There is a fascinating letter from Evan Evans of Turin, Lewis County, NY to his relatives back in Wales. It is written in Welsh and dated August 1856.
The letter tells the story of a young man who had recently arrived in the United States who was struggling with homesickness and wrestling with doubts about whether he had made the right decision to move to America. He describes the sea-crossing, his arrival, and his new life in north-central New York State.
The letter now resides in the Meirionnydd Archives in northwest Wales. [Read more…] about A Welsh Immigrant Writes Home from Upstate New York, 1856
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released a final Recreation Management Plan (RMP) for the Croghan Tract Conservation Easement.
Many of the lakes in John Brown’s Tract had guides who took their sporting parties to their own fishing or hunting camps north and south of the Beaver River. This is how lakes like Hitchcock, Beach, and Salmon got their names. 
On July 8, 1874, The Lowville Journal and Republican ran an article about a party of six men who trekked to Twitchell Lake in Big Moose, NY, for a nine-day stay. They came by horse and buggy up the Number Four Road through Watson Township from some town to the west. 
“Melancholy Occurrence” was a fairly common expression for a tragic event in the middle of the 19th century. A search of historic newspapers revealed the phrase was used some 250 times from 1820 to 1870. Several of these were murder cases, such as the son of the Spanish Consul being stabbed through the heart with a cane sword by an angry neighbor. But most were unexpected events such as a fatal strike by lightening, a young fire victim, or a drowning. 
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, three generations of the Crego family worked as wilderness guides in the Western Adirondacks. Along the way, they raised families, worked for prominent employers, adapted to new forms of transportation, and helped lay the groundwork for the conservation movement in New York State. 
Ever wonder how one of the hundreds of lakes and ponds in the Adirondack Mountains got its name? Around Brown’s Tract, there are lakes named from nature such as Loon, Beaver, Trout, Gull, Bear, and Moose. There are also a dozen or more lakes named for noted guides or people who lived in or frequented the area during the Sporting Era (1860 to 1890), including Mosier, Francis, Hitchcock, Beach, Tuttle, Thayer, Smith, Salmon, and Wood.