The Plains of Abraham
A History of North Elba and Lake Placid
By Mary MacKenzie
Edited by Lee Manchester
Trade Paperback
Cover Price: $24.95
Mary MacKenzie’s sweeping history of the Adirondack town of North Elba and the world famous village of Lake Placid is a tribute to the people drawn to North Elba’s majestic peaks and pristine lakes.
It begins in 1800 with the story of the first settlers, hardy New Englanders eager to scratch a living off the land. Some became hoteliers to accommodate the tourists who inevitably discovered the enchanting scenery.
Free African Americans settled here, too, along with our most famous abolitionist, John Brown, who led four North Elban raiders to their deaths at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. These were self-reliant Adirondackers, people of courage and conviction.
MacKenzie includes many of their names and bios, and debunks the myth that the black colony was a shanty town saying that the false reports, “…did a terrible disservice to those good and intelligent blacks and their valiant efforts to carve out a life in North Elba…”
But there’s much more to MacKenzie’s Lake Placid story.
Dashing actors and producers from the silent movie studios found the rugged scenery perfect for their rousing epics. Athletes careened down the bob-run and ski slopes where the Lake Placid Club virtually invented winter sports in America, culminating in the hosting of two Winter Olympiads.
Through it all are MacKenzie’s local heroes, North Elbans of distinction: Joe Nash and the Stevens brothers, hoteliers; the Pratt family, highway superintendents for over one hundred years; the ladies of the garden club and the directors of the bank.
The ministers and their churches, the kids and their schools…all told in Mary MacKenzie’s delightful style— precise, confident, and with a touch of Garrison Keillor’s sense of small town humor.
The book has seventy-two historical essays divided into three parts, The Pioneers, The Age of Hotels, and Lake Placid, with an appendix containing a historical timeline.
Excerpt
First Pioneers in North Elba
This chapter draws primarily from an essay published in the October 1990 issue of “Patches and Patterns Extended.” Some elements of an earlier version, published in 1982 in the “Lake Placid News,” have been included.
The Revolution was over and the great Yankee exodus was on. Like wild bees to a bee tree, New England’s restless farmers were swarming over Lake Champlain to the promised land of northern New York.
The men came first to that howling wilderness, felling trees, planting crops, and building the barn and home cabin. The wives and children arrived in time to pick and preserve wild berries and harvest the first vegetables.
By 1800, Westport, Elizabethtown, Jay, and Keene were colonized, and a primitive wagon track wandered the woods from Westport to St. Lawrence County. Traveling this road in the spring of 1800, Vermonter Elijah Bennet ventured into the wilds of North Elba.
If first settler Elijah craved fellowship, he was soon content. In a bustle of wagon wheels family after family careened down the Old Mountain Road to his picturesque plateau laced with ponds and streams and ringed by rugged mountains. By 1810, the little outpost was harboring 200 souls.
They called it “The Plains of Abraham”—sometimes just “The Plains” or “Keene Plains.”
Nobody knows exactly why. While an 1810 visitor remembered it as “a species of prairie land,” documentary evidence is quite to the contrary. It was, in fact, initially a vast forest of antique hardwoods—mixed with a few stands of pine, spruce, and hemlock.
Such a name—and such a memory, evoking visions of a treeless expanse—were perhaps not so incongruous. That first settlement occupied the great tableland just south of Lake Placid village. Beaver meadows abounded where cattle could be pastured, and much of the forest had been hacked down by 1810.
Elijah Bennet’s story has already been told. Not much is known of his fellow pioneers beyond their names.
Among them were Jonathan Jenkins, Iddo Osgood, Isaac Griswald and his son Isaac Jr., all from New Hampshire. (It was a time of biblical first names.) The Griswalds were reputedly the first settlers of nearby Keene, naming it for their old hometown. There Cynthia Griswald married Thomas Dart Jr. The Griswalds moved up to the Plains in 1802, followed the next year by Cynthia and Thomas. Four other Darts—Josiah, Joshua, Justus, and Justus Jr., likely all related—showed up in 1803.
About the Author
Many interested in Adirondack history know of the writings of Mary MacKenzie, historian for the Town of North Elba since 1964. Over the years, they have read her historical essays in Adirondack Life magazine, the Conservationist, local newspapers and newsletters, and a fortunate few may have caught some of her lectures.
Historians wondered if MacKenzie would ever collect all of her work into one place, finally creating a comprehensive history of North Elba and Lake Placid. She never did. After she passed away in 2003, her family asked Lee Manchester to execute her literary estate, resulting in The Plains of Abraham.
About the Editor
Lee Manchester is a former staff writer for the Lake Placid News and was the media relations director at Wagner College in Staten Island, NY.
Book Details
- Publisher: Nicholas K. Burns Publishing (July 2007)
- Trim Size: 6 x 9
- 424 pages
- ISBN13: 978-0-9755224-3-1
- History, Adirondack history, New York State history
Reviews
“Lee Manchester did a masterful job–it’s wonderful. Few indeed are the resident historians who bring Mary MacKenzie’s curiosity, ability, and literary flair to the material–and what material this is! Through local history, Mrs. MacKenzie show us the world.” Amy Godine, writer and Adirondack social/ethnic historian.
“Wonderful book – well written – most interesting – In depth history of Lake Placid
Anne Damp, Amazon 5 stars
A page-turning history of one of America’s most interesting small towns. Mary MacKenzie has written a humdinger of a history of Lake Placid, New York, home to Winter Olympic Games in 1932 and again in 1980. This is history that’s hard to put down—grounded in years of solid research but interpreted in a most engaging and often humorous way. From tales of early settlers to the coming of John Brown and the Underground Railroad to the Olympic heroics of 1932 and 1980, there’s something here for everyone. Many thanks to editor Lee Manchester and publisher Nick Burns for rescuing the late Mary MacKenzie’s brilliant historical writings from obscurity and publishing them in this handsome, compelling book. Ed Kanze, Amazon 5 stars
