Using a Watch as a Compass

From an old, yellowed newspaper clipping discovered recently:

"Vacationists in the Finger Lake region of Central New York, once the home of the famous Six Nations of Iroquois Indians, have devised a scheme by which a person lost in the woods or along some unfamiliar stream, may get the right direction, if they have a watch, as certainly as if they carried a compass.  The plan is now being followed by many fishermen and hunters in the Adirondacks.  The method of watch direction is described as follows:
     'By pointing the hour hand of your watch to the sun, the south may be found exactly halfway between the hour and the numeral 12 on the dial.  For example suppose that it is 4 o'clock.  Point the hand indicating 4 to the sun and 2 on the dial is directly south.  If it is 8 o'clock point the hand indicating 8 to the sun and the numeral 10 on the watch points to the south.'"

List of 1915 Forest Rangers and Fire Observers

From May 7, 1915 Chateaugay Record and Franklin County Democrat:

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The Frank Pond Music Company

In honor of Memorial Day and the fallen soldiers of America, we present this 1941 sheet music by the Frank Pond Music Co. of Mountain View (from the collection of the Franklin County Historical and Museum Society):

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An unidentified newspaper clipping (circa 1965):

 



The Settler

    The Settler
    By Alfred B. Street

His echoing axe the settler swung
Amid the sea-like solitude.
And rushing, thundering, down were flung
The Titans of the wood;
Loud shrieked the eagle as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed
With its supporting bough,
And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed
On the wolf's haunt below.

Rude was the garb, and strong the frame
Of him who plied his ceaseless toil:
To form that garb, the wild-wood game
Contributed their spoil;
The soul that warmed that frame, disdained
The tinsel, gaud, aud glare, that reigned
Where men their crowds collect;
The simple fur, untrimmed, unstained.
This forest tamer decked.

The paths which wound 'mid gorgeous trees,
The streams whose bright lips kissed their flowers.
The winds that swelled their harmonies
Through those sun-hiding bowers,
The temple vast—the green arcade,
The nestling vale, tho grassy glade.
Dark cave and swampy lair;
These scenes and sounds majestic, made
His world, his pleasures, there.

His roof adorned, a pleasant spot,
'Mid the black logs green glowed the grain,
And herbs and plants the woods knew not,
Throve in the sun and rain.

The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell,
The low—the bleat—the tinkling bell,
All made a landscape strange.
Which was the living chronicle
Of deeds that wrought the change.

The violet sprung at Spring's first tinge,
The rose of Summer spread its glow,
The maize hung on its Autumn fringe,
Rude Winter brought his snow; 
And still the settler labored there,
His shout and whistle woke the air,
As cheerily he plied
His garden spade, or drove his shore
Along the hillock's side.

This poem, and others extolling the delights of the New York wilderness were reprinted in Forest Leaves, a quarterly magazine published by the TB Sanatorium at Gabriels, 1903-1934.  The poet Alfred B. Street, the onetime NY State Librarian, often wrote about life in the wilderness with poetic descriptions of nature.  Street's "The Forsaken Road" evokes the balance of wilderness and settlement that is part of the Adirondacks in its first few lines:

In the deep bosom of the wilderness,
Arbor'd with green, now hidden by the leaves
Dropp'd at the breath of Autumn, seaming here
The hollow wet with oozing springs, and there
Traced lightly on the firm and level glade
Winds, in two wheel-marks, a forsaken road.

Evert A. & George L. Duyckinck, The Cyclopedia of American Literature p.435

(Philadelphia: William Rutter & Co., 1880)(Vol. 2)

Alfred Billings Street

1811-1881



R.C.A.F. Plane Crash

In 1942, several Royal Canadian Air Force airplanes crashed near Ragged Mountain.

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June 19, 1942 Chateaugay Record

Curiously, there was no further reporting in the local press on this tragedy.  Wartime censorship may perhaps account for this resounding media silence. 

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Santa Clara Lumber Company lumber camp

From the January 30, 1974 Tupper Lake Free Press and Tupper Lake Herald :

Santa Clara Lumber Company camp near Tupper Lake, ca. 1914

The newspaper caption reads:

AWAY BACK WHEN - The late Frank McCormick, Tupper photographer, snapped this picture about 60 years ago at one of the logging camps operated by the Santa Clara Lumber Co.  In the remote Cold River country.  His camera caught a glimpse of what was "home" for the winter for a lot of early Tupper residents, in an era when lumberjacks stayed in camp all winter.  Horse-power was still of the four-footed variety, and more than 30 were led out by their teamsters for this photo.  The teamster seated on his horse at left center cradles a puppy in his arms.  Perhaps some of the old timers among our readers can identify some of the lumbermen in this photo.

Frank McCormick operated his photographic studio on Park Street in Tupper Lake from 1904, when he moved it from its location on Cliff Ave, until his death in 1942.  His son James ran the studio from 1945-1955.   

And from the March 17, 1964 Malone Evening Telegram:

Santa Clara Lumber Camp on Ampersand Pond, circa 1905

The newspaper caption reads:

TURN OF THE CENTURY -- The three men sitting in front were prominent Malone businessmen who were being entertained at the Santa Clara Lumber Co. Camp of Ferris J. Meigns on Ampersand Pond along about 1905.  N. Munroe Marshall, sitting against the left post, Fred Amsden, with the pointed hat and clasping his knees and Jack Flanagan, wearing the knee socks, were in the party which also included several well-known Tupper Lake residents. 

Other Resources and Images:

-  Photo of:  Horse-drawn load of lumber (1915) in the collection of the NYS Archives
-  Photo of:  Interior of log bunk house (1920s) of the Santa Clara Lumber Co. in collection of NYS Archives
-  Photo of:  Santa Clara Lumber Co yards and office (1920s) in collection of NYS Archives
-  Photo of:  Lumber Camp on Mt. Seward in Town of Harrietstown in collection of NYS Archives

-  History of Town of Santa Clara from Seaver's (1918) Historical Sketches of Franklin County, NY

Trout "a la Woods"

This article first appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of "New York Archives" magazine, a benefit of membership in the Archives Partnership Trust www.nysarchivestrust.org.  It is reprinted here with permission from the Trust.

Trout "a la Woods"
by Christine Karpiak

Fishing in the Adirondacks is great sport.  Cooking and eating the catch is good, too -- especially with lake trout on the menu.  This "Adirondack Trout" recipe by Martin E. McClary appears in records of the New York State Federal Writer's Project.  As part of the Works Progress Administration, the Writer's Project gave jobs to thousands of unemployed writers during the Great Depression.  Editors and "field workers" compiled guides, collections of rural and urban folklore, ethnic studies, and oral histories for publication

In 1941, research was underway for New York's contribution to a series on food customs, to be called "America Eats."  On January 8th, WPA field worker Alfred S. Bendell (Franklin-Saranac Lake district) sent Mr. McClary's recipe, as it had appeared in the Malone Cook Book, to the project director's office for consideration.  But with the advent of World War II, the Writer's Project was nearing its end, and as the program was phased out cookery suggestions joined other works in progress sent from district offices to Albany for review.  Mr. McClary's trout recipe has today fared better than "America Eats," which was never published.

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Note:  The recipe appears in the 1923 (7th) edition of The Malone Cookbook (page 33). 


Other resources:
-  Photos taken for WPA "America Eats" project at the Library of Congress
-  2008 book based on the unpublished "America Eats":  America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA - the Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts That Define Real American Food by Pat Willard
-  Listen to NPR segments on the "America Eats" project 
-  New York's contribution to the Federal Writers' Project "American Guide" Series
-  National Archives Guide to Records of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)

Map of Loon Lake Hotel property

The Franklin County Historical and Museum Society is hosting Joseph LeMay on September 3, 2010 at 6:30pm for a discussion of the history of Loon Lake, NY.   The event is free and open to the public.  If you have your own photos and memories of Loon Lake, and especially of the Loon Lake House hotel, please bring them to share.  We'll be meeting in the Schryer Center behind the museum at 51 Milwaukee St., Malone.  Call 518-483-2750 for more details.

This map of the Loon Lake Hotel and associated buildings in 1940 is in the collection of the Historical Society.  It is part of an extensive collection of maps and drawings of structures from the O'Neil and Hale Insurance Agents of Malone. 

1968.462.78

Click Image to Enlarge

Previous posts and other web resources on Loon Lake, NY:

http://franklinhistorian.blogspot.com/2009/11/loon-lake-hotel.html

http://www.townoffranklin.com/loonlake.html

http://loonlakehoa.org/history.html

http://www.usgwarchives.org/ny/franklin/postcards/loonl2.jpg

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/09-1963a.gif

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/09-1964a.gif

Captain Brown’s Birthday Party

Join Historian Amy Godine for a lecture about John Brown on Sunday, July 11 at 4:00pm at the Adirondack History Center Museum. From 1922 into the 1960s, black pilgrims from northern cities joined ranks with white Adirondackers to honor the May 9 birthday of militant abolitionist John Brown. With speeches, concerts, sermons and prayers, the birthday commemorations earned Lake Placid a reputation as an oasis of interracial tranquility in the age of Jim Crow. How was each group able to find common cause in John Brown? How did each group use the other to promote its own agenda? And whose version of John Brown prevails at his home and gravesite in North Elba, a state-managed historic site since 1897? Come hear Amy Godine answer these questions and examine the struggle it both enabled and concealed over John Brown's public image and the meaning of freedom itself.

$5 Museum members, $8 Non-members. The Adirondack History Center Museum is located at 7590 Court Street, Elizabethtown, NY 12932. Reservations are recommended. Call 518-873-6466.

History humor

Who knew Verplanck Colvin was a little snarky?

Excerpted from p. 124  "Report on the Topographical Survey of the Adirondack Wilderness of New York for the Year 1873" by Verplanck Colvin

Franklin County Wilderness Guides, 1872

The following list of wilderness guides is taken from "The Modern Babes in the Woods, or Summerings in the Wilderness" (1872) by Henry Perry Smith, Pp 442-444.  Digitized and available at Google Books here:

NY Central ad for Adirondack travel

Advertisement from The Sun (NY, NY), June 7, 1908

From the collection of the Library of Congress, available through the "Chronicling America" project.