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Moose River

Along The Mohawk & Malone: Forest Fires & Logging South of Big Moose (1900-1920)

December 27, 2022 by Noel Sherry 2 Comments

Picture of Rev. John Fitzgerald, Born in England, John Gerald Fitzgerald (1850-1925) attended seminary in Troy, NY, accepting his first assignment as a priest in the Diocese of Ogdensburg. Following pastorates in upstate New York, Father Fitz – as he was affectionately called – was given the daunting challenge of establishing a parish in Old Forge, in the Adirondacks.

In 1896, Northern Herkimer County was a heavily forested region dotted by tiny hamlets, scattered lumber camps, and remote railroad stations along the Mohawk & Malone Railroad. For the next twenty-nine years, he got off the Mohawk & Malone at stations like McKeever, Carter, Big Moose, Beaver River, Brandreth, Keepewa, Nehasane, and Horseshoe Lake, carrying his bible and sacraments from these stops to remote lumber camps on snowshoes, wearing his trademark coonskin cap and woolen mittens. His parish stretched over a 200 square-mile area. [Read more…] about Along The Mohawk & Malone: Forest Fires & Logging South of Big Moose (1900-1920)

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, Article 14, Beaver River, Big Moose, conservation, Fires, Forest Preserve, Forestry, Fulton Chain, Gifford Pinchot, Herkimer COunty, Industrial History, Logging, Logging the Adirondacks, McKeever, Mohawk & Malone Railroad, Moose River, New York Central RR, railroads, Raquette Lake

Central Adirondacks Lumbering Operations (1880-1900)

November 1, 2022 by Noel Sherry 1 Comment

6b1 Webb Land Sold to NYS in 1896 on Julius Bien MapAfter achieving his railroad dream and completing his Nehasane wilderness refuge – reachable using his own luxury rail car – William Seward Webb found himself in a major conflict with the State of New York.

Inlet historian Charles Herr tells this part of the story expertly, in his history of the Fulton Chain. My map here highlights that land aquisition by the State in yellow, totaling 74,585 acres of Brown’s Tract and in the Totten & Crossfield Purchase. Webb retained ownership of lakes like Twitchell and Big Moose because he intended those for later cottage and hotel sales. [Read more…] about Central Adirondacks Lumbering Operations (1880-1900)

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, Beaver River, Big Moose, Big Moose Tract, Black River, Forest Preserve, Herkimer, Herkimer COunty, John A. Dix, Legal History, Logging, McKeever, Mohawk & Malone Railroad, Moose River, Oneida County, Stillwater, Totten Crossfield Tract, Town of Webb, Transportation History, Twitchell Lake, Utica, William Seward Webb

William Seward Webb’s Railroad & Logging The Adirondacks

October 31, 2022 by Noel Sherry 5 Comments

Picture of an antique crosscut saw taken by Noel Sherry and hanging in his cabin; Hanging above a window in our Twitchell Lake cabin northeast of Big Moose, Herkimer County, in the Adirondacks is this five-foot-long saw with a handle at both ends, and a row of sharp knife-like teeth. I have never used it, but now know it is an antique crosscut saw for use by one or two persons. [Read more…] about William Seward Webb’s Railroad & Logging The Adirondacks

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, Beaver River, Big Moose, Brown's Tract, Copenhagen, Gifford Pinchot, Herkimer COunty, Industrial History, John A. Dix, Labor History, Logging, Mohawk & Malone Railroad, Moose River, New York Central RR, railroads, Transportation History, Twitchell Lake, William Seward Webb

An Adirondack Lumber Camp at Twitchell Lake, 1860-80

May 25, 2022 by Noel Sherry Leave a Comment

5a Objects dug up in Lumber Camp #2 about a half mile east of Twitchell Lake, Noel SherryMy uncle Frank Sherry taught my brother Tom and I orienteering, using a map and compass to navigate through the woods and find a remote pond or other location. We were teenagers and it was an exciting way to spend a Saturday.

On one of these adventures we were in search of Silver Dollar Pond to the east of Twitchell Lake in Northern Herkimer County,when we stumbled on our first lumber camp. The telltale signs were pieces of metal hanging from a tree and protruding from the ground, with old bottles half-buried in the forest floor. We made note of the location on our map, a half-mile from Twitchell, and returned to explore it. It wasn’t long before we located the camp dump, from which we dug up the items pictured here.

These and other objects triggered an active discussion on the date of this old camp, with an imaginative re-creation of what life might have been like for a lumberjacks living and working there. [Read more…] about An Adirondack Lumber Camp at Twitchell Lake, 1860-80

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History, Nature, Western NY Tagged With: Adirondacks, Archaeology, Architecture, Beaver Falls, Beaver River, Big Moose, Black River, Brown's Tract, Copenhagen, Croghan, Environmental History, Forest Preserve, Forestry, Hemlock Trees, Herkimer COunty, Industrial History, Labor History, Lewis County, Logging, Moose River, Tanning, Totten Crossfield Tract, trees, Twitchell Lake

Logging the Adirondack Interior, Spurring Preservation (1840-60)

May 25, 2022 by Noel Sherry Leave a Comment

One of the most satisfying pastimes for me at our summer home on Twitchell Lake in Big Moose in the Adirondacks in Northern Herkimer County), was taking the camp guide boat out for a spin. That privilege was earned by passing the family test, a solo swim across the lake, about the distance of a football field.

Weighing just over 30 pounds, this unique 14-foot wooden craft sped through the water powered by two oars. A cabin shelf still displays several awards for winning the annual guide boat race. I fondly remember the one-mile hikes to neighboring Oswego Pond, trailing my older brother Burt carrying that guide boat on his shoulders using a hand-carved yoke, my father in the lead bearing the oars and fishing gear. [Read more…] about Logging the Adirondack Interior, Spurring Preservation (1840-60)

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History, Nature, Recreation Tagged With: Adirondacks, Beaver Falls, Beaver River, Big Moose, Big Moose Tract, Black River, Cultural History, Environmental History, fishing, Herkimer COunty, Industrial History, John Brown Tract, Labor History, Lewis County, Logging, Moose River, Totten Crossfield Tract, Transportation History, Twitchell Lake

Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

May 9, 2022 by Dave Waite 6 Comments

1885 Stoddard Map of the Adirondack WildernessThe adventure began with an exchange of letters in the spring of 1877 between a sportsman in Syracuse, NY, and Byron P. Graves of Boonville, a town on the western border of the Adirondacks. The purpose of this correspondence was to hire a guide and transportation for a two-week hunting and fishing trip into the Fulton Chain of Lakes for the man and his 11-year-old son Ned.

The sportsman was Ansel Judd Northrup, a 43-year-old attorney who would later write the book, Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks (1882), where this story was first told. The final communication from Northrup, in the form of a telegraph, simply read, “Engage Brinckerhoff, will reach Boonville, morning train, July 5th.” [Read more…] about Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, Boonville, Brown's Tract, Eagle Lake, Forked Lake, Fourth Lake, Fulton Chain, Herkimer COunty, Marion River, Moose River, Old Forge, paddling, Raquette Lake, Seventh Lake, Transportation History, Utica

Logging The Adirondacks From The West (1800-1820)

May 2, 2022 by Noel Sherry 6 Comments

2a Eastern Lewis Co TownshipsIn the nineteenth century Lewis County settlements east of the Black River were just getting established; most of these included at least one saw mill. By 1820 these settlements were beginning to push their way up the rivers into the Adirondacks, and new mills were being built along their courses. A Copenhagen, NY farmer on Tug Hill, viewing the Adirondack panorama spread out to his east, wrote the following in a Journal & Republican article titled “North Woods Wonder:”

“All the wilderness is strewn with lakes as if some great mirror had been shattered by an Almighty hand, and scattered through the forests for Nature to make her toilet by … And how the rivers meander the woods as the veins of a human hand. There are Beaver, Moose, and Indian, Bog, Grass and Racket… And how rough and shaggy the wilderness is with mountains … Let them pass unnamed.”

One of these “shattered” gems was Twitchell Lake. [Read more…] about Logging The Adirondacks From The West (1800-1820)

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History, Nature, Western NY Tagged With: Adirondacks, Alexander Macomb, Beaver Falls, Beaver River, Black River, Boonville, Brown's Tract, conservation, Copenhagen, Croghan, Diana, Environmental History, Forestport, Greig, Herkimer COunty, Independence River, Independence River State Forest, Independence River Wild Forest, Indigenous History, Industrial History, Lewis County, Logging, Lowville, Moose River, New Bremen, Old Forge, Oneida County, Oswegatchie River, Otter Creek, Otter River, Raquette River, surveying, Totten Crossfield Tract, Twitchell Lake, Watson

Jack Sheppard: Civil War Vet, Panther Hunter, Adirondack Guide & Steamboat Operator

November 7, 2021 by Roy Crego 7 Comments

Exhibit 1_Sheppard Portrait Jack Sheppard came to the Fulton Chain region of the Western Adirondacks after roaming the West as a youth and then served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

These experiences equipped Sheppard with the knowledge, skills, and social network to become a successful guide and enabled him to shift his occupation from guide to innkeeper, to builder, to businessman. He never married or raised a family, but when he left the Adirondacks in 1892 he left behind a long list of devoted friends that reads like a virtual who’s who of Adirondack history. [Read more…] about Jack Sheppard: Civil War Vet, Panther Hunter, Adirondack Guide & Steamboat Operator

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: 117th NY Volunteers, Adirondack Guides, Adirondacks, Brown's Tract, Civil War, Environmental History, Fourth Lake, Genealogy, Hamilton County, Herkimer COunty, hunting, Moose River, Mountain Lions, Old Forge, Steamboating, surveying, Verplanck Colvin, wolves

Poetry: Encounter on the Moose River

July 18, 2020 by George Cassidy Payne Leave a Comment

Encounter on the Moose River

Startled by steps-
that New Balance
bounce- like Boeing
jets gliding through
the metallic twilight
of a perfect aloneness,
a blue heron hides be
tween two teal wings,
folding and glittering,
holding eyelids near the
fleeting shadows of a
river’s moving stillness.

Read More Poems From The New York Almanack HERE.

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Arts Tagged With: Moose River, Poetry

The Crego Family: Three Generations of Adirondack Guides

April 15, 2020 by Roy Crego 4 Comments

crego-farm-courtesy-Joyce-Entremont  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. [Read more…] about The Crego Family: Three Generations of Adirondack Guides

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Adirondack Guides, Adirondack Park, Big Moose, Big Moose Lake, Boonville, Brown's Tract, Fish and Game Commission, fishing, Fourth Lake, Fulton Chain, hunting, Lewis County, Moose River, Old Forge, Oneida Fish Hatchery

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