The e-book for Fifty Acres of Beach and Wood is now FREE!  27 chapters, 214 pages, 160 images, 236 endnotes from 180 sources!  Simply click here to download a PDF version:  50AcresBeachandWoods  or if you have an ebook reader device or ebook reader app/browser extension on your computer/laptop, click here to download the epub version: tinyurl.com/50BeachWood

The book can also be requested through interlibrary loan from the Southern Adirondack Library System.

The book was the culmination of five years of research which was originally published in the blog posts shown below.  

• PrefaceJune 17, 2013
  “The author has been an assiduous but superficial student of the literature.  He has read extensively rather than intensively.  The resulting work is that of an enthusiastic amateur, who  handles in a jaunty manner the most difficult historical manuscripts, as if every word was to be accepted with utmost faith.  The very style in which the […]
• Bird of FlightJune 19, 2013
  “Thunk-Ping” “Thunk-Ping” echoed through the woods as the head of the sledge came down upon the maul.  Rhythmically the forged steel struck the maul, driving the blade into the round section of the old oak deadfall’s trunk.  My hands tried valiantly to not retreat, but hold fast to the maul handle as my father sent the […]
• Where in the world…July 13, 2013
  Before I write more stories of the history of these fifty acres of Beach and Wood, I think it may help to show you where they are. Where shall I start.  Those who have had the privilege of gracing her waters will not accuse me of grandiosity when I claim that Raquette Lake is the most […]
• TimelineAugust 1, 2013
  Events on these Fifty Acres of Beach and Wood These points in time reveal some of the stories, of import and of good sport, that are yet to unfold in this blog. 1650-1794 Indian Point is used as a Winter hunting encampment by the Mohawk tribe. 1776   The tory Sir John Johnson camps at […]
• The Changing Times to the AdirondacksSeptember 16, 2013
  I apply the brakes just a tad as the car hugs the downhill S-curve – getting closer.  The wheels straighten out and I sprint for the sign.  Up ahead on the right, there it is – the golden letters on brown wood canvas inviting us to enter Golden Beach State Campground.  We whiz by, thankful […]
• Read It Here FirstOctober 1, 2013
  Joy can come from research… Ok.  So one has to be a little odd in the head to say that, but while I struggle as an amateur writer periodically I am going to choose to simply re-publish a gem of an historical newspaper article when I find it.  I revel in what it feels like […]
• The Search Begins…October 11, 2013
  While this book hopes to expand  beyond simple stories of my family, it is through our history that I became aware of the heritage of Indian Point both before and during our tenancy. To be clear, “our” tenancy speaks not solely of those named Thacher.  My father’s sister Ellen married Michael FitzPatrick.  Both families enjoyed summers […]
• Found and LostNovember 25, 2013
  Discovery brings with it a joy and a moment of satisfaction which spurs fresh pursuit of the truth.  My cousin Stephen FitzPatrick was afflicted with curiosity by these initial blog postings, a compulsion to learn truths that our ancestors lived but failed to share with us.  A piece of the puzzle had always been in […]
• Nessmuk Comes to VisitDecember 16, 2013
  Whenever and wherever the original Thacher cabin was built on Indian Point is my holy grail.  Delving into the details of the few literary mentions of the cabin might yield clues.  This visit by Nessmuk was published in 1884; however, it makes no mention of when the encounter actually occurred.  I needed to learn about […]
• Go West, Old ManJanuary 3, 2014
  The mysterious original cabin of the Thachers on Indian Point received numerous mentions in the newspapers of the day.  However, the earliest evidence of its existence comes from the single sentence in the text above.  It refers to Rev. Henry Gabriels who at the time was President of the St. Joseph Seminary in Troy, NY […]
• Why Indian Point?February 13, 2014
  Echoing across time, this question can be asked three ways.  Who were the Indians of its namesake?  Why did Matthew Beach and William Wood choose it for their home? Why was John Boyd Thacher enticed to buy these acres? According to local lore, Indian Point was the site of an Indian settlement.  The earliest such […]
• Farrand Benedict’s CanalsApril 7, 2014
  If you ever drive south along Route 28 to Indian Lake from Blue Mountain Lake, look for a sign on the right about 0.4 mile south of Potter’s Corner announcing you are crossing the divide between the St. Lawrence River and Hudson River Watersheds. The waters of Blue Mountain Lake flow through the Eckford Chain […]
• Matthew Beach and William WoodJune 3, 2014
  Yonder comes the boat of Woods and Beach, the two solitary dwellers of this region. It is rather a singular coincidence that the only two inhabitants of this wilderness should be named Woods and Beach. I should not wonder if the next comers should be called ‘Hemlock’ and ‘Pine’. Joel Tyler Headley, The Adirondack or […]
• The Capture and Death of Charles ParkerJuly 15, 2014
  Our family has two large metal boxes filled with George Hornell Thacher’s handwritten letters.   We are fortunate to have three letters written from the Thacher “Camp” on Indian Point. GHT’s correspondence to his son George Jr. dated August 7, 1881 is a unique piece of history. He references a tragic affair which became the talk […]
• The Roots of a Classic Adirondack Guide JokeJuly 29, 2014
  Did you hear the one about the guide who took his wealthy client out trolling for lake trout? His customer paid more attention to his bottle of whiskey than his fishing line, finishing off the quart while sharing not a drop with the guide. Looking at his empty bottle, the gentleman remarked to his guide, […]
• Searching for the 1878 Thacher Cabin on Indian PointAugust 12, 2014
  In my last piece regarding when the mysterious Thacher Cabin was built, I cited numerous newspaper articles and books that referenced the cabin’s existence.   However, none of them clarified where the cabin was built. Previously reviewed maps of Raquette Lake gave no indication and no photos or drawings of the cabin have been found. I […]
• The Case of the Indian Arrow Etched in StoneSeptember 9, 2014
  My cousin Stephen Fitzpatrick showed me a mark that is chiseled into a rock just outside the front door of our family’s little red one-room cabin on Indian Point. The mark vaguely appears like an arrow but with a crosshair at the top instead of a point. Stephen applied an ink dye to the mark […]
• Thacher Island RevisitedSeptember 30, 2014
  You see me here standing where my great-great grandfather George Hornell Thacher Sr. once stood on the porch of the family lodge built in 1867 on Thacher Island on Blue Mountain Lake.   The photo is not dated but given his aged appearance (no, the guy on the left), I believe it to be from the […]
• Joel Tyler Headley – Among the First to Popularize the AdirondacksOctober 14, 2014
  And how solemn it is to move all day through a majestic colonnade of trees and feel that you are in a boundless cathedral whose organ notes swell and die away with the passing wind like some grand requiem. Still more exciting is it to lie at midnight by your camp fire and watch the […]
• Mitchell Sabattis – BoatbuilderOctober 28, 2014
  When I walk the land around Matthew Beach’s original hut and William Wood’s shanty, I imagine the Abenaki Indian guide Mitchell Sabattis pulling into their landings in a canoe or guideboat made by his own hand. Indian Point was a waypoint for many a traveler boating through the Central Adirondacks. While it is impossible to […]
• Suffering FoolsNovember 12, 2014
  I am entering a phase where I have to once again spend significant time researching new stories about these fifty acres.   For that reason, I am going back to publishing completely new stories only once a month.  Interspersed between those original works I am going to republish excerpts from the stories of Adirondack writers […]
• —- Sir John Johnson’s Escape —- A Tale RetoldNovember 25, 2014
  The legend of Sir John Johnson’s role in naming Raquette Lake has been written and re-written for more than a century.   Below is the earliest source I have found, from the 1891 New York State Forest Commission Annual Report. 1 Its name is founded on a bit of history, hitherto traditional. During the War of […]
• A Month at the RacketDecember 9, 2014
  The earliest “summer folk” of Raquette Lake were the members of the Constable family who came to camp upon the shores of Sandy Point in the 1830s.  Overtime they purchased the land from Farrand Benedict and renamed it Constable Point.   Today it is what we all know as Antler’s Point.  Edith Pilcher wrote a […]
• Adirondack Murray’s Guide Honest JohnDecember 23, 2014
  Honest John Plumbley [sic], the prince of guides, patient as a hound, and as faithful, – a man who knows the wilderness as a farmer knows his fields, whose instinct is never at fault, whose temper is never ruffled, whose paddle is silent as falling snow, whose eye is true along the sights, whose pancakes […]
• Adirondacks of 1858 and 1859January 6, 2015
  Here are stories of camping at Raquette Lake during the summers of 1858 and 1859 which were published in Forest and Stream magazine in 1912.  You will need to click on each section of the article to view the section full screen, which should make it readable.                 […]
• The August Forest Camp on Indian PointJanuary 20, 2015
  This article in the June 21, 1915, Syracuse Post-Standard was the first anyone in our family had heard of the role our property on Indian Point played in the evolution of early forestry education in the United States. 1 The August Forest Camp was a miniature village of 9×9 tents where approximately twelve boys and […]
• Adirondack Bear TalesFebruary 3, 2015
  We have had our share of bear stories at the little red cabin on the tip of Birch Point.  As a young boy I remember the night my brother, my father and I were sleeping in the lean-to, solely enclosed behind window screens and a screen door.  In the middle of the night, I was […]
• The Triangulation of Verplanck ColvinFebruary 24, 2015
  Few fully understand what the Adirondack wilderness really is. It is a mystery even to those who have crossed and recrossed it by boats along it avenues, the lakes; and on foot through its vast and silent recesses…In this remote section, filed with the most rugged mountains, where unnamed waterfalls pour in snowy tresses from […]
• Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ———“The Adirondacs”March 10, 2015
  A JOURNAL DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW TRAVELERS IN AUGUST, 1858 Wise and polite,–and if I drew Their several portraits, you would own Chaucer had no such worthy crew, Nor Boccace in Decameron. We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends, Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks Of the Ausable stream, intent to reach […]
• He Who Would Give the Name ————– “Adirondacks” —————– Prof. Ebenezer EmmonsMarch 24, 2015
  After much toil and labor in rowing, in consequence of a strong head wind, we reached the lake at its eastern extremity. This accomplished, our next business was to find the establishment of Beach and Wood situated on some point on the opposite shore. By fortunate conjecture, our guide struck upon the right course and […]
• 1850 – The Raquette River is Declared a Public HighwayApril 7, 2015
      Prior to his visit to Matthew Beach and William Wood’s cabins on Indian Point in 1855, Henry Jarvis Raymond was instrumental in securing the funding from the New York State Assembly to make the necessary infrastructure improvements to turn the Raquette River and the Moose River into public highways for the transportation of […]
• Chasing a Barrel of ChinaApril 21, 2015
  One night forty years ago, local Raquette Laker Jim Regan told this story to my father and my Uncle Mike as they sat around the stone fireplace between the red cabin and the lean-to where I was falling asleep. Mr. Reynolds lived in that cabin over there with his wife and kids for a whole […]
• First News Report of The “Forever Wild” Amendment to the NY State Constitution in 1894May 5, 2015
  It is ironic that the same act which has protected the Adirondack Forest Preserve for over one hundred years actually took away the similar protection from a different region of the state.  Beginning in 1821, Article 7 Section 7 had read “the Legislature shall never sell or dispose of the salt springs belonging to this […]
• Alvah Dunning: The Hermit Who Could Not Escape CivilizationMay 20, 2015
  Alvah Dunning was perhaps the most famous of Raquette Lake guides, alleged to have helped lead the first excursion of sportsmen to Raquette Lake at age eleven. Born in Lake Piseco in 1816, he lived there until 1860 when his neighbors’ rightful condemnation of his abuse of his wife forced him to flee.  1  From […]
• “A Week in the Wilderness” by Henry Jarvis Raymond 1855June 2, 2015
  Among the many who visited Matthew Beach and William Wood on Indian Point, Henry Jarvis Raymond is notable as the founder of The New York Times.  Raymond was also the elected Lt. Governor of New York State in the summer of 1855 when he travelled through the region.  He published four letters detailing his Week […]
• The Search for Raquette Lake’s First CabinJune 23, 2015
  I know where Matthew Beach and William Wood built their original cabin (depicted in this 1840 sketch by John Hill) on Indian Point. Or at least I think I know, or perhaps I should say I have deduced a pretty darn good educated guess. I welcome other’s critiques of my assumptions. After discovering the location […]
• The Search for William Wood’s CabinJuly 28, 2015
  My last article identified the most likely location of the original cabin built by Matthew Beach and William Wood in the mid-1830s. Wood remained on Indian Point until 1859, but sometime between 1844 and 1846 he had a falling out with Beach and built a separate cabin (shown in this 1851 sketch from Jervis McEntee’s […]
• An Adirondack Love of Mystery and Intrigue in the 1880’sAugust 25, 2015
  One mystery remains which my research has never fully solved. Why did the last two generations of our family have no knowledge of the original Thacher cabin? And why are there no photos or drawings of the cabin? Most importantly, why did the cabin disappear? Here is one surprising theory that could shed light on […]