Category: History

From the THE CITIZEN-ADVERTISER, WEDNESDAY, 10/16/1963

Volunteers Fighting Blazes Share Goal, Differ in Reasons

They come from NY City, Albany, Syracuse, from Fort Edward, Clemons, Hadley and nearby farms – the hundreds of men and boys who, off and on, for more than a week have battled the flames eating into New York’s vast and valuable forestlands.

These smoke-begrimed, oftentimes thirsty volunteers are engaged in a near ceaseless effort to contain the fires cropping up in tinder-dry-woods. Today about 75 fires were reported burning in woodlands across the state. Showers were forecast for some areas but the Weather Bureau held out little prospect of a good soaking rain. Some of the firefighters, including a group of sixteen-aged boys, who had to hike for about 30 miles with scarcely a ride, slept on bare ground without blankets. When the six could stand it no longer in the 30-degree temperature in the Adirondacks, they walked a mile to a house, where they were taken in.

Who comes to fight fires and why? Well, a professor in Albany telephoned the Conservation Department Office, near here, to ask directions to fire-fighting headquarters at the foot of Spruce Mountain. 25 miles northeast of here, betweens Lakes George and Champlain. A Conservation Department supervisor. Robert E. Richards asked why he wanted to come. The professor replied that he loved the Adirondacks.

Some come for the excitement, others to save property. It’s hard work and there is plenty of confusion, with so many strangers.

One group, armed to fight a fire, missed it and walked right by to the next hamlet Huletts Landing. The volunteers are paid 75 cents an hour. They generally work a 12-hour shift. Some leave after one stint.

Others want to stay on. Since the state has no shelter for them, they must go elsewhere or sleep on the ground. Most have transportation of their own. Any volunteer who checks the Conservation Department in advance is advised to wear heavy clothes and boots. At one point, Richards said, about 400 men fought flames on Spruce Mountain and at nearby Lapland Pond. The force had dwindled by today to the neighborhood of 100. This was the mop-up operation. The fires were believed to be contained. But said one veteran as he watched a youngster chopping away at the burning underground roots of an aged balsam: “That underground fire won’t go out until January.”

Photo Courtesy of Mark Malmgren

Click on the image to see full scale.

Ticonderoga Sentinel
Thursday, February 25, 1915

KILLED BY HIS OWN TRAIN
D & H Fireman Ground to Pieces
Under Cars Near Clemons

Stephen LaRose of Willsboro, a fireman in the employ of the Delaware and Hudson Company, on Saturday morning was ground to pieces by the train on which he was usually employed as a fireman. The accident occurred less than a mile south of Clemons, the first station north of Whitehall, shortly after nine o’clock in the forenoon, the unfortunate man being asleep between the rails at the time he met his death.

LaRose had on Friday night gone from Whitehall to Clemons to attend a dance and during the night he had engaged in a fight. Saturday morning he went to the Clemons station and not finding the ticket office open he broke the window with his fist and offered to fight all persons in sight. Later he started to walk to Whitehall and when about a mile south of Clemons he evidently became tired after his night of gaiety and without realizing his danger lay down between the tracks for a sleep.

He had been asleep but a short time when passenger train No. 1 came along. The engineer saw two men up the track a considerable distance ahead, and when within a short distance from where LaRose lay between the rails he noticed what appeared to be a coat on the track. For an instant he paid but little attention to the object, thinking it was a coat that one of the men farther along on the track had dropped, but almost instantly he realized that the object was a man. He then tried to stop the train to avoid the accident but it was too late.

LaRose was practically ground to pieces under the wheels of the cars and his death was instantaneous. The unfortunate man was married and had for several years been the fireman on the train which caused his death.

Kateri, Native American Saint is a new book release from Clear Light Publishing that takes the reader into the world of 17th Century Native Americans and Catholic missionaries. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), “The Lily of the Mohawks”, was a Native American woman born near the Canadian border in present-day Auriesville, New York.

Authored by Taos, NM artist Giovanna Paponetti, the book is beautifully illustrated with twenty-one full-color images from an altar screen that Giovanna was commissioned to paint for the Church of St. John the Baptist at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in New Mexico, the oldest Parish in the United States. These extraordinary paintings feature significant chapters from Kateri’s early years, her life as a Christian, and miracles following her death at age twenty-four, and make this book a must-have collector’s item.

Giovanna Paponetti is an adjunct professor in the art department at the University of New Mexico-Taos since 2001. In 1998, she was commissioned by the Town of Taos to paint four large historic murals of the town’s history, beginning with Taos Pueblo in the year 1300. Giovanna’s historical paintings have been published in history textbooks and shown in PBS documentaries. Her art can be seen online at: www.giovannapaponetti.com

You can order a book from Clear Light Publishing Corp. at 505-989-9590 or www.clearlightbooks.com/kateri.

Thank you for reading The Huletts Current, and for supporting this site over the last two years.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to blog about my experiences daily (or almost daily) here. I’ve gained many new friends and learned so much about Huletts Landing doing this “day in” and “day out”, for now over two years.

Thank you again, and a very happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

“Embarkation of the Pilgrims,” by Robert Walter Weir

The pilgrims are shown on the deck of the ship Speedwell before their departure for the New World from Delft Haven, Holland, on July 22, 1620. William Brewster, holding the Bible, and pastor John Robinson lead Governor Carver, William Bradford, Miles Standish, and their families in prayer. The prominence of women and children suggests the importance of the family in the community. At the left side of the painting is a rainbow, which symbolizes hope and divine protection.

Robert Walter Weir (1803–1890) had studied art in Italy and taught art at the military academy at West Point.

The dimensions of this oil painting on canvas are 548 cm x 365 cm (216 inches x 144 inches; 18 feet x 12 feet)

To see the painting in full screen, click on the image.