Echoes in These Mountains was my first award-winning book. Published in 2008, it tells the stories behind 55 historic sites in the Township of Johnsburg, Warren County. The book was well received and the original run of 1,500 copies sold out years ago. With folks asking for up to $114 for a used copy “signed by the author” (eBay emphasis, the original retail price was $16.95), I decided it was time
for a second edition. I used the opportunity to fix some typos, but also to expand the original manuscript with additional historic photographs and added new research and analysis.

The expanded second edition, now totaling 512 pages, will be officially released at a special program on December 10 at the Town of Johnsburg Library [located on] Main Street [in] North Creek, NY. The new edition includes additional documentation of a French & Indian War warpath that passed through the area including pictures of a Revolutionary-Era “cannon” found unearthed along a local dirt road years ago, cannon balls of different diameters found in a garden in Bakers Mills by a local resident and a Revolutionary War French bayonet found near the east shore of Loon Lake.

Many know that Teddy Roosevelt, after climbing Mt. Marcy, hurried to the North Creek train station where he found out that he’d be the next President of the United States, but the new edition asks the question: When did “TR first visit the Adirondacks?” New research on the local abolitionist preacher Reverend Enos Putnam and the “Wevertown” vs “Weavertown” controversy is included as well as an extensive exploration on the question whether Mathew Brady, famous Civil War photographer and acknowledged as “America’s first photojournalist,” just grew up in Johnsburg or was he actually born there?

There is also extensive new material on the earliest days of “Ride up-Ski Down” skiing on Gore Mountain, the cost of tourist accommodations around Garnet Lake in 1916 and its “freshwater jellyfish,” and more speculation on the age and original height of Crane Mountain. The section on North River has been expanded to include the fire that destroyed Thirteenth Lake Lodge (not to be confused with Garnet Hill Lodge) with loss of life in 1931 and an 1858 map which shows an “Indian Settlement” on the south shore of 13th Lake. The story behind the famous fire bell at the North Creek Firehouse is also featured as well as an aerial photograph of North Creek before the Rt. 28 Byway was built.

The book also includes an 1885 map of a proposed “Adirondack Park,” to be administered by a forest commission, that would have had much of Johnsburg and most of northern Warren County outside today’s “Blue Line.” A higher-grade paper stock was used in the new edition. This has enabled the many historic photographs and maps featured to be viewed with greater detail and a broadened tonal range. A comprehensive index has been added and an appendix containing the families and military records on 175 men from Johnsburg who fought in the Civil War.

The first edition of the book was awarded a Letter of Commendation from the 35 county Upstate New York History Alliance in 2009 at a special presentation at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY.
The new expanded second edition of Echoes in These Mountains will be available through local book sellers throughout the region and by emailing the author at Glenn.Pearsall.author@gmail.com.
The official book release and signing will be held on Saturday, December 10 at the Johnsburg Public Library [on] Main Street [in] North Creek from noon to 2 p.m. so that interested parties can purchase a personally inscribed copy in time for holiday gift-giving.

I will be joined by Sterling Goodspeed, who will also give a short talk on his new book, True North, at 12:30 p.m. True North is a collection of short stories tracing the history of a rural Adirondack community over the past sixty years. Each story provides a snapshot of a different time period in one small town, introducing the reader to a variety of characters and plot lines that illustrate the eclectic nature of the Adirondack landscape. When taken together, the snapshots create a photo album that memorializes small town living over the last half century. Author and activist Bill McKibben, on True North said, “It’s a local story, and a generational one, and in both cases, profound and fascinating.” True North can be purchased at the author’s website, www.Truenorthadk.com

Note: In addition to Pearsall’s three books: Echoes in These Mountains (2008 and 2022), When Men and Mountains Meet (2013), and a Civil War Era novel Leaves Torn Asunder (2016), he is also a regular contributor of articles on Adirondack history here on The Adirondack Almanack.