Great River Revisited

Now available on-line from Hudson River Research Institute

2010-09-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

PDF 1941 Edition Croswell Bowen's Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Millay, Edna St. Vincent Millay at Steepletop

2010-04-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.millay.org/

Gate to front lawn, Steepletop

Millay's Writing Studio at Steepletop.

Queen Anne's Lace in Millay's Garden, Steepletop

Purple Iris, Millay's Garden, Steepletop

Yellow and Whtie Iris, Millay's Garden, Steepletop

Swimming Pool, Steepletop

You may be wondering why, if I've swum about 10 miles since I returned to California from New York, I've detoured northeast to Austerlitz and the former home of my fellow Vassar graduate, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's because I happened to pick up a newspaper back east that featured the May 28 opening of her house at Steepletop. I visited there last June, and I remembered that she had a swimming pool and a wonderful writer's cottage 50 yards from the house.

I wonder why Dad made no mention of her presence in the Valley. He adored Vassar girls, and she was certainly as eccentric as Poultney Bigelow or Chanler Chapman. I've not read her poems in years, but I think I will, as I was moved by her love of the woods and gardens, and swimming.

Meanwhile I'll pick up my Hudson River Miles location, which I imagine is somewhere between Saugerties and Kingston.

Mountain Lakes PBS' Paul Larson Interview about Great River Revisited

2010-03-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

In October, as the Crandall Library Exhibit of Croswell Bowen's photographs of the Hudson was opening, Paul Larson, a journalist with Plattsburgh PBS station interviewed me. It aired in early March and can be seen about tem minutes into the March 11 edition of Mountain Lakes Extra.

What is John Burroughs Doing In Toledo, Ohio?

2010-03-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

John Burrroughs in front of the Toledo Museum of Art School, Lucey

Bowen, 2010

I'm not sure why I'm here, except that my father grew up here, on the banks of the Maumee, not the Hudson.

I don't know what Burroughs is doing here but he did come to Toledo in 1918 for the unveiling of the statue.

Uncle Sam or Mad Hatter?

2010-03-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

From Mrs. Winthrop Chanler's Autumn in the Valley

Almost two years ago I wrote about Sheriff Bob and other Chanler characters. My virtual swim has brought me back to their neighborhood. In the meantime I followed up on the branch of the family that established themselves in western New York. Carl Carmer and Croswell Bowen alluded to Margaret Terry Chanler's books: Roman Spring and Autumn in the Valley. Mrs. Chanler's memoirs were popular in the early 1930s. Mrs. Chanler talks about her brother-in-law Bob Chanler, who visited them before they left Newport, Rhode Island. She includes this wonderful portrait of him in his pre-Sheriff Bob of Dutchess County days. Is the costume Uncle Sam or the Mad Hatter?

Done! River Miles, Tides etc.

2010-02-27T09:56:00.000-08:00

Today I completed my goal of swimming 100, 000 yards in February. On the first day of the month I had swum as far as Fort Edward, with its famous Jane McCrea House, HRM 193. Hudson River Miles are a great way to keep track of where things are in the Hudson Valley. (I use the numbers in Arthur G Adam's The Hudson River Guidebook to keep myself oriented.)

100,000 yards is about 57 miles of pool swimming. So in pool miles, I've only made it as far as the outlet of Norman's Kill, just south of Albany, at about HRM 137. However, since at least in theory, I've swum with the flow of the Hudson and the outgoing morning tide, I've put myself at about HRM 93.75, at Cruger's or Magdalen Island, because it so kindles my Romantic imagination. In The Hudson, Carl Carmer tells of the ruins, built on Cruger's Island, into which Mayan statues, transported from the Yucatan, had been placed. In Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson, Croswell Bowen tells how "the Hudson River aesthetes used to meet for poetry readings and sing to the gentle strumming of the mandolin. Then in aesthetic exultation, they would take to canoes or boats and row around Cruger's Island by moonlight." I believe that it is Carmer himself seated in the photograph on the left, taken by my father in 1938 or 1939. On the right is Margaret Bourke-White's photograph of the same scene, 1939. When I visited my friend Catriona Shafer and her family at nearby Bard College, we used to fantasize about re-creating that experience.

The View from Callandar House

2010-02-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

Catskills from Callandar House, Tivoli, New York, Lucey Bowen, 2009

4000 yards have brought me here, to what I consider the most delicious view from the East Side of the River, at Callandar House, named for an ancestral home in Scotland. It was still in Livingston hands when Dad visited in 1938. He spoke with the very proper Mrs. Livingston Redmond, observing that she could do with a little more intercourse-with her neighbors.

The house has passed through other caring hands: Swiss bankers, French decorators and now, I believe, Australian investment bankers.

Think My Virtual Hudson River Swim is Eccentric? Meet Poultney Bigelow

2010-02-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

Poultney Bigelow Memorial Park, Malden-on-Hudson, Lucey Bowen, 2008

I'm swimming past the homestead of a remarkable family. Dad interviewed Poultney Bigelow in 1938, and found him a delightful eccentric. I visited the homestead in 2009, courtesy of his nephew, Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff, and Ric Dragon, who had set up the website linked above. Malden was once a thriving port for the bluestone that Asa Bigelow shipped to Manhattan.

Two hours of Swimming, and I'm Hungry

2010-02-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

I'm now near Germantown, NY. One of the wonderful things about the the 21st Century is that things have changed, even in rural corners of the Hudson Valley. I mean changed for the better. An Indian Restaurant in Germantown? Yes! Haley's Bakery and Deli, an Indian American Restaurant, with rave reviews on the fresh food at lunch, and the dinner buffet.

Enjoy!

The Story of Waltz, the Murderer

2010-02-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

This is a haunted stretch of river road. Between Catskill and Athens, in 1873, Joseph Waltz murdered an itinerant scissor grinder. While imprisoned in the Catskill jail, he murdered the Constable Ernst. Dad heard the story from Constable Ernst's son, in 1938, and wrote it up in a letter to Carl Carmer. The story didn't make it into Carmer's The Hudson. Begining in March, I'll be publishing those Letters in blog format.
In the meantime, I have managed to swim another 5000 yards down the virtual River.

At the farm where the Scissor Grinder Was Murdered,
Lucey Bowen, 2009

Olana: Persia-On-Hudson

2010-02-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

Looking West from Olana, Lucey Bowen, 2009

I first visited Frederic Church's oriental fantasy, just south of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, with one of the Shafer boys from Bard College. The date was about 1971, soon after Olana was made a state historic site and just before free agency was allowed in Major League Baseball. At least that's how I remember it because young Shafer gave me a lecture on the dire financial consequences of free agency.

I visited again in the summer of 2009. The house and grounds were even more wonderful than I remembered. I returned again in the Fall to visit the range of properties that have joined together to maintain the rural feel of Olana's viewshed. Rain and fog blurred the fall colors in an appropriately romantic, almost gothic scene.

South to the Lake, Olana, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Church, who lived from 1836 to 1900, traveled extensively and painted many foreign scenes, but gloried in this place. I'm glad to pause after my 4000 yard swim and contemplate what Church created.

A Restful Stop at the Stewart House in Athens

2010-02-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

   Last summer I spoke at the Athens Library, stayed at the Stewart House, and traded a photograph for a dinner at the Stewart House's restaurant. (Fish and vegetables en papillote, mmmmm.) Today, swimming virtually with the outgoing tide, I'm back.
   The Rip Van Winkle Bridge has supplanted the Hudson to Athens Ferry that Dad and Margaret Bourke-White photographed in 1939. The ferry dock and factory that once dominated Athens' waterfront are gone. In their place is this restored hotel that looks out onto the river and the island between Athens and Hudson.
   It is the creation of the multi-talented Owen Lipstein. Dramatic angel of Shakespeare-On-the-Hudson, publisher of InsideOut Hudson Valley, interviewer and entrepreneur, he is a Hudson Valley character that Croswell Bowen would have definitely talked to, and Stewart House hospitality calls me back!

Stockport Creek

2010-02-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

Lucey Bowen, 2009

Croswell Bowen, 1938

Today's swim brings me to Stockport. My last visit there was to re-photograph the Stockport Octagon, whose owners should be proud of preserving this important legacy from Orson Fowler's 19th Century advocacy of Octagonal Living. Mike Cooney has a lovely blog about the Creek and the Stockport Flats, and authored novel about the area!

The Treasures of Coxsackie

2010-02-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Model of the Catskill Mountain House at Greene County Historical Society Museum, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Today's swim brought me to Coxsackie. There the Greene County Historical Society is located on the grounds of the Bronck Farm, whose 13 sided barn was shown in Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson. Inside another building is a scale model of the Catskill Mountain House, world famous hotel. I never got to see the real thing; that icon of the Hudson was destroyed in 1963. A few years later Roland Van Zandt wrote The Catskill Mountain House, Cradle of the Hudson River School. It is a complete account of the vicissitudes of this remarkable institution, which was located high in the Catskills south of Coxsackie, and gave its guests a breathtaking view out over the Hudson.

View from the Site of Catskill Mountain House, Lucey Bowen, 2008

Kinderhook the Quiet

2010-02-18T09:12:00.000-08:00

Looking West to Catskills from Kinderhook, Lucey Bowen, 2009

A chemical imbalance in the pool this morning limited me to a little over a mile of swimming. I'm somewhere parallel to Kinderhook, New York. Last summer I drove there to speak with the wonderful retired New York State geologist who runs a rock shop there. Wanted to get an update on the geological view of the Hudson River. Then I drove over to watch the Quadricentennial Flotilla pass by. Once upon a time, Kinderhook was an important spot on the roads from New York and Boston to Albany. Today it is quiet.

A Socialist Commune and A Cement Plant with a Cathedral Town in Italy for Its Name

2010-02-17T15:44:00.000-08:00

LaFarge Cement Dock, Ravena, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Today's virtual swim of three thousand yards brings me to New Baltimore. We can gaze on the barges waiting to be loaded with cement from the plant at Ravena. The manufacture of cement generates airborne pollution, so the plant is a source of concern to its down wind neighbors across the Hudson. The origin of the name for the town is also controversial. Named for local ravines? a brand of flour? the city in Italy with famous frescoes? Anything seemed better than Coeyman's Junction, which might be confused with Coeyman's Landing.

In the hills above to the southwest my father photographed what was said to be the building that housed the short-lived Forrestville Commonwealth. Followers of the socialist Robert Owen came to the area in the early 19th Century and attempted to share their labor and living quarters. Too much philosophy and too little agricultural expertise doomed their enterprise.

Detail, Abandoned Building, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Transportation History On View

2010-02-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Railroad and Thruway Bridges at Castleton-On-Hudson, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Today's two and a half miles of swimming have brought me down to this wonderful pair of bridges, seen here from Schodack Island Park. Schodack Island was the site of Mahican council fires. From here I watched the Henry Hudson Quadricentennial Flotilla last summer. (N.B. I've decided that the outgoing tidal boost is equivalent to drafting off of the swimmer ahead of me in my lane!)

Believe it or not, this railroad bridge is the first one north of Manhattan. Trains from the south and west headed for New England must cross the Hudson here. It's known as the Castleton Cut-off or the Selkirk Hurdle. Meanwhile, river traffic to Albany easily passes under, while the river's banks have train tracks on east and west shores. Nowadays, truck traffic on the New York Thruway dominates, while access to the towns and villages along the river is limited.

Twentieth Century Limited? Under Castleton Bridge, New York Central Calendar, 1925

Crossing the Bars

2010-02-15T10:26:00.000-08:00

Today's two and a half mile swim brings me down the Hudson past the outlet of Norman's Kill. Norman's Kill separates the Catskills from the Helderbergs, and flows through the Vale of Ta-Wa-Sentha, dwelling place of the legendary Hiawatha. There one encounters Overslaugh Bar and many small creeks, almost islands and sandbars. Since the late 19th Century these have been dredged to make Albany a seaport. The photograph on the left gives some idea of the low lands that characterize this stretch of the river.

The Port of Albany

2010-02-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Grain Elevators, Port of Albany, Lucey Bowen 2009

I wanted to take this photograph, so reminiscent of Margaret Bourke-White and Charles Sheeler's 1930s modernistic aesthetic of geometry in industrial forms. I wanted it badly enough to risk a lecture from the manager of the facility, as this segment of the food supply is under the protection of the Coast Guard and photography isn't permitted.

But this is where an hour's swimming in California, with out the Hudson's tides, got me!

Swimming The Tidal River

2010-02-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

East Bank of Hudson at Albany, Lucey Bowen 2009

Having passed the dam at Troy, I am now swimming in the tidal Hudson, between Hudson River Mile 153 at the Federal Dam and HRM 145. I checked the tidal predictions for this section of the river. My early morning swims coincide with the falling tide of about 5 feet. I wish I could add that as extra mileage for my Master's Swimming February Fitness Challenge. Two problems with that. The first would be convincing my coach to allow it; the second, calculating how much speed I gain swimming with the tide.
This section of the River bears all the marks of its industrial history and its neglect. Even where sections have been rehabilitated, concrete roadways block access to the River.

Albany from the East Bank, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Pattern Shots Where the Champlain and Hudson Meet the Erie

2010-02-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

Opening Day at Waterford, NY, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Today's 4 k of swimming have brought me past Lock One of the Champlain and Hudson Canal to Waterford, where the famous flight of locks of the Erie Canal loop around to avoid the falls at Cohoes. In early May I was here for Opening Day, the first guaranteed ice free and flood free days on the canals. It reminded me of the famous Qing Ming Festival on the Grand Canal of China, celebrated in painted scrolls. I was inspired to try for the pattern shots Croswell Bowen took aboard working tugboats in 1938. Now, carefully restored, many of those same tugboats come to Waterford each May to celebrate the opening of the canal, even if it's just for recreation.

Cement Barge at Canal Basin, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Washington Irving Slept Here; Or Not

2010-02-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

   2 k yards have brought me about even with Schaghticoke, and very close to the Knickerbocker Mansion. A really neat account of this house has been written by the Albany Times columnist Don Rittner. This fascinating stretch of the Hudson isn't covered in Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson. I have several theories why it was omitted.
   Let me tell you about it, and then you can decide for yourself. the City Historian of Mechanicville, Paul Loatman, remarks that in the late 1600s, the Hoosick delta was like the Golan heights, contested territory. New England Puritans waged war against the tribal confederacy of King Philip. At Schaghticoke, the New York authorities took a different approach. Their strategy was to gather the Schaghticoke Indians, Mohicans, to use as a buffer against the French and their allies, the Mohawks. In 1676, Governor Andros, evoking the 1000 year old English tradition of witanagemot, or assembly of wise men, planted the Witanagemot Oak, which was to provide shelter for the Mohicans. Of course, the tree lasted longer than the peaceful shelter for the Indians, some of whom withdrew to a new Schaghticoke in Connecticut.
   At the beginning of the 18th Century, the city of Albany acquired the tract, and a few years later one John Knickerbocker located his farm where the brick mansion now stands. His descendant, a lawyer named Herman Knickerbocker, styled himself "the Prince of the tribe of Schaghticoke Indians." Washington Irving latched onto Knickerbocker as one of his pen names, and later became friends with Knickerbocker, a Congressman.
   So my theories about the omission: The Witanagemot isn't celebrated because most people don't want to remember conflict, especially complicated conflicts, one of sporadic incursions, shifting loyalties and betrayals. The Knickerbocker Mansion is also a complicated site to commemorate. Irving's Knickerbocker's History is part of Irving's fanciful depictions of the Dutch in New York, and is associated with Manhattan Island rather than upstate. In any case, Croswell Bowen's mentor, Carl Carmer was none too fond of Washington Irving's depictions of the Dutch as buffoons.

This stretch of the Hudson is indeed bucolic, and a second day's swimming (4.5 k) has brought me to within a mile and a half of the last lock on the Champlain and Hudson Canal, whose buoy you see to the left.

Poetry and Industry

2010-02-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

Stiilwater, Lucey Bowen, 2009

   "This is Stillwater...and it is appropriately named," wrote Croswell Bowen in 1941. Still apt in 2009. "Further down the waters spill noisily over dams, turning the water white and misty." Because of the dams, the Champlain and Hudson Canal runs in parallel, with Lock 4 and a llama Farm located on an island in the Hoosick delta. Lock 5 is located right next to the damn in the aptly named Mechanicville. When Dad passed through Mechanicville in the summer of 1938, local folk were careful to swim above the paper mill located there.
   The paper mill is gone. The generating plant in Mechanicville is the oldest continuously operating hydroelectric plant in the United States. Charles Steinmetz designed it. The turbine covers are now bright yellow. The building itself is brick, with gently arched windows. Lock 3 is located in the middle of the river, with dams to either side.
   As you can imagine, my 3 k virtual swim was a good way to navigate this stretch of the river.

The Baroness Took Shelter Here

2010-02-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

The Marshall House, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Ooops, have to do a little backtracking here. I got so caught up with Grandma Moses that I went right past the place where she celebrated her 90th Birthday! It's called The Marshall House. I think it should be called the Bullard-Tann House, because those are the terrific people who live there now. Of course, that's not the way we do things in historical New York State. When my Dad travelled this area for Carl Carmer, he had a long chat with Mrs. Bullard, mother of the current owner. Together they translated from the French a letter from Baroness Riedesel. The Baroness had taken shelter in the house during the American bombardment of the Hessian troops, which her husband commanded for the British. She survived and wrote a memoir of the events of the Revolution that she witnessed. Dad admired her tremendously; as Dave Bullard says, she's brave and she's a good writer!

I was privileged to receive more Bullard hospitality when I visited. Not only did Mr. Bullard show me the house, and regale me with regional lore, but I learned that his wife, the composer Hilary Tann, had incorporated the folksongs of Yankee John Galusha into a composition, Adirondack Light. Ms. Tann introduced me to the poetry of Jordan Smith.

"Nothing Forgotten" is a line of Smith's poetry that inspired Tann. It perfectly describes how I felt talking to these household gods of The Marshall House. And lest I forget, I'll resume tomorrow in Stillwater, where today's 3k yards took me.

The Turning Point

2010-02-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

Hudson from Rt. 4, Lucey Bowen, 2009

At the direction of my esteemed physcial therapist, Michelle; thorough and gives good explanations; I am swimming only breast stroke with dolphin kick, so two hours produced only 2 miles. This brings me to Bemis Heights, just south of the park preserving Saratoga Battlefield.

When Croswell Bowen visited the Saratoga Battlefield, it had long been a pilgrimage site for Revolutionary War buffs, such as Benson Lossing, whose descriptions and sketches are still a delight. However, it had only recently become an official park. It had continued as farmland and gravel pit for decades after the Battle. For those who aren't Revolutionary War buffs, a reminder: The British plan, based on their previous experience fighting the French and Indians in the Northern reaches of the Hudson Valley, was to drive south from Canada and North from Manhattan, thereby splitting the colonies. Beginning with John Stark's defeat of the Hessian troops at Bennington, "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne was stretched beyond his supply lines, began to retreat and finally surrendered. This was the beginning of the British defeat.

Grandma Moses Lived Here

2010-02-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

Grandma Moses at Family Farm, Eugene Smith for Life, 1948

   Today's 5 k have brought me down the Hudson to just west of Cambridge, NY. Growing up, I heard people talk about Grandma Moses whenever they wanted to allude to a primitive style of painting, a self-taught artist. Even so, I had little idea of who she was or where she lived. She was born in Eagle Bridge, south of Cambridge, but north of Hoosick Falls.
   Once famous across the United States from the mid-1940s on, her name isn't heard so much today. Grandma Moses took up painting late in life. She was untrained, but borrowed from school books, Christmas Cards, post cards, old prints and magazine to create her detailed pastoral landscapes. In many of her paintings, the terrain of the Hoosick Valley is recognizable, although she also drew on her time on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Just as regional writing found an audience in the 1930s and 1940s, so viewers responded to her "cosy and limitless universe, which contained," as the critic Louis Bromfield wrote, "the keys to the knowledge of good living and understanding." As recently as 2003, an exhibit of her work "Grandma Moses in the 21st Century" toured museums from Florida to Oregon.
   Today, her great grandson, Will Moses, like her son before him, continues the family tradition, combining art and the country life. The Moses family farm was preserved from development in 2009, when vegetable farmer great grandson Rich Moses and his wife turned over the development rights to the Agricultural Stewardship Association.

The View from Stark's Knob

2010-02-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

5 more kilometers of swimming have brought me down the Hudson to a very special spot. Stark's Knob got its name from Vermont's General Stark, hero of the Battle of Bennington, which turned the tide in the American Revolution, just before the Battle of Saratoga. He was famous for the rallying cry "There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!"
Stark's Knob is a geological wonder in the Hudson Valley. It was formed under an ancient ocean, of glass like pillow basalt. From it you can see several miles up the Hudson, and all the way to the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Half Way from Fort Edward to Fort Miller

2010-02-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

Really Excited to have done 5 k pool miles on the first day of February Fitness.

This gets me down along one of the most beautiful sections of the Hudson. These are hills running up to the Green Mountains of Vermont, and from them you see the distant Adirondacks, in their purple majesty.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A.E. Housman wrote that about England. I feel the same about Washington County. The farmers there are struggling. The population declines, the beauty remains, for now.

Blackbird East of the Hudson, Lucey Bowen, May 2009

Mountain Lakes PBS to air Interview in February

2010-01-31T15:09:00.000-08:00

Natty Bumpo's Cave, Glens Falls, Croswell Bowen, 1938

Natty Bumpo's Cave, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Natty Bumpo's Cave, Lucey Bowen, 2008

Re-photographing is a sort of Take Two. But even that second shot may require a retake. There An observation platform has been built for tourists to see Natty Bumpo's Cave, replacing the spiral staircase that washed away decades ago.

On a blustery October day, Mountain Lakes PBS's Paul Larson interviewed me for his Art Express program. I talked about Croswell Bowen and Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson and the photographs on exhibit at the Crandall Folklife Center. Then Paul and his cameraman drove me over the Hudson and filmed me doing my retake of Natty Bumpo's cave.

A nice supervisor from the tissue mill came down to tell us we were trespassing, but relented when he understood what we were doing.

Paul tells me that the interview will be aired this month or early next month, and available on their web site after that.

Fort Edward and Rogers' Island

2010-01-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

Bridges from South Glens Falls to Rogers' Island and Fort Edward, Lucey Bowen 2008

Two more miles of my virtual swim has brought me past what I believe to be the site of the dam whose removal dumped PCBs into the area near the bridges and downstream. Rogers Island was the site of a training camp for Rogers' Rangers, the force developed to counteract the successful role of Native Americans in the French campaign against the British 18th Century Vermont and New York. Fort Edward was one of a string of forts to act as a buffer against the French. Parallel to the Hudson in this stretch is the Glens Falls Feeder Canal, bringing Hudson River water through Glens Falls to augment the water supply of the Champlain and Hudson Canal, just around the bend.

A Dangerous Stretch of the River

2010-01-28T15:31:00.000-08:00

Bridges at Hudson Falls, Lucey Bowen 2009

Dam at Hudson Falls, Lucey Bowen 2009

GE Hudson Falls, Lucey Bowen 2009

This week's virtual swim of almost three miles have gotten me as far as Hudson Falls. The River turns here to flow south again. A swimmer must avoid the falls, but the river here is also dangerous because of the PCBs concentrated below the GE plant and the site on a former dam.

The old bridge is reminiscent of a Roman ruin like the Pont du Garde or the Pont d'Avignon, graceful if unused.

Swimming to Glens Falls Without Logs in the River

2010-01-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

Logs Arriving at Glens Falls, 1938, Croswell Bowen

Logs arriving at Finch Paper, 2009. Lucey Bowen

I love Glens Falls. The loggers used to sing "Christmas is coming, I'm going to Glens Falls, and go on a spree." By now, in January, they'd be back in the woods. The river would be frozen, and logs stacked up waiting for the spring thaw. Cold thought for my hour swim in a heated pool that got me here, figuratively or virtually speaking.

At the Feeder Canal, 1 Mile from Glens Falls, Virtually

2010-01-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

Image from Google Street Map

I swam this mile in the pouring rain this morning. Tomorrow lightening is predicted, so I probably won't be able to swim. This is a section of the Hudson which does lazy S curves after coming out of the Adirondacks. The feeder canal was first built to provide additional water for the Champlain and Hudson Canal, but soon proved useful in delivering logs to Glens Falls mills. From this spot the Hudson flows north, before dropping precipitously over the ledges that make up the cave of Cooper, or rather Natty Bumpo, so called "Last of the Mohicans."

Two more miles to Glens Falls

2010-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

The Hudson at I 87 Just Southwest of Glens Falls

Google Street View

I suspect this section is icy at the moment.

An Off Weekend

2010-01-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

Spier Falls from Google Street View

A virtual Hudson River swim deserves a virtual visit, which Street View gives me. I did a lot of walking in San Francisco this past weekend, and just a little swimming.

Margaret Bourke-White took a photograph of Spier Falls transformers currently on display at the Crandall Library Folklife Center in Glens Falls. When I visited, the transformers were of a newer vintage, but still have three "horns." I asked my engineer husband why? Alternating current for two and ground for the third was his reply if I understood completely.

Another Mile Down the River

2010-01-06T14:31:00.000-08:00

Photo by KyleAndMelissa22

I am so lucky to be swimming out of doors at this time of year. It is true that I can't go skating on black ice ponds, or drive over to ski in New York or Vermont, or even hitch on cross country skis or snow shoes and just head out the back door.

Now I'm sitting by the fire and thinking about the great logging films I saw at the Crandall in October. Logging had to be done in the winter so that all the logs would be assembled for the spring thaw and water release. Corinth was the site of an International Paper mill until it closed suddenly a few years ago.

My Virtual Hudson Swim Continues

2010-01-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

The Hudson, just below Rockwell Falls.

Lucey Bowen, June, 2009

With the New Year, I'm back to daily swimming, and as of today, I'm 4 miles below Rockwell Falls. I'm just above Corinth, on a flat stretch of water, which right now really looks like this.

Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson 2009 edition Available for Sale On Line

2009-12-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

Through the miracles of high technology, the Quadricentennial edition is now for sale, on line, press the title to go to link and from there to PayPal.

"Sailing Down My Golden River"

2009-11-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

Lake Sanford, Newcomb, New York, Croswell Bowen, 1938

Pete Seeger wrote "Sailing Down My Golden River" in 1962, when he was learning to sail on the Hudson. He sang it at the opening of the Walkway Over the Hudson in early October. I'm fond of its verses "And I was never alone," and "And I was not far from home," and hummed it a great deal as I retraced my father's photographic journey on the Hudson.

Neither my father nor I sailed the length of the Hudson, nor swam it as Chris Swain has done. Rather, both our journeys were episodic, almost quixotic pilgrimages, more byway than highway, up and down like the Hudson's tides and salt fronts. Now I'm writing a book about about my journey in a shape different from the river's course from Tear to Liberty.

Not everyone of Dad's and my photographs will be included, so I thought I'd be sure to include those that aren't here. Get ready to sail on down!

Lake Sanford, Newcomb, New York. Lucey Bowen, 2009

Grave Matters

2009-10-29T12:26:00.001-07:00

I had utterly despaired of locating this photograph. The custodian of the Crandall Library recognized it immediately; he grew up across the street, and played near Mary Persons' marble vault at the top of the hill. Mary Persons was the mistress of a married man, shunned by kith and kin. She determined that none would benefit after her death, except the Baptist Church, and the builders of her elaborate tomb. Dad didn't include this story in his caption, instead remarking on the universal verities of death, even in timeless Adirondacks. Returning to get the precise angle he chose, I, too noticed that all but the yellow leaves have fallen.

Union Cemetary, North Creek

Lucey Bowen, 2009

Going to the Dogs

2009-10-27T04:52:00.000-07:00

Black and white photographs, Croswell Bowen, 1938; Color photographs, Lucey Bowen, 2009.

One of Dad's best letters to Carl Carmer relates his interview with Mrs. Redmond at Callendar House. There was no one home when I found the place, based on directions from Cynthia Philip, Rhinecliff historian. It was a breathtaking day, having rained all the day before. The house is sited just above the Hudson, and I felt I could reach out and touch the barge that was being pushed downriver just there.

Bridge in the Mist

2009-10-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

Rip Van Winkle Bridge, Croswell Bowen, 1938-41

The weather for the Olana Viewshed Tour suited more moody impressionist photographs than Hudson River pictorial. This bridge was finished right around Dad's journey, and the Hudson to Athens Ferry, just to the north, still served locals.

Rip Van Winkle Bridge, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Gothic and More Gothic

2009-10-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

Lindenwold, Croswell Bowen, 1938-1939

Lindenwald, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Lyndhurst, Lucey Bowen. 2009

I drove to the Archives of the Historical Society of Greenwich, Connecticut to look at Anya Seton's papers. Seton wrote Dragonwyck, a very popular bodice-ripper that I adored as a teenager. The novel is a fictionalized account that combines a Van Rensselaer like patroon, the Anti-Rent Wars along the Hudson and a fatal steamboat race. Seton evidently consulted Carl Carmer for her history, and when a movie was made of her book, wrote him a check for $2000, the equivalent of about $25,000 today.

Seton's files also contain her notes for the book. She says she modeled the mansion Dragonwyck on Van Buren's Lindenwald, but I imagine it as more like Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, which I visited today, dressed as it was in Halloween garb.

The Light at the End

2009-10-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

World Telegram Building and New York Telephone Building,

Lucey Bowen, 2009

First morning light over Manhattan illuminates the New Jersey shore. Just after dawn, again I caught the New York Waterway shuttle to the 36th Street Ferry terminal. This time I took the ferry to 14th Street, Hoboken, and from there to the World Trade Center. With the throngs of commuters coming by PATH train, I walked past the site of the Twin Towers. When the WTC, was finished in 1970, I was in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, we sent a man to the moon and bombed South East Asia. It was built in a concrete bathtub where there once was River. That is why the World Telegram Building and the New York Telephone Building can no longer be seen from the water's edge; now there are several buildings between. Notice the base of the NYT building matches the diagonal blocks of lower Manhattan, while the tower is aligned to the mid-town grid. Dad's photography teacher, Berenice Abbott, perfected the skyscraper as canyon wall shot. Next to the NYT building, re-construction goes ahead.

Construction at World Trade Site from Portico of New York Telephone Building,

Lucey Bowen, 2009

Covering the Waterfront

2009-10-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

Ferry Terminal West of 140 West Street; the World Telegram and New York Telephone Buildings in background, Croswell Bowen, 1939-1941

Today was the day to find the location of the ferry terminals my dad photographed. I started out before sunrise by flagging down the New York Waterways bus on 57th Street and riding it to their mid-town terminal, next to the big towers that ventilate the tunnels under the river. I asked a person who seemed to be in charge if it was a problem for me to take photographs from the ferry. Big mistake; always better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. He informed me that I would have to wait and speak with his supervisor, who wouldn't be in until 9.

I walked past the Circle Line and the Intrepid and crossed the West Side Highway. At the Pom Pom Diner on 11th Avenue, I had a bacon and cheese omelette and thought about how later in his journalism career, Dad would befriend Bill Keating, the assistant DA who prosecuted the waterfront gangs in the 1950s.

Back at the terminal, I talked to an accommodating secretary who pointed out that her grandchildren always take photos from the ferry when they come over, so it shouldn't be a problem. Armed with this advice, I took the next ferry to Port Imperial. I think it's named that for Anthony Imperiale, the head of New York Waterway. Got some nice shots of ferries passing.

However, I was still unclear about the location of the New York terminal of the Lackawanna. It seemed that it should be opposite the New Jersey one, sometimes referred to as Piazza San Lackawanna.

Another ride, this time around Manhattan to the Wall Street terminal, just below the South Street Seaport, and just above the Staten Island Ferry. I decided to head up to the Museum of the City of New York, who with the WPA, sponsored the Changing New York project of Berenice Abbott, Dad's photography teacher at the New School. I knew that she had photographed the two buildings in the background of Dad's photos. Armed with the precise address of the building, 140 West Street, I consulted Google maps, and realized that this is next to the area where the Twin Towers stood.

I have avoided visiting the 9/11 site. Tomorrow, I will.

"Everything seems to dovetail with this story of the Upper Hudson."

2009-10-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

Lake Tear, Rutherford Platt, 1941

I've aged and the world is aging with me. I can do about two thirds of what I used to do. In the woods, I see young trees, fallen trees, mature trees, trees that are covered with lichens and other growth that is breaking down the tall pine to nurture the new growth. I see the ruins of man's diligent efforts, and caves of rocks tumbled from the highest of Adirondack Peaks.

Some thirty years ago, I summited Mount Marcy with a group of friends from the Appalachian Mountain Club of Worcester, MA. We went in from the north side. I don't remember an arduous trail and I do remember swimming in brooks on the way down. Knowing that Lake Tear of the Clouds is a 10-12 mile hike into the High Peaks from anywhere. I was hesitant to tackle the trek to re-photograph the Hudson's highest source. In the spirit of some of my long distrance swims this summer, I thought I might be able to train myself into shape to handle the distance. To ensure follow through, I contacted a licensed guide, and made the commitment to the two day hike. Only afterwards did I read that the photograph of Lake Tear is credited by Dad to Rutherford Platt. Too late to back out now! Preparations began. I got new hiking boots, backpack and tent to replace the mildewed ones in the garage that hadn't seem the light of day since my son's Scouting days. I walked with and without the pack. Shortly after arriving in the Adirondacks, I walked the carriage trail into Great Camp Santanoni, 5 miles each way in the pouring rain. My gear checked out, with the exception of mismatched gloves, which I replaced with two pairs of one dollar Target specials.

At the appointed hour, at dawn, I met my guide in the parking lot of the Upper Works of the Tahawus or Old MacIntyre Mining complex, made famous as the deserted village. "Any room in your pack for the groceries?" says he, and makes my carefully trimmed pack top heavy with our food. Off we set. He's a good talker and knows the history of the Adirondacks, a walking distraction. With my tippy backpack I negotiated one log bridge on hands and knees. We stopped for lunch at the first bridge across Calamity Brook, so named for the tragic gun accident that killed David Henderson, the entrepreneur who drove the mining and smelting of iron here. Lunch was a tortilla wrapped around some turkey and cheese; I would have eaten shoe leather. Then, there was silence except for the sound of water, and the crunch underfoot of the fallen yellow and green leaves. While watching carefully to place my trekking polls and boots, I marveled at the changing terrain. After 4 more hours of deeply muddy trail and boulders, we arrived at Flowed Lands, about half way to Lake Tear. My rudimentary math told me that I would not be able to climb to Tear and walk out the next day, and I cheerfully informed the guide that stopping here was fine by me. Much relieved, he put down his pack and got out the camp stove. "I hate cooking," the guide remarked. Uh-oh.

I couldn't wait to peel off my mud-soaked socks, replace them with dry ones and dive into my layers of fleece, wool and my sleeping bag. Dinner was two cups of marvelously warm ramen noodle soup and boiled-up frozen chicken stir-fry with rice. Other campers joined us in the lean-to, conjuring up meals of ragout of beef and cheese pizza, the former with wine. (French Canadians, naturellement.) As we finished supper, it began to snow, ivory snow type flakes.

When it was time to trek to the outhouse, I discovered my headlamp batteries were dead. I improvised a light with my ipod. (The French Canadian snored and I was trying to drown him out with Chinese lullabies.) That frigid trip was made tolerable by the Milky Way visible through the trees.

Morning was clear, light snow clinging to pine, the water at Flowed Lands iced over. Weak breakfast coffee, and a cold bagel with cream cheese and we started down the mountain. The guide was talked out, and I experienced that wonderful feeling of total physicality, where each muscle is tired, and some hurt, and my empty brain is only aware of keeping my body moving, going into that endurance space I love so much. We stopped again at the strange granite marker which was hauled two miles into the wilderness to mark the spot where David Henderson died. Lunch was another cold bagel, this time with cream cheese and pepperoni. As we reached the lower elevations, the snow melted and the air was warmer and moist. I wished I could swim in the deep pools of Calamity Brook.

Finally, at dusk we returned to the parking lot. Again, boots off, relief. Farewell to non-cooking guide. Back at Aunt Polly's Bed and Breakfast in Newcomb, my hot bath was followed immediately by twelve hours of sleep, and in the morning, the world's best french toast.

For reminding me that in the "forever wild" Adirondack Park, I do feel that ol' romantic sense of awe, two-thirds of the way to the Source of the Hudson was more than enough.

Calamity Brook, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Monument To David Henderson, Calamity Pond, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Flowed Lands, Lucey Bowen, 2009

What Once Was Troy, Collar City

2009-10-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Troy from Menands Bridge, Croswell Bowen, 1938-41

Troy from Menands Bridge, Lucey Bowen, 2009

From the windswept bridge over the blue Hudson, I can barely imagine the smokey haze that hovered over Troy in Dad's photograph. The cement silos remain.

The Real Great Sacandaga

2009-10-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Great Sacadaga Lake from Conklingville Dam, 2009

Bridge Over Great Sacandaga, 2009

Drove up to Luzerne to find the Ox Man, Forrest Hartley, columnist and farmer on the shores of the Great Sacandaga. Didn't meet up, but viewed the lake I've been swimming virtually this past month.

Gearing Up for Lake Tear Climb

2009-09-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

The source of the Hudson, Croswell Bowen, 1941

Before checking the photo-credits and realizing that Dad didn't take the picture of Lake Tear in the Clouds, I engaged a guide and committed to doing this climb. I've been training with my new boots and pack, and a technique my ex-husband emailed me, about giving your back leg a rest with each stride. At the suggestion of my message therapist (Oh this aging body!) I decided to try trekking poles! Back in my triathlon days, my husband used to joke about enterprises that required the purchase of new clothes. Still more training required.

The Great River Virtual Swim and Some Reality

2009-09-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Below Rockwell Falls, the Hudson is met by the

Sacandaga

Lucey Bowen, 2009

According to Chris Swain, this is the first place really deep enough to swim in the Hudson.

So I will begin my virtual swim here. Possibly when I am in the Adirondacks in a week or so, I may try some of this in a wet-suit, skipping the Falls, of course. Like Margaret Bourke-White,

I respect their enormous power. The volume of water passing over them creates washing machine like churning, and a swimmer would not survive. Above the Falls, one can see the kettle sized holes rock has worn in rock from this power.

Music of the River

2009-09-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hudson at Tahawus, Lucey Bowen, 2009

I'm looking forward to hearing Dan Berggren and John Kirk at the Crandall Library Folklife Center on October 15 and I got to thinking about all the wonderful music associated with the Hudson. Carl Carmer understood that folk music is a powerful tool for awareness and understanding.

I guess I could think of almost every Hudson River mile having a song associated with it. The tributary system gets pretty complicated, but my list would certainly include these:

From around Hudson River Mile 315, Lake Tear ....

Blue Mountain Lake from Pete Seeger

Once More a Lumbering Go from Pete Seeger

Cold River Line from Lee Knight

Canoe Song of the Onondaga from Lee Knight

Sabael from Jamcrackers

7 Rivers from Dan Berggren

and I'm not even to Hudson River Mile 153.4, the Federal Dam at Troy

(Of course through this all there would be One with the Waters from Dan Berggren and Sailing Down My Golden River sung by Arlo Guthrie for Pete in this version.)

To be continued, with suggestions welcomed!

A Bit of Printing History Along the Hudson

2009-09-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

Wooden Type at the Altamont Enterprise,

Lucey Bowen, 2009

Earlier this summer I had a delightful visit with Melissa Hale-Spenser and her daughter Saranac, Editor and Reporter, respectively, for this 125 year old weekly newspaper. A previous editor was Lansing Christman, son of farmer-poet W.W. Christman, one of Carl Carmer's heroes.

Although coping very well with the electronic age, thank-you-very-much, the Enterprise still has its old presses, and I took these photographs of some of the old type. Judging from Melissa and Saranac, I'd say printer's ink is in their blood.

Shaker Mystery Solved!

2009-09-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

Croswell Bowen, 1938-39

N.E. Baldwin, 1939

South Family Cannery, Watervliet, New York

N.E. Baldwin, 1939

South Family Workshops, Later Dormitory, Watervliet, New York

This has not been easy, or without confusion. (See my posts from 2008.) The Library of Congress to the rescue! A very careful survey of their Historic American Buildings Survey turned up these photographs, given to them by the wonderful New York State Department of Education. (Those are the folks who brought you the blue and yellow historic markers, but that is another story!)

Cher Papa! You did it again! You needed a better fact checker! These were not the North Family buildings, but the South Family!

When Schroon Lake Was Really Cold

2009-09-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

"Glacial Lake Warrensburg filled what is now the Schroon River Valley. It stretched from Deadwater Pond to Corinth in the Hudson River Valley. The water in this lake was held in by a wall of ice that stretched from Glens Falls to Saratoga Springs."

from

Geology of New York, A Simplified Account

Attention Chinese Landscape Painters of America

2009-09-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Lake Tear, from the air, 1939

Margaret Bourke-White,

Life Archive Hosted by Google

There is an amazing scroll painting waiting to be created! The headwaters of the Hudson wander down to the sea through canals and cities. There hasn't been a scroll painting of this since the 19th Century. Let's get started!

Croswell Bowen and Margaret Bourke-White at Crandall Library, Glens Falls, October, 2009

2009-09-04T08:00:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Todd DeGarmo, Founding Director, the Folklife Center at the Crandall Library, Glens Falls, New York, will display Croswell Bowen and Margaret Bourke-White's photographs of the Hudson, from Lake Tear to the Glens Falls region. Dad and Carl Carmer guided Bourke-White as she prepared a photo essay on the Hudson for the October, 1939 Life Magazine.

Most exciting are the programs that Todd has put together, bringing musicians, story-tellers and historians into the gallery to present related material:

Thursday, October 8, 5-7, Opening Reception and my slide talk.

Thursday, October 15, 7-9 PM, musicians Dan Berggren and John Kirk will perform traditional and Adirondack inspired songs.

Thursday, October 22, 7-9 PM, Adirondack story-teller Bill Smith.

Thursday, October 29, 7-9 PM, Finch, Pruyn and Co. historian Richard Nason.

I'm planning to attend all four events, and hope to see some of you there!

Schroon Lake Virtual Swim

2009-08-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

Interrupting my Margaret Bourke-White reverie to announce starting the next leg of my virtual Hudson River Swim, tributaries included...

I'll post my miles, and a map, as comments and hope you will, too.

Water Power

2009-08-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

"Falls, Upper Hudson"

Margaret Bourke-White

1939

Rockwell Falls, From Hadley-Luzerne Bridge

Lucey Bowen

2009

I hadn't yet found Bourke-White's photo in the Life Archive hosted by Google when I took my photograph earlier this summer. I was speaking at the Library in Corinth, and spent a few days at the Lamplight Inn in Luzerne. I was back a month later to talk about Dad's photos at the Luzerne Library. I have learned to love waterfalls from practicing Chinese painting. I think Bourke-White liked them because she was very interested in natural forms. She was always hatching butterflies and mantis in order to photograph them as they emerged from their cocoons. Of course waterfalls were also the power source that drove the industrial revolution before steam or electricity...

"To this day it hurts me to waste good clouds." MB-W, 1963

2009-08-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

"Hudson Near Stillwater"

Lucey Bowen, 2009

"Banks of the Hudson Below Fort Edward"

Margaret Bourke-White, 1939

from Life hosted by Google

Bourke-White's autobiography Portrait of Myself has me hooked. I love this 1939 photo because it reminds me of luminist paintings. In early May before the rains became unceasing, I looked for the exact spot, but the light is not right. I'm learning from her autobiography the importance of getting up really early. This photograph was used in the October, 1939 Hudson River spread in Life, but the archive contains many others that weren't. Serendipity, many are shots of the Upper Hudson that aren't in Dad's book either, I think because editors thought viewers didn't want to see too much industry on the river.

From Iron Mine to Hunting Club...

2009-08-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

"The Grounds and Lodge of the Tahawus Club in the Hudson River Valley."

September, 1939

Margaret Bourke-White

Life, hosted by Google

Bottom picture: The MacNaughton Cottage, Tahawus Club, where the Roosevelt Family stayed in 1901.

The man on the front porch might be Mike Breen, who was manager of the Tahawus Club in 1938, when Dad spent the night. (Mike had manager of the "Lower Works" at the time of Roosevelt's visit.)

With the cessation of mining activity in 1857, the Tahawus Tract was used as a private hunting club, the first of several to be organized in the Adirondacks. First it was called the Preston Ponds Club. In 1877 the entire tract was leased to the incorporated "Adirondack Club" by the heirs of the Adirondack Iron Works. This became the Tahawus Club in 1898. The first president was James MacNaughton, whose mother was a daughter of one of the original proprietors of the mine.

In 2003, the Open Space Institute acquired 10,000s of the Tahawus Tract, with NL Industries maintaining control of the 1,200 acre industrial portion. Happily for industrial archeologists, OSI has included the investigation and interpretation of the mine village a part of its plans.

For an updated view of the mine and village, check out this!

Bourke-White's Vision

2009-08-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

"Deserted Sanford Co. iron works overlooking the Hudson River."

Tahawus, NY, US

Margaret Bourke-White

from Life, hosted by Google

This photograph was not included in the October, 1939 Life photo essay. Too bad. It brings together the great industrial photographer, Margaret Bourke-White, and a great forgotten story of the Adirondack Park. Half a century before the formation of the Forest Preserve, and the drawing of the Blue Line around it, men attempted to mine iron within sight of Mount Marcy. Guided to the rich iron deposit by a member of the Abenaki Indian Benedict family, of Indian Lake, investors Henderson and MacIntyre attempted to mine and smelt iron and steel at this remote spot. Within a few years, they built an elaborate works, and a village to house the workers. The next hundred years saw failures and partial success, as transportation to the mine improved. After Bourke-White's photograph, a railroad to the mine was completed, and the mine re-opened to support war-time manufacturing.

Romantics and Conservationists extoll the "forever wild" forest of the Adirondacks, its natural beauty. Bourke-White saw beauty in man made things as well. This photograph shows both.

To learn more about the Iron Works, see The Story of Adirondac by Arthur H. Masten (The Adirondack Museum/ Syracuse University Press, 1968) and Bruce Seely's 1978 report Adirondack Iron and Steel Company: "New Furnace" 1849-1854, for the Historic American Engineering Record, or Chapter 14, The Adirondack Iron Works, in A History of the Adirondacks by Donaldson.

Back to Beginnings, Again

2009-08-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

In March of 2008, I wrote about Dad's adventures with Carl Carmer and Margaret Bourke-White, photographing the Hudson in 1939. Since that time, Life Magazine and Google have been scanning more images from the Life archives. The October, 1939 article entitled "The Hudson, Autumn broods over America's Rhine," included a half dozen aerial photographs, and more than a dozen other architectural shots by Bourke-White, with short captions. Now, the archives make available at least two dozen more. Because the archive captions are uninformative, I'm going to present them, starting near the source of the Hudson, with information from Dad and Carmer. If there is a companion photo from Dad's book, or from my excursion, I'll include that as well.

More on the Great Sacandaga

2009-07-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

2009: The Sacandaga River at junction with Hudson, from Parabolic Bridge

1859: Historian, engraver, journalist, traveler Benson Lossing's 19th Century View from Luzerne.

I admire Benson Lossing. He a trustee of my Alma Mater, Vassar College, and he could write and draw. He collected books, dare I say it, voluminously, and wrote history, biography and travelogues. His The Hudson, The Wilderness to the Sea, published in 1866, sets, dare I say it, a high water mark for all writers about the Hudson. His journey through the Adirondacks was largely by canoe. I've been following the disputes between private land-owners and advocates of the public's right to New York's navigable waters.

Would Lossing be able to make his voyage today?

The Virtual Great River Swim

2009-07-11T10:08:00.001-07:00

Great Sacandaga Lake from Conklingville Dam, June 2009

Fins and a double workout got me from one end of Indian Lake to the other. Next I'm going to hop out and drive south on Route 30, past Speculator to Sacandaga Lake, Piseco Lake, the upper branches of the Sacandaga River, Great Sacandaga Lake, and its River outlet at Hadley. This is a really long swim: I calculate 120 miles. This is going to absorb the next two months, with fins and double pool workouts. I wish I was swimming in cool blue waters. Maybe I'll sign up for some open water swims at Donner Lake, or in the ocean at Santa Cruz!

Lakes, Dams, Tributaries: The Wide Watershed of the River

2009-07-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

I'm obsessed with the tributaries that make the Hudson the Great River of the Mountains. Croswell Bowen and Carl Carmer neglected to include dams in their books about the River. Bridges, boats, industries, churches, architecture, history all have there places, but no dams. Indian Lake is a good example of this omission. I'm finding lots of information about it and its cousin, the Great Sacandaga Lake. Indian Lake was once much smaller. Lumber interests built a dam so that logs could be sent down stream on a surge of water in the spring. After the end of river drives in 1954, that dam remained, as well as a more modern one. Today, that dam is controversial: Should water power be harnessed for electricity? Should release pulses be made to accommodate recreational rafting? I hope all stakeholders can use best science and good faith to find the best for the people of the Adirondacks and all of New York State.

Where Am I?

2009-07-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

So that my California friends can orient themselves, I'm virtually about a third of the way up Indian Lake, which will flow through the Abenaki and Indian Rivers to join the Hudson. Back in the day, this was prime river driving log terrritory.

Swimming Indian Lake

2009-07-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

Indian Lake School Children in Heritage Week Concert,

June, 2009

Back in California, I'm missing the Hudson and her people. Inspiration! Like Chris Swain, I'll swim the length of the Hudson! If I can arrange the complex logistics, I'll do this in May, June, July and August of 2010! In the meantime, to train, I will swim the Hudson, virtually, consulting Google Earth and Maps, and posting this unusual form of River Revisiting.

I'm changing it up a bit and including all my favorite tributaries. So here goes! I've done about 4 miles since Wednesday, which puts me right in the middle of Indian Lake, where I'd love to be. As I swam today, I thought about Jamcrackers, and Dan Berggren's haunting song, Sabael (2001). Dan composed this ballad based on the research done by third graders at Indian Lake Central School. For several years Dan and Jamcrackers have brought the spirit of "Yankee John" Galusha, with his songs of the Adirondacks to the school's Heritage Week.

This year's concert featured many songs about the Adirondack environment, some written by Jamcracker's Peggy Lynn. The children were talented and enthusiastic chorus!

So this section of my virtual swim is dedicated to the children of Indian Lake Central School-in the hope and faith that there River will become cleaner and cleaner!

Wandering West

2009-06-28T04:33:00.001-07:00

Hyde Hall, Lucey Bowen, June 2009

The wettest June in memory turns the Leatherstocking Country the green shades of Ireland. My Hudson Valley journey is ending, the work of writing just begining. A visit to the NYSHA library to examine some Carl Carmer papers, brought me along the Erie Canal and the Mohawk River and south to this beautiful region.

Hyde Hall is astonishing. More than any of the great houses along the Hudson, Hyde Hall resembles the Great Houses of Ireland, and reflects the aristocratic notions of the family that built it, the Clarkes.

In the mists above Glimmerglass, it is a grey ghost, a wispy memory of class conflict and fortunes made and lost.

Over in Sharon Springs, possessed by different ghosts, my sister Molly and I fall asleep, she reading Dark Waters, about the 1967 flood in Florence, and I, James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy. Cooper's second novel, The Spy was said to be based on the activity of Enoch Crosby, a Brewster native, in the the Hudson Valley.

Finding Forestville

2009-06-23T03:26:00.001-07:00

Color Photograph: Possible Commonwealth, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Black and White Photograph: Forestville Commonwealth Building, Croswell Bowen, 1938-39

The Forestville Commonwealth was formed by followers of the British socialist, Robert Owen. It lasted only a season. To research it, I went to the Greene County Historical Society at the Bronck Farm in Coxsackie. One of the documents I looked at quoted Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson: it failed because there were too many talkers, not enough doers.

From the documents, I got a clearer sense of its location. I don't think I found it, but did find several farm buildings of the period.

Serendipity

2009-06-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Donald, Nanne, Ankie and the Hudson Crew, preparing to film.

Lucey Bowen, 2009

Object of the Day: Re-photograph the interior of the 13-sided barn at the Bronck Farm Coxsackie, New York, and determine the location of the Forrestville Commonwealth, nearby. Result: Batting .500.

Interior of Bronck 13 Sided Barn in black and white, Croswell Bowen, 1938-1939 and by Lucey Bowen, 2009.

A bonus was witnessing the making of a segment Jonathan Donald's documentary"Greene County, USA." Nanne and Ankie and the Hudson Crew, who have been singing at various Quadracentennial venues, assisted in the film making at the Bronck historical site. The Forrestville Commonwealth site proved elusive.

Finding "Yankee" John

2009-06-13T18:26:00.001-07:00

"Yankee" John Galusha, Minerva, N.Y. 1938, photograph by Croswell Bowen

Dave Ruch at Julia Butterfield Library, Cold Spring, N.Y. 2009, Photograph by Lucey Bowen

Ever since I read the verse of Cold River Line that "Yankee" John Galusha sang for Dad, I've been curious about this talented fellow, whose legacy is alive in the singing of Dave Ruch. Dave hails from Western New York, and he carefully searches out and hauntingly sings and plays the songs of "Yankee" and others.

Tugboat GOVr CLEVELAND at Coeymans

2009-06-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

Croswell Bowen took the black and white photograph of the Tugboat Grover Cleveland as she ushered a scow through Lock 5 of the Champlain Canal in 1938. Imagine my delight to discover that she was to be part of the Quadricentennial Flotilla. I caught up with her at Coeymans, after watching her pass Stuyvesant and Shodack Landing, underneath the beautiful Castleton Bridge.

Her Captain and Engineers were as thrilled as I was when they saw Dad's pictures, and we exchanged stories about the non-existent Lock 10 of the Champlain Canal!

All Ferry Slips Are Not Alike

2009-06-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

Beacon Ferry Slips, 1938: Croswell Bowen

Pier for New Beacon Passenger Ferry and Remains of Pilings for old, 2009: Lucey Bowen

Dad remarks, in Great River, that ferry slips up and down the Hudson share the W shaped construction shown above. The remains of that construction can be seen in the old pilings on the right. The buildings near the waterfront were replaced.

Kingston-on-Rondout

2009-06-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

St. Ursula's Academy, Croswell Bowen, 1938

Children's Home of Kingston, Lucey Bowen, 2009

Municipal Building, Croswell Bowen, 1938

The Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center, Lucey Bowen, 2009

I am becoming persistent and a bit of a perfectionist about rephotographing. I was told that St. Ursula's had burned, but its former site didn't match my previous research. So I visited the location indicated in histories of the nuns of St. Urusla's, and found the Children's Home of Kingston, which resembles Dad's photograph. If it is the correct spot, clearly much has changed in 70 years!

The second pair are the product of a return visit to get the angle of Croswell Bowen's shot. The building looks very sound and in good use as a community center.

Schooled by the Great River

2009-06-03T11:38:00.001-07:00

Color photographs of Storm King Art Center: Lucey Bowen, 2009

Cemetery near Storm King Art Center: Lucey Bowen, 2009

I am exhilarated by my two hour peregrination through the Storm King Art Center's 500 acres of fields, trees, ponds and sculpture. Walking through the mown paths, drinking in the combination of sculpture and nature: champagne for the eyes.

The Hudson River's proximity to New York City's diversity and its vibrant economy, combined with the Valley's unique geology and geography, continue to foster a peculiar artistic sensibility. For Carl Carmer, and my dad, Croswell Bowen, the landscape designer, Andrew Jackson Downing was a key figure in this tradition. Downing, the "Hudson River Aesthete," was born in Newburgh and was familiar with the Armstrong estate at Danskammer. In 1938 my father had a long conversation with Maitland Armstrong, who told him about Danskammer's demise when the brickyards grew too close.

Downing lives on in the sweeping paths and groves at Storm King. The Armstrong house lives on in its pillars, rescued from the woods, arranged in a semicircle, on a height, just as they were at Danskammer.

I admired the stone work of Andy Goldsworthy and the earthen waves of Maya Lin. As I excited the park, I saw above me an old cemetery, with its mounded graves and stone fences, and recognized those very local forms that resonate in Lin and Goldsworthy.

Like Opus 40, the Storm King Art Center was once a quarry. Both reuse a relic of old industry. I think of Frederick Church's murals of the cycles of Empire. The Hudson River School continues to flow.

Serious Rephotography

2009-06-03T04:02:00.001-07:00

Black and white photographs: Croswell Bowen, 1938. Color rephotographs: Lucey Bowen, 2009.

My father taught me a lesson today: good photography requires patience, repetition, planning and not a little luck. I had hoped to capture Liberty's shadow, which I believed would occur in late afternoon. (This required a second approach to the statue, this time from the New Jersey side. I had the morning to work at Bear Mountain and Stevens Institute of Technology, more on these later.) More waiting in line for security screening, for boat, for second security screening to enter the Monument. I wait as long as possible. Clouds gather and rain sweeps across the harbor. No shadow, just a view of the Manhattan skyline in the fog.

I had better luck with the flag draped view of Manhattan from the ferry. On Sunday, the ferry had no flag at her stern, but the New Jersey ferry did. Going back to get it paid off!

How Do Yo Get to Sing Sing Prison? Commit a Serious Crime?

2009-06-02T02:09:00.000-07:00

Ossining residents are notoriously reticent about the incarcerated. I stopped at a playing field to ask directions of a group of soccer players and their parents. No one knew how to get there, so I called my husband in California. "It's down by the River," he said. "That's where the expression, 'Sent up the River,' comes from." Sure enough, I headed toward the River and ran into a wall, literally. Higher walls have been built since Croswell Bowen took the photo, above left. The fence is still there. Oddly, the railroad runs right through the middle of the prison.

A few days later, on a visit to Vassar College, Elizabeth Daniels, College Historian, told me that the architect of Sing Sing Prison also designed Vassar's Jewitt Dormitory; probably not a surprise to some of my classmates who resided there.

The Shadow of Liberty

2009-06-01T08:29:00.001-07:00

Croswell Bowen's 1938 photograph of the shadow of the Statue of Liberty is inspired. So much is implied. I've yet to calculate if it was taken in early morning or late evening. If I want to replicate it, I'll have to make a reservation to enter the viewing platform, and once again pass through a security check to board the boat which visits Liberty and Ellis Island.

Shad At Last!

2009-05-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Ever since I saw my father's photograph of Carl Carmer talking to shad fisherman in Poughkeepsie, I've been curious about the delicate shad roe. Reading the recipes Dad wrote in his letters to Carl doubled my desire to try it. Today's shad and shad fisherman are having a tough time of it. Their scarcity is blamed on too much coastal fishing as well as the appetites of predatory stripped bass. I was on my way to Kinderhook's

House of History when I spotted the sign for Kozel's Restaurant, in Ghent, NY, advertising shad roe. Returning from Kinderhook, I stopped and asked , "Do you really have shad roe?" " Oh yes," they said, "One as an appetizer, a pair as dinner." I explained my shad virginity, and showed them the pictures of Carl Carmer and the shad fisherman in the new edition of Dad's book. Should I have one or two?

A fellow diner commented that since I would probably only get to try them once, I should have the dinner portion. She went on to explain that there are actually two shad runs. The spring run are lilac shad, and the roe sacs are usually quite large. There is a second run in August.

After a salad and relish tray, my shad roe arrived, cooked with bacon in the traditional way, three lightly breaded, gently fried crescents. Wow! Not fishy or salty, as I had imagined, but tender and slightly nutty in flavor. I couldn't eat all three, but we solved that problem by boxing the third and sending it home with my fellow diner, who remembered when shad were plentiful, and a pair of roe was fifty cents.

I asked if I could photograph Tommy, the chef, as I knew from Dad's letter that you have to have a light touch or you'll have little fish eggs exploding in the frying pan. So here's to Tommy, and to Mr. Kozel, and to the noble shad, of well deserved fame.

Color Photographs: Lucey Bowen, 2009

Swimmers Warned to Wash Up

2009-05-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hudson River Near Saratoga; Photograph by Lucey Bowen, May 2009

Or so reads the headline in the Daily Gazette, Albany County edition. With the temperatures in the nineties, the water is tempting, no?

When Croswell Bowen travelled this way in 1938, he picked up some hitchhikers who were going swimming, above the dam at Mechanicsville, as they knew the papermill made the water there un-swimmable.

This 2009 warning is because of the possibility of PCBs stirred up by the dredging at Lock 8.

Albany is the Center of the Universe

2009-05-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

In Croswell Bowen's 1938 photograph of the waterfront near down town Albany, railroad tracks, bridge and the Delaware and Hudson building are visible.
In my 2009 photograph, a sliver of park is squeezed in between the river and layers of interstate highway.

Exploring the shores of the Hudson in Albany, we encountered the Cargill plant where grain, brought by railroad from Ohio, is stored in elevators and trans-shipped to trucks.

It is interesting to remember that in 1825, Ohio farmers could ship their grain to Albany and beyond on the Erie Canal and the Hudson River.

The Great River Clean-Up

2009-05-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

Equipment Assembled in the torrential rain

near Lock 8, Before Dredging Began on Friday, May 15, 2009

Photograph: Lucey Bowen

Last night I spoke about Croswell Bowen's Great River of the Mountains at the library in Hudson Falls. A tuesday in mid May, it was the day to vote of school boards and budgets, with taxes weighing on minds. The dredging of the residual PCBs at Lock 8 also concerned my audience; living as they do, next to the former General Electric plant that was the source of the contaminants. An audience member had worked with PCBs for three years, and her son-in-law is the only surviving member of the eight man crew who conducted an earlier clean-up.

The Journey Continues!

2009-05-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Here is my updated schedule of book talks on Croswell Bowen's Great River of the Mountains:The Hudson, Quadricentennial Edition, benefitting Bannerman's Castle Trust:

May

Tuesday, May 19 7 pm Hudson Falls Free Library, 220 Main Street (Slides and Talk)

Thursday, May 21 7 pm Book House, Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany (Reading)

Saturday, May 23 11 am Catskill Library, Catskill, NY (Slides and Talk)

Tuesday, May 26 7 pm Corinth Free Library, 89 Main Street, Corinth (Slides and Talk)

JUNE

Thursday, June 4 7 pm Newburgh Free Library, Newburgh (Slide and Talk)

Saturday, June 6 12-2 Kingston Library, 55 Franklin St, Kingston (Slides and Talk)

Monday, June 8 7 pm Schuylerville Library (Slides and Talk)

Saturday, June 13 1 pm Book Cove, Pawling, NY, Henry Hudson Day

Sunday, June 14 3-4pm Library, Claverack (Slides and Talk)

Monday, June 15 7pm Library, Athens, NY (Reading )

Wednesday, June 17 7pm Library, Athens, NY (Slides and Talk)

Sat&Sun June 20,21, All day Clearwater Festival at Croton-on-Hudson Park (Signing)

Tuesday, June 23 6 pm Stillwater Free Library, (Slides and Talk)

Wednesday, June 24 7 pm Hadley Library, Lake Luzerne (Slides and Talk)

Thursday, June 25 7pm Tivoli Free Library, 86 Broadway (Slides and Talk)

Copies are available from Richard Frisbie's Hope Farm Press Bookshop.

"In recent years, painters from the art colony at nearby Woodstock have discovered Rondout's beauty."

2009-05-17T05:03:00.000-07:00

Rondout has been discovered again. The Hudson River Maritime Museum and numerous restaurants make it a lively location, not to mention the boats kept in the marinas along the Creek.

Title Quote and Black and White Photograph are Croswell Bowen's c. 1938.

Color Photograph is Lucey Bowen's, 2009.

Champlain Spinners Hydro Project

2009-05-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

I can't leave Whitehall without thanking all the wonderful people I've met here. Starting with Karen Gordon on the Whitehall Free Library, and including Marjorie Mohn of the Washington County Tourism Association and her husband, and Mary and Tim Ward of the Death Rock Octagon House.

And then of course Linda and Ray of the Finch and Chubb Inn and Restaurant. The Inn reminds me of some cozy pub in England, but the food leans more to country French, potato leek soup and salmon with dill sauce, some American apple crisp and good wines!

Breakfast has been a treat at the Good News Griddle where Chef LaRock shared history of the area and great biscuits and sausage gravy.

Like the Champlain Spinners Hydro Project, the folks in Whitehall have a unique energy!

"Here is a story that seems interesting to me."

2009-05-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

Dad's conversations with Hill and Richards led him to the story of Solomon Northrup, a free person of color and resident of the area who was kidnapped and sold into slavery while driving some Saratogans to Washington, the capitol. He eventually returned to Fort Edwards and was reunited with his family, writing about the experience in 12 Years a Slave, the Narrative of Solomon Northrup. Although mentioned in his letters to Carl, my father did not included this in Great River. He does include this photograph, captioned This house, oldest in Columbia County, was made from timbers of the pre-Revolutionary fort from which the town got its name. Oh my, error upon error; Fort Edward is in Washington County, and surely the oldest house is the gambrel roofed one that I've written about.

My guess, to be verified today, is that the house pictured is now known as the Wing-Northrup House, headquarters of the Washington County Historical Society. Again, my sister and I drove right past it last summer. Perhaps understandably, since its Italianate additions have been removed.

I think to myself: the mystic chords of memory are fragile and tangled.

"One heavy shower after another ushered me into Ft.Edward last night."

2009-05-15T02:45:00.000-07:00

So wrote my father in 1938.
My arrival in Fort Edward was also dark and stormy: a good evening for solving a mystery. On the left is Croswell Bowen's 1938 or 1939 photograph. Captioned The headquarters of General Burgoyne, who much preferred the art of flirtation to the art of war, were but a few feet from the river. Feeling none to well from the alcoholic excesses of the night before, he conferred here with his staff. Later General Fraser was carried here and laid on a table where he died. The photograph is in the section of Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson devoted to the Battle of Saratoga. In vain I had looked for it there, only to be told by the park guides that they knew no such building, and in any case Burgoyne had been headquartered in a tent.

It seems that Dad got his photographs and stories confused. The house on the right is located at the southern end of Fort Edward, and is called the Old Fort House. According to the Fort Edwards Historical Society, it is one of the oldest frame structures in upstate New York, was built with timbers taken from the fort, and served as headquarters for both British and American generals in the Revolutionary War. Last summer, on a clear day, my sister and I drove past it, stopped, but were too confused to untangle the story.

My father's confusion reminds me that I am accumulating photographic and other material much faster than I am organizing it. Later he wrote to Carl that he would check his wildness; I will have to do the same, and be more methodical labeling my photographs.

W.H. Hill, Fred Richards and local history

2009-05-14T04:02:00.000-07:00

Fort Ticonderoga from Mount Defiance.

Photograph: Lucey Bowen, 2009

In July of 1938, my father, Croswell Bowen, met with W.H. Hill and Fred Richards, two historians dedicated to preserving what was left of the physical and written record of the French and Indian War and the American Revolution north of Fort Edward. Hill and my father agreed that Jane McCrea, Duncan Campbell and Jesse Billings were the striking stories. Hill offered the use of his marvelous book collection. Fred Richards intrigued Dad with Mr. Richards' exhaustive knowledge of Duncan Campbell, and the participation of the Black Watch regiment in the French and Indian War.

Today I will meet with Fred's grandson at the Crandall Library. I wonder if he continues his grandfather's interest in local history?

Traffic on the Champlain Canal

2009-05-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

When Croswell Bowen took these photographs at Lock 5 in 1938 0r 1939, tugs and barges transited from the Hudson to Lake Champlain.

Nowadays, the Canal is used for recreational boating. After it opens in early May, Canadians bring there yachts, which have wintered in the Bahamas north to Trois Rivieres. Lock tender Brian Haffner is the guardian of Lock 12 in Whitehall. He is the 4th generation in his family who farmed along the Champlain Canal. He has worked on the Erie Canal, and knows a great deal of the history of the canal. We waited for the three Canadian sailboats to motor up from Lock 11. I was excited to see the lock in operation.

Boats enter a full Lock 13 from the south; Water is pumped down; Gate is opened and boat sails north.

Photographs: Lucey Bowen, 2009

Water flows north into Lake Champlain from the upper locks. From the Glens Falls Feeder Canal, water flows south into the Hudson. I was exited to learn that Erica Wolfe Burke of the Crandall Library in Glens Falls will be giving a paper about some of her researches on the Feeder Canal on a panel with the fireboat engineer and author Jessica Dulong! Jessica will be talking about another neglected canal, the Delaware and Hudson.

An Appointment in Kingston

2009-05-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

Kingston Senate House, Photograph: Croswell Bowen, 1938

Kingston Senate House; Civil War Reenactors; Charles Swain, Greene County Minorities Historian; Jeff Walker, Vassar Geologist and John Burroughs enthusiast. Photographs: Lucey Bowen, 2009

I drove from Albany to Kingston in the cool green May dawn. Richard Frisbie arranged for me to talk with Ulster County Legislator Gary Bishchoff on his Monday morning call-in radio show on Kingston Community Radio. The station is located in the middle of Kingston's Historic District. I was nervous but had a good time just chatting about the up-coming signing.

Afterwards I decided to find the places my dad photographed. Parking at the Senate House, I found a group of Civil War Re-enactors preparing for a press conference for the May 22, 23, 24 Civil War Days at the Ashokan Center in Olive Bridge. One of them, Charles Swain, of Athens, is the Greene County Minorities Historian, a position unique in the United States, and just the resource I need to answer my questions about the "sociological islands" in Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson.

Seated on a bench, I struck up a conversation with Jeff Walker, who was reading John Burrough's Signs and Seasons. It turned out that Jeff was the organizer of the Vassar conference on nature and literature that I had hoped to attend - except that it took place a year ago! I told him about Carl Carmer's friendship with W.W. Christman, Burroughs medal winner.

A morning fated to be fascinating.

History, then and now.

2009-05-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Saratoga photographs: Croswell Bowen, 1938

Freeman Farm, Burgoyne HQ, Neilson Farm, photographs: Lucey Bowen, 2009

Armed with camera and copies of Croswell Bowen's photographs taken at Saratoga Battlefield, I set off to rephotograph on a beautiful sunny May morning. I stopped at the Park HQ to ask for help in locating the sites. The helpful rangers informed me that several of the buildings shown had been removed. It seems they were imaginative reconstructions, and archeology and research have replaced the myths and tales prevalent in 1938. The blockhouse has been moved to Stillwater and others simply eliminated. The rangers allowed as most visitors to the Park come for outdoor recreation, such as biking, jogging or cross-country skiing. Try asking someone to name five generals from the Revolutionary War, they suggested.

When I stopped for supper at Bellini's in Clifton Park, I struck up a conversation with George, the bar tender. I tried the ranger's suggestion, and with the aid of another customer and John Luzader's Decision on the Hudson, the mission was accomplished. Then things got really interesting. George had just completed a course in historiography, for his Master's in Political Science. Just what I needed to get over the lost monuments! I left him a copy of Dad's book, with instructions to email me his analysis of the 1938-1941 view of the history of the Hudson Valley!

The Ghost of the General Worth Hotel

2009-05-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

A year ago, I published my father's photograph of the General Worth Hotel, and commented on how its loss sparked the preservation movement in Hudson. Yesterday Ms. Ellen Henderson, a 60 year resident of Hudson, guided me to its grave: the parking lot of an electrical supply store.

I spoke about the Quadricentennial Edition of Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson at the Hudson Area Library. A remarkable building houses the library. It was built as an Alms House, and resembles edifices built to that purpose in Ireland and Guadalajara, Mexico. Everyone helped with identifying photograph locations and bought books to benefit Bannerman's!

The Enchanted Isle of Bannerman's Arsenal

2009-05-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

From top left: Bannerman's Island is an outcropping; Tower guards approach; River facade of Arsenal; Island Entrance to Arsenal; Looking Into Residence Dining Room; Bannerman Crest; Thistle Column Guards Dock Entry; Fireplace Dining Room of Residence; Departing from South.

Great River of the Mountains:The Hudson Benefit for Bannerman Castle Trust

2009-05-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

Bannerman Castle Trust Staff and Board Members, and Croswell Bowen's Daughters, Lucey, Betsy and Molly at Beacon Institute, Beacon, New York

The Quadricentennial Edition of Croswell Bowen's Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson was launched on Saturday in Beacon. Highlights were the presence of Guy Bailey, Carl Carmer's grand nephew, and representatives from the Chelsea Yacht Club, who loved the photo of Moses Collyer.

"Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Three Generations" is Very True Around Poughkeepsie

2009-04-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

So said Silas Hinckley to Croswell Bowen as he recounted the story of A.E. Tower and the Tower Iron Foundry, once located on Poughkeepsie's waterfront.

Dad wrote "Next to the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club is a lonely brick house, rather lovely in its way. I noticed a curious half buried brick oval beside it. I learned it was the old Tower house. Years before the Civil War old man Tower set up a blast furnace. He sold pig iron and grew rich . During the Civil War he got $120 a ton for his pig iron. He was nouveau rich I guess. He moved from the beautiful old brick house and into town. Later when he grew even richer he built a place further up on the Hudson in the Downing tradition, I believe. His houses symbolized his rise in wealth. Then all the blast furnaces seem to stop working gradually and we come to an old guy who lived at the turn of the century. He had a yacht and was a great deal at Newport etc. He took up with a telephone girl and when his wife would ask for the carriage and horses they were away being shod or something the servants said. Finally she began to hear tales. She telephoned him one day to find out when and if he was coming home. She learned something or other presumably he wasn't coming so she went into her son's room and when he rose from the bed to greet her she shot him dead and then turned the pistol on herself."

The murder and suicide took place in April of 1902, according to the New York Times. Nine months later, Tower married the "telephone girl." According to the Times, he had been attracted to her by her musical voice, heard from the long distance switchboard in Poughkeepsie when he transacted business with his brokers in New York.

Alas, no happy ending. In 1908, A.E. Tower's low ways were again revealed in the Times. A Mrs. Weiss was sued by her divorce lawyer, who named Tower as the man she wanted to marry! The Times described the bad behavior involved: drinking, guns and money paid to Mrs. Weiss in public, at the New York Yacht Club in Newport! The couple were briefly reconciled and went to Florida, but soon the second Mrs. Tower sued for separation, settling for $700 monthly alimony.

Mr. Tower closed the mill, and sold his Poughkeepsie properties. Three years later, a Kingston junk dealer bought the buildings and machinery and the land was sold.

Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves, dust to dust. I wonder if that brick oval can be found somewhere along Poughkeepsie's waterfront?

Tivoli Free Library, Thursday, June 25, 7:00 PM

2009-04-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Tivoli Temperance Fountain, Croswell Bowen, 1938

Paraphrasing my dad, here is the end of the pre-quel, and just the beginning of the work.

It's an appropriate place because just to the left, across the road, is where my friend Catriona Shafer's family built a home in the modern style. From here Catriona took me to visit many of the places my father wrote about and photographed.

Once again, I'm thankful for all the people like Catriona , who've helped me undertake this project! I'll try to merit your trust.

Stillwater Free Library, June 23, 6:00 PM

2009-04-16T09:44:00.001-07:00

Stillwater, NY, Croswell Bowen, 1939

There is something special about this area, where the river, emerged from the Adirondacks, an flinging itself over Glens Falls, flows through flatter lands. Only from atop Stark's Knob can you take in the view across to the mountains of Vermont.

James Howard Kunstler, the author, has painted that view many times. He's one of my heroes, because he writes and paints, and because he called out our current economic crisis years ago.

I'm hoping that some Stillwater residents will help me find the sites my dad photographed in the area.

D.R. Evarts Library, Athens, NY, Monday, June 15th and Wednesday, June 17, both at 7:00 pm

2009-04-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hudson to Athens Ferry, Croswell Bowen, 1938

Athens, New York. I love the 18th and 19th Century for their unabashed admiration of the classical world. Such high hopes! The Athens Library has high hopes for me: Reading one evening and showing photographs the other!

Recently, I learned of another story of high hopes connected with the territory near Athens. Some Livingston progeny wanted to build a city on the west bank of the Hudson to rival the success of the Quaker whaling port at Hudson, the port of Claverack. The named their planned town Esperanza. I believe I will find traces of their failed hopes just north of Athens.

I also want to see if I can find any trace of the Owenite experimental community, Forestville.

Claverack Library, Sunday, June 14th, 3-4 PM

2009-04-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

Columbia County Octagon, Photograph by Croswell Bowen, 1938

Claverack, east of Hudson, NY, is in one of the loveliest stretches of the Hudson Valley. In 1938, the area around it was home to what my father called ordinary working people, aristocrats, and border people. As best I can tell, each lived in a distinctively styled house. The working people tended to wooden frame houses, which might have some of the Hudson River Bracketed traits you can see above, or even the Octagonal shape introduced by Orson Fowler. The aristocrats tended to styles of ancient or European origin. The border people lived in simple frame houses that reflected either the Dutch end-chimney tradition, or the New England tradition with its center chimneys. I wonder what kinds of people I'll meet on my book tour?

Pawling's Book Cove, Saturday, June 13 at 1:00 PM

2009-04-16T07:13:00.001-07:00

Akin Free Library, Quaker Hill, Photograph by Lucey Bowen, June 2008

I'm thrilled to be speaking about Great River of the Mountains: The Hudson, at the Book Cove in Pawling, NY. There will be two other authors of Hudson River Books there, so it should be great Quadricentennial fun.

My father's Hudson River Journey began here, when he read the Reverend Warren Wilson's telling of the story of Mehitabel Wing, who saved her rebellious tenant farmer husband from hanging. As Quaker Hill borders Connecticut, it is easy to forget that Pawling and the land west of it was part of the feudal land patent system of the Hudson Valley.

I'm also indebted to the Library for the chance to examine the 19th Century records of the Merritt Store. These told me of the occasional purchases by the prior owners of my father's hill farm, Hidden Hollow. There were some hauntings there, but that's another story.