This year the Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Frances and Louise Brewster’s gift of the train station. This gift has given the Society the opportunity to preserve and present the community’s history to residents and visitors.
The Society has been writing and publishing newsletters for members just as long.
In the summer 1968 edition, Mary MacKenzie, who was the editor of the Placid Pioneer, wrote a small piece about two different poems that were inspired by our town and its beauty. In each poem, you can envision the locations that gave the authors so much joy.
“On the following pages appear two poems – one the purple prose of the middle 19th century, the other the imagistic style of the 1920’s. Each in its individual way celebrates the beauty and uniqueness of North Elba.
Each was written by a native son who was born and grew up in the town. The interesting fact is that their lives lie almost a century apart, yet their poems immediately reveal a common denominator, — a very deep, personal and exceptional love of native soil.
Dillon Osgood, the author of “The Boundary of North Elba” was born in our township in 1819, the son of Iddo Osgood who migrated here about 1804. Dillon became our first postmaster in 1849. He was also a Congressional minister and preached on Sundays in the little red schoolhouse. He died here in 1859 at the age of 39. “The Boundary of North Elba” was written to commemorate the setting off of North Elba from the Town of Keene in 1850. This, almost 120 years later, is its first publication.
Nash Williams, a grandson of pioneer Joseph Nash of “Red House” fame, since schooldays has spent his life away from Lake Placid, mainly in Madison, Wisconsin. But Nash would be the first to say that his heart is still in the highlands. He returns at least once a year for fishing and visits with his family and the town. We are grateful to him for “Second Best,” a fine bit of nostalgia written and published in his younger days.”
The Boundary of North Elba
By: Dillon Osgood
From Placid’s sparkling fountains,
By Whiteface’s ancient side,
To where mid riven mountains
Ausable’s waters glide –
Through many a wildwood golden
When summer hues are seen
By highlands fair and olden
Along the line of Keene.
From hill to vale it changes,
By Edmonds Lake we wing
To where mid lurid ranges
Ausable’s sources spring –
‘Tis there no sun-beams quiver
In dells both dark and deep
By springs of Hudson’s river
Where avalanches leap.
From Keene’s south peak so hoary
By Gothic’s glowing spire,
Tahawas brow of glory
And kingly McIntyre.
Up Wallface heights ascending
The Indian pathway by
Where sky and cliff are blending
And mighty boulders lie.
By summits where still gushes
The Adirondack rills
Where bright Ausable rushes
Down the north-sloping hills –
Yet onward where stream brothers
Pursue a westward track,
To Raquette’s strand, while others
Join shady Saranac.
The Preston lakelets leaving,
Through forests grey and tall,
While Seward’s crest upheaving
Peers grandly over all.
Still onward by state order,
By devious Ampersand,
By Franklin’s lovely border
To woody St. Armand.
From Saranac’s green valley,
By Ray’s sequestered plain,
The ground of Red Man’s Rally
When his the wide domain.
Again through woodlands wending
By granite cliffs once more,
Romantic heights descending
To Placid’s tranquil shore.
Second Best
By: J. Nash Williams
Perhaps
I’ll never see
The sun go down again
From Hennessy’s grand height,
Now that I am old;
Never again
Her shaggy peak again
To lie down
Gratefully;
Never feel
The heart pound,
The blood race
Nor the water streaming down
my cheek;
Perhaps
I’ll never watch the shadows
Swallow
The brown ribbon of the lake
In one huge gulp,
Nor see
The tiny patch of red that
covers
Our House
Blotted out,
Nor the drifts of snow
On the Sentinels
Glow like ropes of pearls.
But I can remember, and
remember,
Now that I’ve grown old.