The Balsam Fir tree has been an important natural resource for the Adirondack region for many years. Below are exerpts from various sources that were used in a Balsam Traditions poster series discussing the seasonal importance of balsam.

“As a Christmas tree, balsam has two prime advantages over other species: fragrance and durability. The smell of a fresh-cut balsam is something out of this world—or at least out of the city world. It is like bringing a piece of the Adirondacks indoors.”
“The Balsam,” in NYS Conservationist, December 1946.

“The Dealers in Christmas trees come mainly from Herkimer and other counties in the north woods of this State… The men who deal in Christmas trees are all woodsmen, who, after cutting their own stock, take it to market.”
NY Times, December 17, 1893.

“Jobbers who supply the markets and retail trade must begin their harvest preparations early. By October or November they must have located a source of supply and arranged for men to cut and transport the trees to market. Some buy from the owners on the stump, and cut and hail them to market themselves. Others buy trees cut and bundled at the roadside.”
A.S. Hopkins, “Christmas Trees and Land Use,” in NYS Conservationist, December 1946.

“Beginning in November of every year, huge truckloads of Christmas trees roll out of the Adirondacks, destined for the city markets. In former years entire train loads of trees might be seen as they made their way southward; but, with the demise of the Adirondack railroads, motor trucks now serve the same function.”
Floyd S. Hyde, Adirondack Forests, Fields, and Mines, 1974.

“The great market for Christmas greens in New York is along the North River front… Here the busy streets seem forest roads, so lined are they with trees of spruce, balsam, pine and cedar.”
NY Times, December 19, 1878.

“The place where the tree market is situated is just at present a favorite spot for loungers. They come by parties, lie around on the fragrant boughs, and inhale the fragrant and pungent aroma of the trees.”
NY Times, December 17, 1893.

“Quite a business had grown up on the Islands in Lake Champlain in the shipment of evergreens to New York City for holiday decorations. One day in early December 1888, the steamer Maquam brought 82 bags to Plattsburgh where they were sent south by rail.”
Essex County Republican, 1888.

“During November many old-fashioned housewives are busy making Christmas presents for their less fortunate friends who have to live in cities or far from the pine woods. These presents do not change from year to year and are nonetheless welcome for the lack of novelty. They are pine pillows, filled with fresh-cut evergreen needles in lavishly decorated or utterly simple cloth cases. One whiff from the box when opened in a city and the breeze that furrows an evergreen mountainside or ruffles a mountain lake comes softly into the room. They may be called pine pillows but the housewife who is particular about her handiwork raises Cain if the men dare to bring anything in from the woods for her except balsam.“
William Chapman White, Just About Everything in the Adirondacks, 1960.

Information from Balsam Traditions (a poster series) by Todd DeGarmo. Adirondack Museum and Crandall Library, 1992, with support from the New York State Council of the Arts — Folk Arts Program.

History is powerful. History can capture the imagination and inspire great events – including the founding of a regional history museum.

The following story illustrates how the lives of two men intersected, how the actions of one served to spark a life-long passion in the second, how the Adirondack museum came to be, and finally how we came to acquire our first truly large artifact – the beloved H.K. Porter Engine.

Harold Hochschild a New York City business executive, long-time seasonal Adirondack resident and lay historian published Township 34, a history of the Central Adirondacks, in 1952. The book furnished a plan and its author guidance and financial support for the Adirondack Museum through the first decades of its development.

William West Durant was born in Brooklyn in 1850, and educated in England and Germany. His father, Dr. Thomas C. Durant, a vice-president of the Union Pacific railroad, accumulated one of the great fortunes in nineteenth century America. By the 1880s the Durant family had acquired 658,261 acres of Adirondack land and William arrived in the region to manage the family’s investments.

Accustomed to refinement, Durant modeled his Adirondack developments after the baronial hunting estates of European aristocracy. In the process he developed the unique architectural style for what became known as Adirondack Great Camps. Owners of Great Camps acquired vast land holdings, which included wilderness lakes, ponds, and rivers. The camps, actually small isolated villages, were self-sufficient, and often included working farms, greenhouses, icehouses, and even chapels. They were very expensive to build and maintain.

The region’s isolation was a major obstacle to Durant’s development plans. In an effort to attract wealthy tourists, the family built and operated railroads, steamboats lines, roads, sawmills, and a grand resort hotel, the Prospect House in Blue Mountain Lake, New York. By the 1890s Durant was financially overextended.

Despite his growing money problems, Durant began a new project in the spring of 1899; the Eagle’s Nest Country Club. The project was an expensive one, costing nearly $70,000 to build. In the summer of 1900 the country club and its golf course were opened with a series of exhibition matches played by the Scottish professional, Harry Vardon. Vardon’s fee was $500 for the week and a bottle of Scotch whiskey every night. On Saturday night, August 4, to celebrate the opening, Durant gave a dance at the club’s casino, to the music of an eight-piece orchestra, brought from Utica.

By 1904, awash in a sea of lawsuits, including one brought by his own sister, Durant lost control of his Adirondack lands. The assets of Durant’s company were seized by creditors who, in turn, sold the country club’s land to three New York City men: Ernst Ehrman, Henry Morgenthau Sr., and Berthold Hochschild. The three formed a holding company for the land called the Eagle Nest Country Club.

Beginning in 1904 Berthold Hochschild, his wife Mathilde, and his sons Harold and Walter spent June through September every year at Eagle Nest. First the father, then the sons, commuted on the New York Central’s sleeper car from Grand Central Station in New York City to spend weekends at the family’s summer home

Durant’s railroad-steamboat network was still the principal means for getting to the region in 1904. Twelve-year-old Harold Hochschild was captivated by the train and the steamboats. Hoping for a chance to handle the steam-engine’s throttle, he cultivated a friendship with Rassie Scarritt, driver of the H.K Porter Engine on the Marion River Carry Railroad, the shortest standard-gauge line in the world. The engine towed two open passenger cars and a baggage car purchased from the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co. in 1900. The total distance covered in the trip was 1300 yards.

Early on Harold began collecting information about the region. He amassed boxes of research materials, letters, Photostats, typescripts, and notebooks containing his penciled notes. His folders, ranging from “Adirondack Iron Works” to “Wild Animals,” are organized by subject in alphabetical order.

Harold’s research notes were the basis for an extensive history of the region. Serious work on the project did not begin until after World War II. Working nights and weekends, Harold researched his book, interviewing as many “old timers” as possible. When Township 34 appeared in 1952, it contained 614 quarto-sized pages, 470 illustrations, 39 maps, 24 appendices, a bibliography, index, and weighed seven pounds without its slipcover. 600 copies were printed.

The publication of Harold Hochschild’s book coincided with William Wessels’ idea of converting the Blue Mountain House, a summer resort high above Blue Mountain Lake, into a museum dedicated to Adirondack history.

The Adirondack Museum was a marriage between a wonderfully scenic site supplied by William Wessels, and the intellectual framework and financial support provided by Harold Hochschild. Many of the museum’s original exhibits were derived from Township 34. The Adirondack Museum opened to the public on August 4, 1957.

Nothing reflects the Adirondack region’s powerful hold on Harold Hochschild’s imagination as much as the museum’s Marion River Carry Pavilion. The pavilion contains the H.K. Porter Engine and passenger cars of Durant’s Marion River Carry Railroad. The train was brought to the museum in 1956, saved from decay in the woods where it had been abandoned.

The Marion River Carry Pavilion includes an automated diorama, known fondly as “the boat train,” that illustrates the history of the complicated, turn-of-the-last -century network of railroads and steamboats that connected the region to the outside world when Harold Hochschild was a boy.

Every year, thousands of museum visitors of all ages linger at the diorama, listening as the recorded “voice” of the display tells the story of the Marion River Carry Railroad – listening to history brought to life.

Spring in the Adirondacks brings melting snow and rain, causing rivers to swell and rush through the mountains, providing perfect conditions for whitewater enthusiasts.

In 1958, the Johnsburg Fish and Game Club organized the First Annual Hudson River Whitewater Derby, which became a nationally known competition. It began as a one-day, eight-mile race with 44 competitors on a course that ran the Hudson River from North Creek to Riparius, New York. The following year it grew to a two-day event with the addition of the popular slalom courses.

Whitewater slalom competitions involve navigating a decked canoe or kayak through hanging gates, testing the boaters’ ability to steer through a “wild river full of natural obstacles safely.” (Adirondack Life, May/June 1979)

The Hudson River Whitewater Derby quickly grew in popularity; by 1960 there were 126 contestants and 15,000 spectators. Dr. Homer Dodge was the master of ceremonies and at 72 years old, the oldest participant that year. On the tenth anniversary of the derby, the event drew competitors from around the United States and as far away as Kenya. The most notable participant was U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, who borrowed a boat and entered the competition.

The boat Robert Kennedy used is now in the Adirondack Museum’s collection. It is a 13’2″ fiberglass kayak, built by Bart Hauthaway for David Binger, who loaned it to Kennedy. The boat is unique because it is one of the earliest all-fiberglass kayaks. Prior to the mid-1960s builders found it difficult to join the hull of the boat to the deck, so they made them of cloth. Hauthaway was able to solve this problem and fasten a fiberglass deck to the hull with pop rivets.

Dr. Homer Dodge became a legend of the event; by 1974 at 86 years old, he had participated in fourteen consecutive derbies. He was known as “the dean of American canoeing” in the 1960s and 1970s. Dodge was born in Ogdensburg, N.Y. in 1887. Prior to the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, Dodge was the only person on record to have conquered the Long Sault Rapids in an open canoe. His boat was built by Grumman, the most popular aluminum canoe manufacturer of the time. (Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks, Hallie Bond)

The Whitewater Derby contributed to the development of new businesses surrounding the event. One entrepreneur was John Berry, an avid whitewater racer who started out during the early days of the sport in the mid-1950s. Berry was part of the first group to canoe the Grand Canyon and a three-time national champion in whitewater slalom. In the mid-1970s Berry purchased former stagecoach sheds at the terminus of the D. & H. Railroad at Riparius, where he built boats and started a whitewater school. (Adirondack Life, May/June 1979) The Adirondack Museum has Berry’s fiberglass Berrigan model C-2 whitewater racing canoe in its collection.

While the Hudson River Whitewater Derby is held in the spring when the river is usually at its highest and fastest, there are still rapids throughout the year. Whitewater rafting is a popular river sport that continues throughout the summer and fall. Water is released from the Indian River Dam at Indian Lake, N.Y. to ensure good rafting conditions later in the season or when the river level is low. A number of companies have developed in the immediate area to guide rafters down the river.

Have you ever hiked an Adirondack mountain with a fire tower? Were you able to climb up to enjoy the view? Do you know about the important function the towers served in the region?

During the early 1900s, a number of forest fires wreaked havoc in the Adirondacks. As a result, the State of New York built lookouts at the top of mountains and hired observers for early fire detection. The observers would pinpoint the location of fires and communicate with ground crews to direct them to the source.

In time, the towers became popular hiking destinations. The observers working in them were a source of knowledge for visitors about fire protection and environmental awareness. By the early 1970s aircraft were increasingly used for fire detection; a single plane could survey a vast stretch of land. Fire towers were more expensive to man; each tower required someone on duty from April through October. Their use was slowly discontinued.

At one time there were fire towers at 124 locations in New York State, fifty-seven were located within the Adirondack Park. Now there are thirty-four fire towers remaining, twenty of which are on state land. (https://dec.ny.gov/things-to-do/hiking/fire-towers)

With time many of the structures have deteriorated. As the towers age and questions about land classification and compliance with the Adirondack Park’s State Land Master Plan arise, the debate over preservation versus removal has zealous supporters on each side. Those in favor of saving fire towers argue that the towers are significant reminders of the region’s history and heritage. Advocates for removal argue that only a Wilderness classification can protect these lands from future degradation, or the building of non-compliant structures.

The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) has proposed three methods to resolve the issue of the fire towers. The first is to reclassify a small area around the base of the fire tower as a Historic Area. The remaining land surrounding the fire towers can be classified as Wilderness. The second is to revise the State Land Master Plan to allow towers under certain conditions. The third would be “No Action;” the APA would not take steps to review revisions and towers could be removed as “non-conforming structures in Canoe and Primitive areas. (www.apa.state.ny.us)

Supporters argue that with repair the towers once again can serve as educational tools, teaching visitors about the history of fire prevention and ways to be environmentally aware in the future. An example of a way in which the towers are used educationally is the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Fire Tower Challenge. Hikers are asked to document their experience ascending at least 23 fire tower summits and submit proof of stewardship. They are also asked to think about what it might have been like for the observer that was once perched atop the fire tower. This challenges people to protect the environment, recognize the importance of fire towers, prioritize safety, and promote responsible recreation and stewardship.

Learn more from the Adirondack Mountain Club here: https://members.adk.org/members/get-involved/adk-fire-tower-challenge.aspx