Thomas C. O’Donnell’s time and study were chiefly devoted to talking with old timers such as colorful preacher-collector of Adirondack history, Rev. A.L. Byron-Curtiss.
Thomas C. O’Donnell
An Excerpt from Life at a North Woods Lumber Camp
The Adirondacks and their foothills, the neighboring towns of Forestport and Woodgate, the cities of Rome and Utica—all these furnished the themes for the books he wrote.
O’Donnell told a newspaper man who was covering the author’s latest book about Fairfield Seminary that he had a keen interest in sectional history and that he had written “eight to ten other books” before he got started on his current [north country] series. One was a gardening book, A Garden for You, “which attracted much attention among plant growers.” Prior
to his “publishing house position, he was for16 years editor of the New York Masonic Outlook,” the unnamed columnist for the Herkimer Evening Telegraph, told.
Courtesy of Town of Webb Historical Association
A corduroy road is made by placing logs close together to allow access over wet areas. “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”—John Muir.
By the late 1940s Thomas C. O’Donnell’s time and study
were chiefly devoted to talking with old timers – such as the colorful preacher-collector of Adirondack history, Rev. A.L. Byron-Curtiss of North Lake — and others who remembered some of the events and figures of more than half a century back. He also spent a good deal of time going over old newspapers, books and records. His col- lection of material is stored in volumes of cartons which are anything but drab statistical summaries and are touched with keen appreciation for the days when the edges of the Adirondacks were dotted with centers of industry and trade.
O’Donnell relished the stories of early engineers, the founding of the Bisby Club and the famed Adirondack League Club, and the sawmill era with its famed lumberjacks. Tales of the old communities no longer on the map, Farrtown and Wheelertown, of Pony Bob’s, Reed’s Mill and Enos enlivened his imagination.
Clearly, judges in and around Forestport that gave the game protectors a bad time, the notorious Dirty Dozen who took vengeance on game wardens assigned to patrol the Adirondack League Club land, Forestport’s Liars Club and “The Harness Shop Senate,” which held its meetings in Sam Utley’s harness shop in Forestport, provided much hilarious material for O’Donnell’s facile pen. The guides too were colorful.
Grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunts, Civil War veterans, aged farmers, loggers, merchants, local historians, and postmasters all were great storytellers and were delighted to talk of earlier times.
O’Donnell knew the modern age was on the horizon and he, the author of numerous books, knew he too straddled the generations and had absorbed much from each. While he lived in Chicago, he was involved with numerous “little” magazines, often the first venue of unknown writers. O’Donnell contributed to these magazines, and also helped to foster what might be called a truly American type of literature. He was friendly with all of the young poets who were part of the Harriet Monroe “Poetry” group, and his book shelves were lined with autographed copies of their books.