Under An Adirondack Influence:
The Life of A. L. Byron-Curtiss,
1871–1959
By William J. O’Hern
A. L. Byron-Curtiss was in many ways an Everyman, displaying good traits and bad. Perhaps more than in most of us, though, those traits stood out like the contrasting colors on an Adirondack autumn hillside. Authors William J. O’Hern and Roy Reehil tell the sometimes rollicking, sometimes poignant life story of this man of the cloth who loved the backwoods of the Black River headwaters and came to know them as well as anyone.
–Neal Burdick,
Adirondack magazine editor and writer
An intriguing account that is hard to put down as the complex character of A. L. Byron-Curtiss unfolds. Through many facets and contradictions, Byron-Curtiss reveals himself through his writings: a Reverend with an independent sense of justice, a story-teller with an endearing sense of humor, a brilliant writer with a sharp pen, and a lover of the Adirondacks who spent years exploring, fishing and hunting in the wilderness.
He was as comfortable with lumberjacks and guides as he was among Bishops and businessmen. His sense of humor and personal flaws make him a sympathetic personality grappling with life during world war, prohibition and the Great Depression. If you love Adirondack folklore, you’ll love this book.
352 pages ~ Over 60 vintage photographs
Atwell, New York. Back in the time before video games and Movies on Demand, people from all points found recreation by traveling by train to Forestport Station and hiring a teamster to guide them by a horse-drawn buckboard along the rutted, dirt road to North Lake. Today, the quiet, remove region near the border of northern Oneida County and Herkimer County is an outdoors person’s dream. Here you can canoe and kayak, fish, hunt, swim, camp, mountain bike, snowshoe and climb Ice Cave Mountain.”
–Linda Murphy, Observer-Dispatch staff writer