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malone

Sprucelets: An Original Adirondack Medicine

March 25, 2017 by Lawrence P. Gooley 1 Comment

Cold and flu season once again has sufferers scrambling for any kind of relief from all sorts of medicines. A little over a century ago, right here on Northern New York store shelves, next to cough drops by national companies like Smith Brothers and Luden’s, was a local product made in Malone.

Sprucelets were created mainly from a raw material harvested in the Adirondacks: spruce gum. Like hops, blueberries, and maple syrup, the seasonal gathering and sale of spruce gum boosted the incomes of thousands of North Country folks seeking to make a dollar any way they could. Much of what they picked was sold to national gum companies, but some was used locally by entrepreneurs who established small factories and created many jobs.

Among these was the Symonds & Allison Company of Malone, founded there in 1897 by Charles Symonds and Aaron Allison when the latter purchased half-interest in Symonds Brothers, a convenience-store operation offering food, coffee, candy, and tobacco products. [Read more…] about Sprucelets: An Original Adirondack Medicine

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History, Nature Tagged With: Adirondacks, malone, Medical History

Should We Still Teach Cursive Handwriting?

January 8, 2014 by Herb Hallas 5 Comments

01679vAn ad like the one in the January 21, 1869 issue of the Malone Palladium which announced the opening of a new writing school in Malone, NY, was not uncommon during the post-Civil War era.

According to the ad, Professor T.M. Tobin, a former teacher at the Vermont Business College in Burlington, was offering to teach “ladies and gentlemen the Spencerian system of penmanship.”

Students were expected to provide their own foolscap paper, “good” ink, and pens. Tobin’s ad stated that specimens of his penmanship could be seen at the post office and that he would award a gold pen to the student who showed the most improvement. His fee for twelve lessons in today’s money was about $35.00, payable in advance. [Read more…] about Should We Still Teach Cursive Handwriting?

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Common Core, Cultural History, Dutchess County, Education, malone, St Lawrence County, Vermont

William Almon Wheeler: North Country Political Star

December 14, 2013 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Wheeler cover designA new biography is shedding light on an overshadowed North Country political figure, the Nineteenth Vice President of the United States. In William Almon Wheeler: Political Star of the North Country (2013, SUNY Press), author Herbert C. Hallas leaves no doubt that Wheeler was a more significant political figure than the existing literature may lead one to believe.

The book is the first and only complete biography of Wheeler, a man referred to as “the New York Lincoln,” who helped to found the Republican Party and build it into a formidable political force during the Gilded Age. Wheeler’s life is an American success story about how a poor boy from Malone achieved fame and fortune as a lawyer, banker, railroad president, state legislator, five-time congressman, and vice president of the United States. [Read more…] about William Almon Wheeler: North Country Political Star

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Books, History Tagged With: Civil War, Franklin County, malone, Political History

Olympia Brown: Crusader for Women’s Rights

June 19, 2013 by Herb Hallas 4 Comments

07350rOlympia Brown made U.S. history in the North Country 150 years ago, early this summer. She became the first woman to become a fully ordained minister with a degree from a regularly established theological school. Olympia was ordained in the Universalist Church of Malone by the St. Lawrence Association of Universalists on June 25, 1863 and graduated from the St. Lawrence University Theological School in Canton two weeks later, on July 9, 1863.

Throughout the remainder of her 91-year-old life, she was an outspoken Universalist preacher and a fearless campaigner for suffrage and equal rights for women. Olympia marched, lectured, testified, published, protested and picketed a myriad of times from coast to coast. [Read more…] about Olympia Brown: Crusader for Women’s Rights

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Fredrick Douglas, Gender History, malone, Political History, Religion, St Lawrence County, Suffrage Movement

New Website Features Northern Franklin County History

May 30, 2012 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A comprehensive new website on the oral and digital history of Malone and other towns of northern Franklin County, New York, has been launched. The new site brings to life the history of this area from 1870 to 1940.

The website includes the material from a previous website dedicated to the history of the Franklin County logging community of Reynoldston, 1870-1970, located in the Town of Brandon.
You can listen to over 140 hours of tapes of people talking about all aspects of life in the late 19th and early 20th century in Northern New York. It includes hundreds of historical pictures, maps documents and thousands of pages of interview transcripts of more than 40 individuals. The tapes were collected from 1969- 1970. Historical features and background articles on the history of the area are included on the site.

The interviews were with a wide range of people who helped to settle and build the area: farmers, loggers, businessmen, politicians, woolen mill workers, sawmill operators, teachers, housewives, blacksmiths, and prominent members of the Malone community. They deal with religious and personal beliefs, home remedies, schooling, bootlegging, farming, growing hops, and many other topics. The interviews are autobiographical and includes comprehensive details of home life and work.

Photo: Interior of the Blacksmith Shop, Reynoldston, Franklin County,  NY.

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY Tagged With: Franklin County, malone, Online Resources, Oral History

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