Hooked on History

E s s a y By Sandra W eber Hooked on History he Adirondacks have so much to offer.found a woman named Matilda Fielding who livedhis inarms around the neck of Monroe Holt and Magnificent mountains, long lakes, andBrooklyn. She was married to a coach manufacturer,climbed onto his back. “A funny sight it was,” report lush forests. Rustic crafts, strong people,who made business wagons of every description:ed cir a witness to the scene. He looked very unlike “the T and splendid history. cus, band chariots, baggage wagons, and animalPresiding Genius of Yale College.” cages. Sure sounds wacky enough to be our Hitch-upBefore I knew it, this hitching-up business whit Yes, history. Not the history spoutedMatilda. tled away a perfectly good month of summer. Of in an eighth-grade social studies book. Nor the histo course it’s not the first time I’ve been ry told on television. I mean living, breath hooked by Adirondack history. The leg ing, splinter-in-your-finger history. Like the end of Esther McComb hooked me for kind you get exploring remnants of an old two years. This 15-year-old farm girl sup ski lodge at the top of Esther Mountain. Or posedly attempted to climb Whiteface the prickly lesson from interrogating a Mountain in 1839, and accidentally as 100-year old spruce atop Mount Marcy. Or cended a neighboring peak, which her the messy work of inspecting a charred mother later named Esther Mountain. stump from the Fire of 1903. I tracked Esther for months. I searched That’s Adirondack history. Sometimes libraries, museums, courthouses, and it’s dirty business. Sometimes it’s heart- cemeteries throughout upstate New York. wrenching or humorous. Sometimes it’s In time, I found clues that convinced me all wet, like the bit of history I plunged into that Esther existed, although her name at Avalanche Pass. was Combs, not McComb. And it seemed Last summer, I took a four-mile hike to very likely that she climbed Esther one of the most spectacular spots in the Mountain, giving her the honor of being Adirondacks. The sheer rock wall of the first woman to ascend a high peak Mount Colden drops into sparkling Ava and the first, and only, woman to have a lanche Lake on one side while the steep high peak named for her. face of Avalanche Mountain slides down Then there were the three years I was the other. Photographers love the view of caught up in the tragic love story of Jo Avalanche Lake. Rock climbers seek the Schofield and Henry Van Hoevenberg. cliffs and the Colden Trap Dike. Hikers ap And there’s Mary Brown, wife of aboli preciate the short passageway from Heart tionist John Brown. And forester Gifford Lake to Lake Colden. Though the trail is Pinchot and hotelier Paul Smith. And so rough in places, the route has been used many others. by many people, including the legendary What is it that keeps tugging me into lady, Matilda Fielding. Adirondack history? I feel a connection Guide Bill Nye led the rather “ample” to these stories and these people. It’s not Matilda, her husband, and her niece up simply nostalgia. My connection is the Mount Marcy and back through Ava land. The places where these people lanche Pass in 1868. To avoid getting wet, lived, worked, and frolicked are still here. she rode on the shoulders of Mr. Nye. But They are places that I can walk or swim like any proper lady, she did not clamp her to. They are places that hold relics of the legs tightly around his neck; instead, she past that I can see, touch, and hear. slipped lower and lower down his back. For me, Adirondack history isn’t about Meanwhile her husband stood on the memorizing dates and names and facts. shore laughing at the sight and yelling It’s about understanding and appreciat “Hitch-up Matilda! Hitch-up!” ing places and people. Not just people Where exactly did this hilarious his who are famous or rich or pretty. But toric event take place? I scrambled over people whose lives and work trans boulders, climbed up and down wooden formed a community or a landscape. ladders, and squeezed through crevices in Whether they discovered a mountain, search of the spot now called “Hitch-up quietly raised a family, or simply hitched Matilda.” Finally I reached the place where up a guide’s back, they contributed to the the cliffs rise directly out of the water. A heritage of the Adirondack Mountains. wooden boardwalk bolted to the cliff car Esther Climbing Esther ries hikers across the water now. But it Sandra Weber is the author o f three Adiron didn’t carry me. I jumped into the lake and dack history books: The Lure of Esther swam over to the walkway. Sure enough Then one day I discovered that Matilda’s story there was a rock shelf hidden a few feet under the Mountain(Purple Mountain Press, 1993), The Finest wasn’t as bizarre as it appeared. It seems that whenSquare Mile(Purple Mountain Press, 1998), and Mount water. There was the shelf Bill Nye walked acrossthe water was high along the carry trail between while carrying Matilda. Upper and Lower Ausable lakes, guide Monroe MarcyHolt (Purple Mountain Press, July 2001). Now that I had found the shelf, I couldn’t stop.used I to carry the ladies on his back. It seems that Her work has also appeared Backpacker, in Adiron was curious about this Matilda lady. I went to the MatildaNa wasn’t so off-beat after all, other nineteenth-dack Life, Adirondac, NYS Conservationist,and other tional Archives and looked at census records. I drovecentury ladies hitched-up. And, so did men. magazines.Even She lives part-time in an old log cabin near to Albany and examined old City Directories. I Noah Porter, the President of Yale College, wrappedthe Essex County courthouse and its historical records. looked at obituariesThe in New York Times. And I The Sequel, Spring 2001.

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