New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Nehasane Park

An Adirondack Social History of Twitchell Lake

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Slap Jack Luncheon' pictures a Lone Pine lean-to and campfire group, Low Hamilton cooking, from the Allen Family Photo Album (ca 1904)The Adirondack Park is a unique balance of public preserves and private land, a birthplace of the American wilderness vacation, and a large-scale experiment in humans and nature thriving together (and showing a remarkable ecological recovery).

Reflecting on my own small Adirondack lake community at Twitchell Lake in Herkimer County, social life seems to have passed through at least three phases – among the rugged early sportsmen and women, through the wild “Gilded Age” settlement era, and into our turbulent 20th and 21st centuries. [Read more…] about An Adirondack Social History of Twitchell Lake

Twitchell Lake: Wilderness, Survey and Settlement

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northern new york lake ontario watershed mapTwitchell Lake is an Adirondack gem that has been protected over time by its remote location. Originally carved out by the last glacier, it drains northwestward into Beaver River, which exits the Adirondacks into Lewis County’s Black River, finally meandering its way into Lake Ontario. Twitchell’s location is starred on this unique watershed map. [Read more…] about Twitchell Lake: Wilderness, Survey and Settlement

Later Logging of Nehasane, Whitney & Brandreth Parks

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Three Private Preserves in the Adirondack Mountains, Matthews-Northrup Works, ca 1912 (NY Heritage) showing Brandreth Preserve, Whitney Preserve, and Nehasane ParkNehasane, Brandreth and Whitney Preserves were three private parks in the Adirondacks that included logging railroads built to extract large stands of virgin timber in the late 19th century. This is the final part of a series of essays about the logging of these private parks in the 1900-1920 period. [Read more…] about Later Logging of Nehasane, Whitney & Brandreth Parks

Nehasane Park: Ground Zero in the Adirondack Logging Debate

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Three Private Preserves in the Adirondack Mountains, Matthews-Northrup Works, ca 1912 (NY Heritage) showing Brandreth Preserve, Whitney Preserve, and Nehasane ParkNehasane Park, and the Brandreth and Whitney Preserves were three private parks that included logging railroads built to extract large stands of virgin timber in the late 19th century.  In 1914, Brandreth Park gained the rare distinction of having the biggest log sled load in Northern New York.

Nehasane Park, created by William Seward Webb on Lake Lila, included 115,000 acres (including the Adirondack Railroad). [Read more…] about Nehasane Park: Ground Zero in the Adirondack Logging Debate

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