Almanack Contributor Abbie Verner

Abbie Verner and her husband Bill raised their children in Long Lake until 1985 when Bill became Director of the Schenectady Museum and Planetarium and they moved to Schenectady. Abbie became Director of Prospect Research for Union College and later for the Albany Institute of History & Art.

The Verners returned to Long Lake in 2009. Abbie is President of the Long Historical Society and serves as an archivist for Long Lake’s historical collection.


Thursday, March 19, 2015

Early Long Lake: Senator Orville Platt

7 u s senator orville platt from conn.What is believed to be the first summer camp on Long Lake was built on Birch Point in 1870 for Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt. Platt was born in Washington, CT in 1827. His father was a farmer who also served the community as deputy sheriff, judge of probate, and a school teacher. Platt’s parents were both active abolitionists and their home was a station on the Underground Railroad.

As a youth, Platt helped his father on the farm and also enjoyed roaming the countryside hunting and fishing in the woods and streams of northwest Connecticut. He attended school in Washington, CT, the student of abolitionist Frederic Gunn. When a pro-slavery group forced Gunn to close his school he and Platt (as assistant teacher) moved to the abolitionist stronghold of Towanda, PA. Orville Platt spent a year there and met a young lady who would later become his wife. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, December 17, 2014

John Todd’s ‘Long Lake’ Recalls The 1840s

Long Lake Church in the WildernessThe Long Lake Historical Society has voted to acquire a first edition of John Todd’s book, Long Lake.

First printed in 1845, this small volume was written after Todd’s fourth trip to Long Lake. He first arrived in September, 1841 and found eight or ten families “scattered along towards the head of the lake. . . .They lived in their little log houses, and their little boats were their horses, and the lake their only path.” » Continue Reading.



Wait! Before you go:

Catch up on all your Adirondack
news, delivered weekly to your inbox