‘Fish House’
Sports enthusiast Mike Hauser has a personal stake in advocating National Baseball Hall of Fame status for George Joseph Burns, who played his best years with the New York Giants. Burns was the brother of Hauser’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side.
Burns is being inducted into the Fulton County Baseball and Sports Hall of Fame on July 11th during the annual vintage baseball game. [Read more…] about Old Time Utica Ballplayer George Burns
This week “The Historians” podcast features Leader Herald columnist Peter Betz with stories of two African American Civil War veterans from Fulton County. Betz also has a tale from the days of Sacandaga Park, operated by the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversillle Railroad. Listen at “The Historians” online archive at http://www.bobcudmore.com/thehistorians/
[Read more…] about Historians Podcast: African American Civil War Vets
In the fourth installment of the Adirondack Museum’s Cabin Fever Sundays series, New York Council for the Humanities speaker Robert Arnold III will explore the legacy of Robert Fulton, the creator of the first commercially successful steamboat.
Arnold will address the ways Fulton’s steamboat helped to catalyze the expansion of steam power into the energy source that propelled America’s Industrial Revolution. Fulton was a talented artist and inventor who also devised canal locks used in Britain, and the first workable submarine (for Napoleon Bonaparte). [Read more…] about Robert Fulton Lecture At Adirondack Museum
This week on “The Historians” podcast, an interview with Gloversville Leader Herald columnist and former Fulton County historian Peter Betz on murders most foul. Betz says his readers react the most to crime tales in his bi-weekly history column. In a 1934 murder, a nurse kept her wits about her, but her friend, a popular Gloversville shoe salesman, died anyway. Listen at “The Historians” online archive at http://www.bobcudmore.com/thehistorians/
[Read more…] about The Historians Podcast: Fulton County Murders
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will celebrate the 189th Birthday of the Erie Canal at its annual Birthday Bash on Sunday, October 26th from 1 to 5 pm. This year will feature rides from Run by Dogs Dogsledding, a pie raffle, and a beard contest, as well as local farmers showcasing their products, a pumpkin decorating contest, cider tasting, and music. Free walking tours will be available at 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm.
Schoharie Crossing will also be exhibiting a cannon used to announce the opening of the canal in 1825 that has been loaned by the Fulton County Historical Society’s Fulton County Museum for this occasion. [Read more…] about Erie Canal Birthday Party Planned At Schoharie Crossing
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Association will offer a public review of the case of convicted Adirondack serial killer Robert Garrow tomorrow, Thursday, October 2 at the Johnstown Eagles Club, 12 S. William St., at 7 pm. The presentation will be given by regular New York History Blog contributor Lawrence P. Gooley, who is the author of Terror in the Adirondacks: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert F. Garrow.
Garrow, an abused Dannemora child turned thief, serial rapist, and killer who admitted to seven rapes and four murders (although police believed there were many more). Among his victims were campers near Speculator where Garrow escaped a police dragnet and traveled up Route 30 through Indian Lake and Long Lake and eventually made his way to Witherbee where he was tracked down and shot in the foot. Claiming he was partially paralyzed, Garrow was shot and killed during an attempted prison escape in September 1978 – he had faked his paralysis. [Read more…] about Johnstown: Serial Killer Robert Garrow Talk Thursday
This week on “The Historians”, retired Fulton County historian and Leader Herald history columnist Peter Betz has the story of an early drowning — or not — in the Sacandaga Reservoir. In the second half of the show I talk with Laura Winter Falk about her book Culinary History of the Finger Lakes: From the Three Sisters to Riesling (History Press).
Listen to the whole program at “The Historians” online archive at http://www.bobcudmore.com/thehistorians/
[Read more…] about The Historians: Peter Betz, Finger Lakes Culinary History
Back-to-school time perhaps brings back, for adults, the memory of a favorite teacher. But of those who are so warmly remembered, how many can elicit this wish by a former student of a 19th century teacher?
“If I could be permitted, how gladly would I again fill up the wood-box in your room and kindle the fire on your hearth…”
Those words came from the prestigious African American preacher, Rev. Daniel Webster Shaw (who, interestingly, was the son of a former slave, Harriet Shaw, with whom Solomon Northup was acquainted in Louisiana). “If I have done anything, or come to anything worth while, it is all mainly due to your timely helpfulness and godly admonition,” Shaw wrote. “I think of the school days on the Tache [Teche, a bayou in Louisiana], and all the kind ways in which you helped me to start out in life.” [Read more…] about North Country Teacher Taught Southern Freedmen