History, Natural History & the Arts
The Raquette River flows from its source at Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks, to the St. Lawrence River at Akewesasne.
East of Tupper Lake and just north of Simon Pond is a place called “The Cut.”
“The Cut” was channel dug to “straighten the river” so that logs could be floated (driven) straight into Simon Pond, thus avoiding a shallow and meandering section of the Raquette River known as Moody’s Flow. [Read more…] about An Unnatural History of the Raquette River
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
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
Prolific Adirondack researcher and writer William J. O’Hern’s new book Adirondack Timber Cruising takes the reader on a journey through the development of timber cruising, logging, and forestry and our relationship to forests.
[Read more…] about New Book Tackles Adirondack Lumber Cruising
The word Adirondack calls to mind many things — natural beauty, family playground, sporting opportunities, colorful history — but nothing so dark as prisoner-of-war host.
Yet during the last world war (let’s hope it was the last), followers of Hitler and Mussolini populated the North Country. [Read more…] about Adirondack World War 2 POW Labor Camps
The Warren County Historical Society is opening a new exhibit, Logging at the Bend of the River, curated by Faith Bouchard. A debut reception will be held on Thursday, August 2 from 4 to 7 pm at the Society’s headquarters, 50 Gurney Lane, in Queensbury.
The exhibit showcases the important history of logging and papermaking in Warren County and the southern Adirondacks and features the role of some the region’s oldest companies, Finch in Glens Falls and International Paper in Ticonderoga (and formerly South Glens Falls).
Recently my son Adam and his seven-year-old daughter Mckenna were canoeing on the Hudson River above the Feeder Dam in Glens Falls when they noticed a small tree growing atop an old stone pier about 30 feet from shore – and something more. Tangled in the roots, they found a large old rusted chain with links 4 inches wide by 6 inches long.
Sharing pictures with Richard “Dick” Nason, the unofficial Finch Pruyn historian and an authority on river log drives, it appears likely the chain was left over from the heyday of log drives on the Hudson River. The chain was found in the Big Boom sorting area. Logs were released from the Big Boom upriver and floated down to the sorting area where they were tallied by owners, identified by the owner’s mark stamped on the butt end of each log. The sorting area was used from 1851 to 1929. Dick suspects the chain may be from the late 1800s. [Read more…] about The Big Boom: Old Hudson River Chain Recalls Logging History
Jay O’Hearn’s new book, Adirondack Logging: Life and Time in the Early Years of Logging’s Mechanization (Versa Press 2016) portrays the timber-logging lives of lumberjacks in the “Glory Years” following the introduction of Linn log hauling tractors.
The book includes interviews with loggers, remembrances of lumber camp life, accounts of river drives, the passing of old-style logging with horses, remembrances of yesterday’s lumberjacks, and stories that accompany appetizing recipes.
Rare photographic images capture the scenes once common around lumber camps, centers of the logging industry built exclusively for the lumberjacks. [Read more…] about Jay O’Hern’s New Book On Adirondack Logging
On Thursday, September 15 at 7 pm at the Chapman Historical Museum, Director Tim Weidner will present an illustrated talk on construction of Sherman Island (Parklap) Dam in on the Hudson River in Moreau in the early 1920s. Members of the public are invited to bring and to share their clippings, photos or other research materials relating to Hudson River dams. Of particular interest is information about the “IP train track” that ran from the Finch, Pruyn & Co. mill along the north side of the river and the small settlement of kit houses built for workers at the dam site.
The program is presented in connection with the museum’s exhibition, Harnessing the Hudson, which will be on display through September 25th. The Chapman Historical Museum is located at 348 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY. Public hours are: Tuesday – Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm, and Sunday from noon to 4 pm. For more information call (518) 793-2826 or go to www.chapmanmuseum.org.
Photo: Workers laying track to the Sherman Island Dam site, 1921.
There is a new website about the Reynolds Brothers Mill and Logging operation in the community of Reynoldston in the Township of Brandon (Franklin County) which was in operation from 1870 – 1940.
“We have created this website to document the history of this small community using oral history tapes and transcripts we created in 1969/70 as well as with historical photographs and a range of related historical documentation,” according to local historian and website volunteer Bill Langlois.
Reynoldston is one of the many logging centered communities in the Adirondacks that prospered during the cutting of local forests but disappeared when those same forests were clear cut.
The site already features oral history interviews, photographs and documents and is expected to expand to include material on Skerry in the Township of Brandon and the Bowen Mill as well as a wide range of other tapes and transcripts on the early history of Franklin County.