Posts Tagged ‘Poetry – Literature’

Thursday, October 25, 2018

The Legend of Jack-O-Lantern

A Young boy carving a Jack O Lantern Perhaps the single-most-recognizable symbol of the Halloween season is the traditional hollowed out pumpkin carved into a smiling or ominous, illuminated-in-the-dark face. But, “Why,” I’ve often been asked, “is it called a jack-o-lantern?”

While much of what’s known is ambiguous at best, the first widely-accepted mention I can find dates back to the five classes of fairies in Cornish lore: the Small People, the Brownies, the Spriggans, the Buccas, Bockles, or Knockers, and the Piskies. The Piskies went about confusing wary travelers; getting them hopelessly lost and eventually leading them into bogs and moors with a ghostly light called Ignis Fatuus; ‘the foolish fire’. Among the named Piskies were Will-O’-the-Wisp, Joan the Wad, and Jack-O’-Lantern. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, September 10, 2015

What’s On Your Adirondack ‘Must Read’ List?

Adirodnack Center for WritingWith a mission to cultivate the art of writing and the joy of reading, the Adirondack Center for Writing (ACW) in Saranac Lake is compiling a list of 46 “must read” Adirondack books.

All genres are welcome, from poetry to history to photography and fiction. Suggested books should feature an Adirondack theme or setting, or be written by a local author. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, July 9, 2015

Wilder Homestead Named Literary Landmark

WilderThe Wilder Homestead in Burke, NY, will be designated a Literary Landmark during a celebration on Saturday, July 11. The Homestead is the setting for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy (1933), and is where Laura’s husband Almanzo grew up from 1857 until his family moved to Minnesota in 1875.

A bronze plaque will be unveiled during the celebration in conjunction with the Homestead’s Children’s Art Event (10 am to 4 pm). There will be art activities for children and 19th century games, along with an awards ceremony for the children’s art show. The public is invited to hear author and historian William Anderson speak about the Ingalls/Wilder family homes. Museum admission applies to this event. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Best Adirondack Books of 2014 Honored

acw logoOn Sunday, writers, editors, publishers, and book lovers gathered at the Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake to learn the winners of the Adirondack Center for Writing’s annual Adirondack Literary Awards.

The awards celebrate and acknowledge books written by Adirondack authors or published in the region in the previous year.  A record nine awards were given this year: 2 in the fiction category, 2 in the children’s literature category, and Best Memoir was shared between 2 books. Other honors went to Best Book of Poetry, Best General Nonfiction, and the popular People’s Choice Award. » Continue Reading.


Monday, April 6, 2015

“Trout Fishing” by Eunice Lamberton

Trout StringerIn April 1888, Eunice B. Lamberton sold the Forge House and the Forge Tract, the present site of Old Forge today, to Samuel Garmon and Dr. Alexander Crosby.

Fifteen years earlier, according a note accompanying her poem: “These lines were written on the spur of the moment at the famous pool midway between Martin’s and Bartlett’s on the Saranac River- Adirondacks-as Mr. Lamberton ‘with split bamboo and a fly or two’ whipped the water.”  Her husband was Alexander B. Lamberton of Rochester.  The poem is frequently seen today on internet sites for fly-casting clubs today across the United States. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Entries Sought For Youth Poetry Contest

arts-institute-of-the-arts-and-Humanity-web-logoChildren are required to do school projects, writing assignments and mandatory homework, and many teachers around the region incorporate the Great Adirondack Young People’s Poetry Contest into their curriculum.

For those that can’t, the contest is free and open to all students living in the Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.


Monday, February 23, 2015

Adirondack Poet Cornelius Carter (Conclusion)

HdlineComboConCarterAdkAlmIn 1891, at age 73, Cornelius Carter was still providing justice and attorney services to the town of Edwards. His name was highly respected across the North Country as a public servant and a knowledgeable outdoorsman. That reputation made state officials take notice when he chimed in on important issues, which Con did for the next ten years despite his advancing age.

In June 1893, responding to a newspaper account of a Lewis County hunter’s claim that deer in the region had wintered well, Carter wrote, “Never was there a time in my remembrance when the forest presented such a luxuriant growth. Every living shrub and tree is robed in living green; the scene is nature in her beauty and her loveliness.” » Continue Reading.


Monday, February 2, 2015

Cornelius Carter: Poet of the Adirondacks

CornCarter1AdkAlm500A few regional authors have been designated at one time or another as “the Poet of the Adirondacks,” able to rhyme rich prose while describing events that speak to us on a personal level. In recalling things we may have experienced, the writer also speaks for us, but with an eloquence that escapes the average pen. Among the earliest to wear the mantle of Adirondack poet was Cornelius Carter.

Although he was among the earliest, Carter’s talent only became widely known late in the game, as a sketch of his life reveals. Cornelius was born in 1816 in Martinsburg (Lewis County). When he was about eight, the family moved to Philadelphia in Jefferson County. At about age twenty, he earned a teaching certificate and taught locally for the next six years, three at Philadelphia and three at Antwerp, both in Jefferson County. » 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.


Sunday, October 12, 2014

Joel Headley:
Among The First To Popularize The Adirondacks

Screen Shot 2014-10-06 at 2.45.55 PMAnd how solemn it is to move all day through a majestic colonnade of trees and feel that you are in a boundless cathedral whose organ notes swell and die away with the passing wind like some grand requiem. Still more exciting is it to lie at midnight by your camp fire and watch the moon sailing up amid the trees or listen to the cry of the loon, wild and lonely, on the wild and lonely lake, or the hoot of the owl in the deep recesses of the forest. – Joel Tyler Headley

Many have probably heard of “Adirondack Murray”, the Reverend William H. H. Murray who wrote Adventures in the Wilderness in 1869.  His book is credited with driving throngs of tourists to escape the cities for the Adirondacks in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century. However, it was Joel Tyler Headley two decades earlier who wrote the seminal book The Adirondack or Life in the Woods in 1849 that brought the first wave of wealthy sports to explore the region. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, September 28, 2014

Blue Mountain Lake’s Thacher Island Revisited

GHTSr & TomYou see me here standing where my great-great grandfather George Hornell Thacher Sr. once stood on the porch of the family lodge built in 1867 on Thacher Island on Blue Mountain Lake.   The photo is not dated but given his aged appearance (no, the guy on the left), I believe it to be from the early 1880s.

My father spoke of visiting his uncle on the island as a young boy in the 1940s.   No Thacher has had the opportunity to walk the island since then. It had always been a dream of mine to visit my family’s first summer home. A dream fulfilled thanks to the hospitality of John and Janet O’Loughlin, whose family has owned the island for over two decades. » Continue Reading.


Monday, July 21, 2014

Charles M. Dickinson: Lowville Poet and Diplomat

CMDickinson02Among the foreign issues America has dealt with many times is hostage taking. Kidnappers claimed many reasons for the action, but it was frequently done to extort money in support of a cause. Extortion kidnappings have often involved seizing of American missionaries and threatening to kill them unless ransom was paid. More than a hundred years ago, there occurred what is referred to as “America’s First Modern Hostage Crisis,” which is actually the subtitle of a 2003 book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Teresa Carpenter.

The Miss Stone Affair is the title, referring to Protestant missionary Ellen Maria Stone. A North Country man was a key player in her story, which riveted the nation for half a year.

Charles Monroe Dickinson was born in November 1842 in Lowville, New York (Lewis County). After high school, he worked for several winters as a schoolteacher at Haverstraw-on-Hudson, about 20 miles south of West Point. The money earned helped further his education at Fairfield Seminary and Lowville Academy. During this time, Charles also explored writing, particularly poetry. At the age of 19 he produced a poem, “The Children,” that constitutes his second great claim to fame. More on that later. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, June 8, 2014

Best Adirondack Books of 2013 Honored

acw logoWriters, editors, publishers, and book lovers gathered at the Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake on Sunday to hear the announcements of the Adirondack Center for Writing’s (ACW’s) annual Adirondack Literary Award winners.

The Adirondack Literary Awards celebrate and acknowledge the books that were written by Adirondack authors or published in the region in the previous year.

All of the books submitted for consideration this year were on display, giving a visual sense of the scope of our Adirondack literary achievements, and many of the authors had signed copies of their books for sale.

This year a record 51 books were submitted, also, for the first time featured articles were accepted as a category. The winners are: » Continue Reading.


Sunday, June 8, 2014

Raquette Lake in 1878

Screen Shot 2014-06-07 at 7.01.30 AMThe mysterious original cabin of the Thachers on Indian Point received numerous mentions in the newspapers of the day.  However, the earliest evidence of its existence comes from a single sentence in the text of Aber & King’s The History of Hamilton County.

Bishop Gabriels, then a priest, celebrated Mass at the Thatcher Camp on July 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1878.

It refers to Rev. Henry Gabriels who at the time was President of the St. Joseph Seminary in Troy, NY and who later became the Bishop of the Diocese of Ogdensburg, which encompasses all of the Adirondacks.   Can we simply assume that the original cabin was built in 1878, or might it have existed prior to this first reference?  After all, the family purchased the land in 1876. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, June 1, 2014

Raquette Lake’s First Settlers:
Matthew Beach and William Wood

1849-Birch-Pt-sketch“Yonder comes the boat of Woods and Beach, the two solitary dwellers of this region. It is rather a singular coincidence that the only two inhabitants of this wilderness should be named Woods and Beach. I should not wonder if the next comers should be called ‘Hemlock’ and ‘Pine’.” 

Joel Tyler Headley, The Adirondack or Life in the Woods

Indian Point was the focal point of Raquette Lake because Beach and Wood were the center of hospitality for the earliest adventurers in the region: Ebenezer Emmons in 1840, Jon Todd in 1843, Joel Tyler Headley in 1844-1846.  Our knowledge of Beach and Wood comes from the writings of these and later visitors. » Continue Reading.



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