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Review: Echoes in These Mountains: Historic Sites and Stories Disappearing in Johnsburg, an Adirondack Community
http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/407/1/Review-Echoes-in-These-Mountains-Historic-Sites-and-Stories-Disappearing-in-Johnsburg-an-Adirondack-Community/Page1.html
Persis Granger

Reviewer Persis ("Perky") Granger: Perky is an avid reader and a writer of fiction and nonfiction, including Adirondack Gold, A Summer of Strangers and Shared Stories from Daughters of Alzheimer's: Writing a path to peace. She studied at the College of Wooster (OH) and the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), earning a BA at the latter. She later completed her Master of Science in Teaching at SUNY Plattsburgh.
She presents programs to adults and youth, and hosts writers’ retreats in New York and Florida. Learn more at www.PersisGranger.com (also accessed as www.FictionAmongFriends.com.)

 





 
By Persis Granger
Published on February 13, 2009
 



Author: Glenn Pearsall
ISBN: 978-1-886166-20-2
Publisher: Pyramid Publishing 2008 for Johnsburg Historical Society

In Echoes in These Mountains, Glenn Pearsall has tackled the herculean task of capturing the history of fifty-five historic sites in the town of Johnsburg, NY.


 

Click Here To Purchase Echoes In These Mountains: Historic Sites and Stories Disappearing in Johnsburg, An Adirondack Community



Author: Glenn Pearsall
ISBN: 978-1-886166-20-2
Publisher: Pyramid Publishing 2008 for Johnsburg Historical Society


In Echoes in These Mountains, Glenn Pearsall has tackled the herculean task of capturing the history of fifty-five historic sites in the town of Johnsburg, NY. Originally planned as a short guide for a self-guided auto tour, the text of Echoes in These Mountains mushroomed as Pearsall discovered documents, photographs and oral history to supplement his material. A highly readable history that will appeal to the dilettante as well as the scholarly historian, Pearsall’s book is a pleasant blend of research and local recollections. Readers will enjoy following the author’s speculation about the path of Sir John Johnson’s military trail, his recounting of the rags-to-riches life of poet/model Jeanne Robert Foster, or his discussions of Johnsburg’s garnet and graphite mines, ski areas, tanneries, woolen and calico mills and sheep and dairy farms in Johnsburg. We learn about the enterprises of John Thurman and his relatives, and the people they induced to move to what must have seemed a godforsaken country. We are introduced to famous people whose lives touched and were touched by this Adirondack town – Theodore Roosevelt, photographer Matthew Brady, perfume magnate Richard Hudnut, movie star Rudolph Valentino, railroad tycoon Thomas Durant, preservationist Howard Zahniser and others. We are even treated to some tidbits of juicy local gossip, like the tale of Melissa Ordway

Those who wish to visit the fifty-five sites (some on public lands, some on private) may do so on a trip that covers about one hundred and three miles. GPS coordinates supplied for each site will confirm correct location. This reader found the many, many (well over two hundred) photographs in the book to be of invaluable help. Old photographs of many sites (loaned from private collections and from the Johnsburg Historical Society files) are displayed next to pictures recently snapped at the same location (and at the same angle) by the author—visual “echoes” of the old photos, if you will. Pearsall’s extensive bibliography offers lots of additional reading for those who wish to learn more. And after you’ve whetted your appetite with “Echoes in These Mountains,” you’re bound to want to read further. The Upstate History Alliance awarded “Echoes in These Mountains” a Certificate of Commendation in its 2008 competition.

Click Here To Purchase Echoes In These Mountains: Historic Sites and Stories Disappearing in Johnsburg, An Adirondack Community