Lake Ontario

Mabel Allen’s 1908 Diary: Adams and Henderson Harbor

August 15, 2026 by Phil Brown Leave a Comment

Alice Mabel Allen (1886-1976) grew up in the village of Adams in Jefferson County. In 1908, while attending Syracuse University, Mabel, as she was known, kept a diary which New York Almanack is publishing each week.

Monday, August 17

I collected the laundry while Edna [her sister] got breakfast. Father took us across [Henderson Harbor] at 8:30 and we waited at Snow’s for Mrs. Rice with whom we rode to Adams. Found mother very tired and Mrs. C. better. [Read more…] about Mabel Allen’s 1908 Diary: Adams and Henderson Harbor

1908 Swimming & Summer Reading At Camp

July 11, 2026 by Phil Brown Leave a Comment

Alice Mabel Allen (1886-1976) grew up in the village of Adams in Jefferson County. In 1908, while attending Syracuse University, Mabel, as she was known, kept a diary which New York Almanack is publishing each week.

Monday, July 13

Father and Edna [her sister] left for Adams about noon. We — mother and I — took up the matting in the hall and mother washed. Put up banners and sewed on Edna’s bathing suit. After lunch we made the acquaintance of little Laura Howard who lives here the year around. [Read more…] about 1908 Swimming & Summer Reading At Camp

Northeastern Crayfish: Tiny Predators, Big Impact

May 29, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Crayfish fill my childhood memories. I spent summers playing in streams, flipping over rocks, and, if I was lucky, catching glimpses of these mysterious little creatures. Most crayfish are nocturnal and dart backwards to escape danger.

An early summer morning last year at Crystal Lake State Park, near Barton, Vermont, brought me back to these moments when I saw a crayfish along the shore in the gently lapping waves. As I knelt for a closer look, I realized I knew so little about crayfish in my backyard. [Read more…] about Northeastern Crayfish: Tiny Predators, Big Impact

Help Document New York Weather Impacts

April 30, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

MyCoast NY is a public web tool which offers an opportunity to contribute and access photos of flooding, shoreline change, and storm damage from anywhere in the state.

When you submit a photo, it is automatically linked to real-time weather, river, and tidal gauge data to help provide context for the photo. [Read more…] about Help Document New York Weather Impacts

Seth Concklin: A Daring, Dedicated New York Abolitionist

April 26, 2026 by William M. Goodman 2 Comments

Many New Yorkers before the Civil War contributed to the abolition of slavery, and the dangerous work of helping enslaved African-Americans flee their captors. Take Calvin Fairbank, a New York Methodist pastor born 1816, who spent 17 years in prison for his missions to help enslaved people escape.

Seth Concklin, a New Yorker whose name and sacrifice were more familiar in the 19th century, died tragically in 1851 while trying to help a mother and her three children escape from slavery. [Read more…] about Seth Concklin: A Daring, Dedicated New York Abolitionist

New York’s International Port at Rochester: Some History

January 20, 2026 by William M. Goodman 2 Comments

As Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle effused, presciently, in 1874: Charlotte, the Rochester NY neighborhood situated “at the mouth of the Genesee River, surrounded by scenery of unequaled beauty,” is “daily growing more important as a shipping port.”

The paper could scarcely have anticipated the impact of an international deal signed decades later, in 1905. “Car ferries” would be built, with related infrastructure, plus dredging of port channels to accommodate heavy loads, to directly link Rochester, with Cobourg in Ontario, Canada, to its north. The ferries would carry both freight-laden train cars and paying passengers. [Read more…] about New York’s International Port at Rochester: Some History

The Creation of Fort Ontario State Historic Site

January 15, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

In December 1945, after the Second World War, the last refugee departed the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter on February 5, 1946, and the Fort Ontario Military Reservation returned to the War Department at the end of the month.

The property then transferred to the State of New York on April 3, 1946. Approximately 60 wood-frame buildings constructed in 1941 were demolished. [Read more…] about The Creation of Fort Ontario State Historic Site

Old Fort Niagara Marking A 300th Anniversary

January 9, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Old Fort Niagara, one of North America’s most historic places, will host a year-long celebration in 2026 marking the 300th anniversary of its iconic “French Castle.”

Built in 1726 during King George’s War, the French Castle is believed to be the oldest building in the Great Lakes Basin. For three centuries, it has stood guard over the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario as a silent witness to the birth of nations, serving as a military stronghold, a bustling trading post, and a meeting ground for European and Indigenous cultures. [Read more…] about Old Fort Niagara Marking A 300th Anniversary

How The American Revolution Divided & Weakened The Six Nations

January 8, 2026 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

As tensions leading to the American Revolution developed, Native nations were divided in their loyalties to England, the American rebels, and their own alliances. Initially, Haudenosaunee Nations viewed the conflict as a civil war between colonists and chose to remain neutral.

Over time, it became clear to Haudenosaunee leaders that the winners of the revolution would ultimately be the parties they negotiated their futures with. Loyalties and allyship among the Nations diverged, weakening the overall power of the Iroquois Confederacy. [Read more…] about How The American Revolution Divided & Weakened The Six Nations

Management of Lake Ontario Barrier Beach System Being Planned

January 6, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released a draft Access and Public Use Plan (APUP) for the Lakeview Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The draft plan is available for public comment until February 5, 2026.

The 3,461-acre Lakeview WMA is located on State Route 3 in Jefferson County, NY, about 20 miles southwest of Watertown, or 15 miles northwest of Pulaski, along the eastern shoreline of Lake Ontario is part of the largest natural freshwater barrier beach system in New York State. [Read more…] about Management of Lake Ontario Barrier Beach System Being Planned

Fort Ontario During the American Revolutionary War

January 4, 2026 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

The American War for Independence (1775–1783) centered the Great Lakes in the middle of international conflict. By the 1770s, as tension between Britain and its American colonies reached a breaking point, Fort Ontario which had been constructed during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), was essentially abandoned.

It was located on Native land as defined by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the boundary line established by the subsequent 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. [Read more…] about Fort Ontario During the American Revolutionary War

Indigenous Transportation & Early Forts at Oswego

December 28, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

In attempts to maximize proximity to valuable trade with the Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous nations, Europeans established outposts and forts farther and farther into the interior of Haudenosaunee territory and the Great Lakes.

The French followed the St. Lawrence River into the Great Lakes and discovered that the Oswego River provided a water route inland to the Oswego-Oneida-Mohawk Carry, a trail using the largest portage connecting the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. [Read more…] about Indigenous Transportation & Early Forts at Oswego

The Irish 100th Regiment at Sackets Harbor & A Mysterious Button

December 26, 2025 by Constance Barone Leave a Comment

Recent artifacts donated and purchased at the Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site include a War of 1812 uniform button. The one-piece copper button with low-convex face with Prince of Wales’s plume, coronet, and motto with “100” below is in excellent shape and appears to be a water recovery. It comes with the original card stating it was recovered in Sackets Harbor in 1961.

This may not seem a particularly desirable purchase, but it has a unique story. Although the 100th Regiment arrived May 29th, 1813 with the Crown Forces, of the many war-era buttons in the site’s collection there were no 100th Regiment buttons. [Read more…] about The Irish 100th Regiment at Sackets Harbor & A Mysterious Button

The Burning of Buffalo during the War of 1812

November 24, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

On December 10, 1813, two New Yorkers raged at each other in the entryway of Joseph McCarthy’s store on Queen Street in the Upper Canada village of Newark, known today as Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Soldiers held back a crowd as the ranking officer in charge of the American troops occupying nearby Fort George, Brigadier-General George McClure (1771-1851) cursed a Buffalo physician and militia captain, the forty-four-year-old Dr. Cyrenius Chapin (1769-1838). Both were part of the New York State militia assigned by the United States regular army to occupy Canada’s Fort George. [Read more…] about The Burning of Buffalo during the War of 1812

Rangers Kept Busy With Hunter, Hiker and Angler Missions

November 5, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents throughout New York State locating and extracting lost, injured or distressed people and policing state lands.

This report of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers was prepared by DEC: [Read more…] about Rangers Kept Busy With Hunter, Hiker and Angler Missions

New York State’s Canal Heritage: An Engineering Family Tree

October 16, 2025 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

The canal system of New York State is a complex network of natural and man-made waterways that connect two of the Great Lakes that border the state with the Atlantic Ocean. The canals also incorporate Lake Champlain and the Finger Lakes. The development of this system bridges several generations and gives the canal system a genealogy of its own. [Read more…] about New York State’s Canal Heritage: An Engineering Family Tree

Some Unique National Historical Register Listings in New York

September 15, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The New York State Board for Historic Preservation was established in 1972 and expanded by the New York State Historic Preservation Act of 1980. It works with the State Historic Preservation Office to review nominations to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

In honor of the milestone 200th meeting of the Board for Historic Preservation (on September 10, 2025), below are some of New York’s most interesting resources in the National Register, either as individual sites or as parts of historic districts. [Read more…] about Some Unique National Historical Register Listings in New York

New York State Birding Trail Adds 12 Locations

July 8, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Twelve new locations have been added to the New York State Birding Trail. The new additions, in Central New York and Hudson River Valley, provide affordable opportunities for quality birding experiences.

The new additions provide a diversity of habitats that include forests, meadows, vernal pools, streams, and peat bogs. Although habitats vary across the locations, these sites offer great opportunities to observe seasonal migrating birds such as woodland warblers and flycatchers. [Read more…] about New York State Birding Trail Adds 12 Locations

Drilling For Salt: Salt Springs & New York’s Salt Industry Origins

July 6, 2025 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

As the presence of salt in New York was first made manifest through saline mineral springs it is proper to begin this discussion with the history of their discovery and utilization. The most important of these are in Onondaga County at Syracuse.

About the middle of the seventeenth century several of the Jesuit missionaries during their journeys among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), in what is now the State of New York, heard local salt springs and related these experiences in the Relations of the Jesuit fathers. [Read more…] about Drilling For Salt: Salt Springs & New York’s Salt Industry Origins

Last Seen in 1929: Have Silver Chub Returned?

June 22, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Silver Chub (Macrhybopsis storeriana) is a medium-sized, relatively nondescript minnow that, in New York, has only been collected from the watersheds of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

This species was last seen during surveys of the Lake Erie watershed in 1929 and has long been thought to be extirpated from the state, largely due to extensive pollution in the lake and its tributaries. Silver chubs are mainly restricted to large, often silty rivers and are sometimes found near the mouths of small streams. [Read more…] about Last Seen in 1929: Have Silver Chub Returned?

Lake Ontario

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