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Greetings from Indian Lake,New York. Our 1,400 - plus inhabitants represent the largest town in Hamilton County. The entire county is within the borders of the Adirondack State Park,and for the last one hundred years a changing Park has meant a changed Town.For years the area was by-passed,as settlers found more fertile farm land or more convenient sites for communities elsewhere. And transportation routes,such as the Erie Canal and many of the new railroads,followed and perpetuated this growth along their way. As grain and other goods flowed east,finished products and supplies made the return trip profitable.The central Adirondacks were populated through a classic case of supply and demand. Glens Falls,situated on the Hudson River,southeast of the the mountains,was in the early part of the nineteenth century running out of available forest for its sawmills. Then,in 1813,Alanson and Norman Fox,in a " revolutionary development in logging," started sending logs to Glens Falls,using the Schroon and Hudson Rivers. ( Hochschild)Suddenly,anyplace with access to the Hudson took on new value. As demand for lumber grew,it became profitable to dam up rivers and lakes and use them to move the logs to market. Lumber companies sent men into the woods to advise them on where to cut next. One of these men had relatives in Vermont who were looking for a new place to make a home.[ Click on Lumberjack for Table of Contents ]
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