Jay (Essex County) author and editor Lee Manchester has published a number of volumes on the history of Essex County and its communities. The free, downloadable PDFs include five volumes compiled from the files of the late Lake Placid historian Mary MacKenzie, a two-volume definitive anthology of 19th and 20th century materials on the McIntyre iron works and the Tahawus Club colony in Newcomb, better known as “the Deserted Village,” and two collections of Lee’s stories about history and historic hikes in and around Essex County.

For complete information, including download instructions, visit the Wagner College website. Print versions of all the volumes can also be ordered, at a cost that includes no markup, with the exception of Mary MacKenzie’s “The Plains of Abraham: A History of Lake Placid and North Elba”; royalties for print copies of “Plains” go to the Lake Placid Public Library, which maintains the Mary MacKenzie Historic Archives.