New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

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Forest Rangers Kept Busy With Multiple Adirondack, Catskills Rescues

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forest ranger logoNew York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents throughout 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 Forest Rangers Kept Busy With Multiple Adirondack, Catskills Rescues

Adirondack Wildfire Spreads By Wind Before Being Extinguished

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Wildfire at Brant Lake in Horicon in May 2023On Friday, May 14th at 1:25 pm, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers Morehouse and Savarie responded to a wildfire on Palisades Road, a road running alongside Brant Lake, in the town of Horicon, Warren County. [Read more…] about Adirondack Wildfire Spreads By Wind Before Being Extinguished

How Does A Land Trust Protect A Watershed? One Parcel At A Time

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Saddlebrook Stream Species start to vanish from streams during the first stages of suburban development, according to the United States Geological Service. By the time impervious surfaces had absorbed 20 percent of the terrain of some New England watersheds, for example, those streams’ aquatic invertebrate communities had shrunk by roughly 25 percent. [Read more…] about How Does A Land Trust Protect A Watershed? One Parcel At A Time

“Strange things about Mrs. Simeon Hays,” The Woman That Lived Without Eating

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Chestertown and Horicon map 1858Night and day for three full weeks six well-dressed men would take shifts standing watch over Betsey Hays in her bed. They planned to stay with her two at a time in her one room cabin and make careful scientific notes.  For Betsey, who spent most of her time tormented by uncontrollable bodily contortions and seizures, it was something she was used to.

Over the past two years, thousands of people had come to Chestertown in Northern Warren County to stand over her as she suffered. [Read more…] about “Strange things about Mrs. Simeon Hays,” The Woman That Lived Without Eating

New Effort to Promote Western Warren County’s “First Wilderness” Heritage Underway

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first wilderness heritage cooridorThe Warren County Department of Planning and Community Development has launched a collaboration with Cliff & Redfield Interactive (CRI), a Saratoga Springs-based rich-media communications organization, for a year-long campaign to promote community development and heritage tourism in the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor of western Warren County. [Read more…] about New Effort to Promote Western Warren County’s “First Wilderness” Heritage Underway

July On The Farm In The 19th Century

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Farming in JulyA July 1876 heat wave ripened Washington County garden crops early.

“Peas, summer squash and cucumbers are plenty,” The Granville Sentinel reported on July 21st. “The mercury climbs up every day into the nineties and drops only to seventy or eighty at night.” [Read more…] about July On The Farm In The 19th Century