Adirondack Park - History

History

The vast majority of the Adirondack Mountains are within the bounds of the traditional territory of the Mohawk First Nation until at least 1720. A sedentary agrarian democratic society before Contact, they controlled the eastern part of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy or Six Nations. The Mohawk population had already been decimated by European diseases when they were largely driven out of their homeland by foreign European settlers. Although the Confederacy was divided, most of the Iroquois sided with the British during the American Revolution. After the war, most of the Iroquois land which fell within the American border was forcefully signed over through treaties or seized outright. During the 19th century, the U.S. Government forced most of the Iroquois off their traditional territory into reservations in the Midwest. Many escaped to Canada, where they were granted land in the British colony of Upper Canada, modern day Ontario. Citizens of the Mohawk Nation, numbering around 125,000 today, now live mostly north of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada along with the other member nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The Iroquois are now in the midst of land claims proceedings over parts of the state of New York.

The thinking that was to lead to the creation of the park first appeared in George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature, published in 1864. Marsh argued that deforestation could lead to desertification: referring to the clearing of once lush lands surrounding the Mediterranean, he asserted "the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon."

The idea for the park itself first occurred to surveyor Verplanck Colvin in 1870, while taking in the view from atop Seward Mountain. He wrote to the state government that action was necessary to protect the forests or it would be wasted, which would lead to the drying up of the water needed to keep the Erie Canal in operation. Three years later he was appointed to a committee formed to consider how to do this.

While his term 'Adirondack Park' led to some derision and fears from longtime residents of the area that they might be bought out and evicted, proponents of the idea began to use 'Adirondack Forest Preserve' instead. Both terms continue in use to this day, with the former referring to the land inside the Blue Line and the latter to that portion owned by the state.

In 1878, Seneca Ray Stoddard produced a topographical survey of the Adirondacks that was influential in the creation of the Park.

Serious efforts to protect this land began in 1882, when businessmen in New York began to be concerned about the effects of widespread logging. Without trees, the many steep slopes on the mountains in the region were likely to erode, and the silt from the slopes could conceivably have silted up the Erie Canal and the Hudson itself, choking off New York State’s economic backbone.

In 1885, legislation, signed by Governor David B. Hill, declared that the land in the Adirondack Park and the Catskill Park was to be conserved and never put up for sale or lease. The park was established in 1892, due to the activities of Colvin and other conservationists, including those affiliated with the Northwoods Walton Club. The park was given state constitutional protection in 1894, so that the state-owned lands within its bounds would be protected forever ('forever wild'). The part of the Adirondack Park under government control is referred to as the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Further, this became a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

On September 18, 2008, The Nature Conservancy purchased Follensby Pond - about 14,600 acres (5,900 ha) of private land inside the park boundary - for $16 million. The group plans on selling the land to the state which will add it to the forest preserve once the remaining leases for recreational hunting and fishing on the property expire.