History, Natural History & the Arts
In 1914, after secretly running Knox Gelatine for six years, Rose Knox revealed that she’d assumed her deceased husband’s position as the company’s president.
As President of company from 1908 to 1947, she drew on traditional ideals of domesticity and womanhood to turn the company into an iconic American brand and herself into a business celebrity. [Read more…] about Rose Knox’s Gelatine, Leadership, Mixed Kitchen & Boardroom
In March 1902, eighty-five-year-old Alvah Dunning traveled from the Adirondacks to New York City for a sportsmen’s exhibition. By then, photographs and newspaper profiles had made his white beard and weathered face familiar. Visitors were not meeting an unknown woodsman.
They were being introduced to “Uncle Alvah,” a man presented as one of the last survivors of the Adirondacks before railroads, hotels and private preserves changed the region. [Read more…] about Alvah Dunning: The Guide Behind the Adirondack Hermit
What follows is an excerpt from The Hunter-Naturalist. Romance of Sporting; or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters (ca. 1851) by journalist and explorer Charles Wilkins Webber (1819-1856). In 1855 Webber went to Central America where he joined the filibuster William Walker in Nicaragua to fight in the Filibuster War and was killed in the Second Battle of Rivas on April 11, 1856.
A summer’s journey of sporting adventure towards the North, dating at a much later period in my life than those previously given as personal, included a sojourn amongst that linked and wonderful cluster of Lakes, extending from Hamilton County, in the west of New York, north to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence. Something of the “Wild Scenes” and characteristic incidents amidst the haughty solitudes of those rugged hemlock-bristled Adirondacks, and their chaste, cold, glistening Lakes, I must give in a fragmentary way. [Read more…] about An 1840s Adirondack Travelogue: Speculator to Long Lake
During the summer, several tornados and microbursts touched down in Hamilton, Fulton, and Saratoga counties. Significant damage occurred to the Northville- Placid Trail in the Adirondacks south of Piseco, making the trail difficult to navigate and largely impassable in places. [Read more…] about Massive Storm Damage on Northville-Placid Trail Cleared
Both the Beaverkill Campground in the Catskills and the Pisecos Campground in the Adirondacks are now available for 2024 camping reservations. Adjustments to campsite numbers and new additions were made at both facilities for the upcoming season. [Read more…] about Beaverkill and Pisecos Campgrounds to Re-open
The Foxy Brown X-Country Ski Trail is a 5.6-mile trail located within the Jessup River Wild Forest, in Piseco (in the town of Arietta, Hamilton County).
After traveling along the Piseco Airport runway, the trail routes users primarily through over a newly built bridge across a muddy bog and northern hardwood forest. To complete a loop, users will follow the trail just north of the runway and should be sure to check for oncoming aircraft before traveling back to the trailhead and parking area. [Read more…] about Featured Trail: Foxy Brown XC Trail In Jessup River Wild Forest
The Sacandaga River valley has been used as a transportation and communication corridor since before Europeans arrived. It was a native trail, a military road, and a proposed canal and railroad route. Today it’s home to Route 30.
The river is a provider of power and recreation, and a powerful force of nature. [Read more…] about Sacandaga River History: Piseco, Lake Pleasant Reservoirs
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