New Exhibit Honors Theme Park Designer Monaco

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A new exhibit, &#8220IMAGINING MAKEBELIEVE: An Exhibition Honoring Arto Monaco&#8221 will open with a reception at the Tahawus Lodge Center (14234 Rte 9N, Main St, Au Sable Forks, NY) on Friday, July 22, 2011, 6-9pm.

From 1954 to 1979, the Land of Makebelieve captivated visitors young and old. This summer, the Arto Monaco Historical Society invites you to remember the Land of Makebelieve, an enchanting, child-sized theme park, and its creator, Arto Monaco.

Born in Ausable Forks in 1913, Monaco designed not only the Land of Make Believe but Santa’s Workshop and Charley Wood’s Storytown and Gaslight Village. The Arto Monaco Historical Society was created after Monaco’s death in 2003 to preserve his legacy.

The exhibition in Au Sable Forks will feature images and artifacts from the original theme park, formerly located in Upper Jay but now closed to the public. The exhibition will also include plans for a new park that’s under consideration for the former Land of Makebelieve site.

Photo: The Land of Makebelieve in 2006 before volunteers began work on the abandoned theme park.

Haunted History Investigation of Herkimer Home

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The doors of the historic Herkimer Home State Historic Site will be opened to the public for paranormal investigations at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, July 29th and Saturday, July 30th. This event marks the first time under NY State ownership that the historic 18th century mansion has been investigated for paranormal activity.

Both nights will begin with a lecture and a Ghost Hunting 101 Class provided by members of the New York Shadow Chasers, a paranormal research group who recently conducted a private investigation of the property. This short class will be followed by public paranormal investigations of the grounds led by Shadow Chaser staff. The public will explore the interior and exterior of the property using paranormal equipment often seen on many popular “ghost hunting” television shows.

Tickets for this event are $25.00 and reservations are required by calling (315) 823-0398. A limited number of tickets will be sold to the public. Proceeds from the tickets will support educational programs at the Herkimer Home.

Formed at SUNY Potsdam in 2002, the Shadow Chasers represent a team of academic professionals who research and document regional folklore. Certified by SUNY CITI Ethics as Social Science researchers, their investigations have covered numerous historic sites and properties throughout New York State, raising thousands of dollars to support local history.

Built circa 1764, the Herkimer Home is the Georgian home of Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer, A Palatine German farmer, Indian trader, and prominent Mohawk Valley Businessman. As commander of the Tryon County Militia, Herkimer became a hero during the Battle of Oriskany in 1777. Despite a bullet wound to his leg and although greatly outnumbered, he and his command held the field. Following the battle, Herkimer was carried home, where he died in his mansion 10 days later.

Herkimer Home is located on NYS State Route 169, 4 miles southeast of Little Falls, 1/4 mile before NYS Thruway exit 29A. Events are in cooperation with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation – Central Region. For more information about this and other events planned at the Herkimer Home visit www.littlefallsny.com.

Exhibition Celebrates 175 Yrs of State Museum

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The New York State Museum traces its origins to an 1836 survey of the state’s geology, plants, and animals. To celebrate 175 years of adding to the scientific and historical knowledge of New York, the State Museum presents an exhibition that showcases many of its important collections in anthropology, history, and natural science. The exhibition highlights some of the people who, through their work, built these invaluable collections, and presents examples of continuing research based on the collections. Together, the stories of the collectors, the artifacts and specimens in the collections, and the continuing research illuminate the history of the oldest and largest state museum in the nation.

The exhibition &#8220From the Collections&#8221 will run through April 2012 in the Exhibition Hall.

Photo: The coyote collection includes skins and skulls that document the expansion of coyotes into New York. Shown here is the skull of a coyote-wolf-dog hybrid from New York state. Scientists at the State Museum recently evaluated skulls and genetic samples of New York coyotes and found they have larger and wider skulls because of hybridization
with wolves. The coyote collection is included in From the Collections, an exhibition highlighting some of the State Museum’s important collections and related research.

Event: Spiritualist Fox Sisters in Petersboro

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Spiritualism was born in the spring of 1848 when Margaret and Kate Fox heard strange rappings in their Hydesville NY bedroom. Within two years the two “Rochester Rappers” with their sister Leah were touring the country communicating with spirits. The Free Church of Peterboro was one site for the rapping demonstrations. “Scraps of paper in the Gerrit Smith Papers showing questions posed to a spirit medium … revealed that the family attempted to communicate with their loved ones, including Fitzhugh and Peter, after they had died,” according to one historian.

At 2 pm on Sunday, July 24 the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark in Peterboro will host programs on 19th Century spiritualism with particular attention to the Fox Sisters and Peterboro’s connections to the spiritualism movement. The program is open to the public and free.

The featured speaker Nancy Rubin Stuart (Osterville, Mass) will present Maggie Fox, Victorian America’s Reluctant Spiritualist. Upstate New York teenager Maggie Fox (1833-1893) rose to national fame as Victorian America’s &#8220reluctant spiritualist.&#8221 Young and beautiful, Maggie’s alleged ability to communicate with spirits in America’s first seances of 1848 astounded the press, and made Maggie and her sisters the darlings of Broadway. Maggie inspired hundreds of imitators, and fascinated the most prominent men and women of her era, among them Horace Greeley, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Todd Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William James. After a passionate love affair and secret marriage to distinguished Arctic explorer Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in 1856, during which Maggie promised to give up mediumship, her life took surprising twists and turns, culminating with a startling confession in 1888 at the New York Academy of Music. The lecture is accompanied by slides of Maggie Fox and her era.

Rubin explains that her purpose is neither to prove nor disprove the veracity of spirit communication, but rather to illustrate how 150 years ago the Fox sisters’ introduction of that idea swept through America and why it continues to fascinate people today. Maggie’s story is important, Rubin believes, because of passion – the passionate longing that 19th C. Americans had to once again talk with their beloved dead, and the passionate romance between Fox and Kane.

This Speakers in the Humanities event, which is free and open to the public, is made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Speakers in the Humanities program has linked distinguished scholars with diverse audiences since its launch in 1983, bringing the best in humanities scholarship to thousands of people at hundreds of cultural organizations in virtually every corner of New York State. This program is just one of the ways the New York Council for the Humanities helps all New Yorkers to lead vibrant intellectual lives by strengthening traditions of cultural literacy, critical inquiry, and civic participation.

After Stuart’s presentation, popular local performers and sisters Darothy DeAngelo and Sue Greenhagen will provide a light-hearted look at early spiritualism with a vignette of the Fox Sisters during a rapping session enticing the spirits of some “dearly departed.” DeAngelo portrays Maggie, and Sue portrays Kate.

Beginning at 1 pm, Michael Keene will sell and sign his recently published book by The History Press: Folklore and Legends of Rochester: The Mystery of Hoodoo Corner & Other Tales. The book includes the story of the Fox Sisters, as well as the anti-Masonic hysteria of the early nineteenth century and the unexplained disappearance of former Mason, Captain Morgan. Keene worked for twenty-five years in the financial services industry as a financial planner. He is also the producer of an award-winning 2008 film Visions, True Stories of Spiritualism, Secret Societies & Murder, which, in part, inspired his new book.

Copies of Town of Smithfield historian Donna Burdick’s paper &#8220Spirited Women – and Men & Their Unpopular Causes&#8221 will be on sale at the Peterboro Mercantile for the benefit of the Peterboro Area Historical Society. Burdick’s document describes Spiritualism as it was introduced and “practiced” in Peterboro. Burdick refers to written accounts of medium sessions and spiritualism conferences.

The Gerrit Smith Estate and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro are open from 1 – 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays until October 23, 2011. Admission to each site is two dollars. Stewards and students are free. For more information:

Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro NY 13134-006- call 315-280-8828 or visit www.sca-peterboro.org

Soldiers Atop Mount Independence Event

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It was 235 years ago this July that American soldiers began building one of the largest Revolutionary War fortifications in the country—on what would become known as Mount Independence in Orwell, Vermont. An event commemorating this anniversary and experience the Revolutionary War and the road to American independence will be held on Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24, as the Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, Vermont, presents the annual “Soldiers Atop the Mount” living history weekend. Dedicated reenactors recreate this exciting period in American history in an event that is fun for the whole family. Admission is $6.00 for adults and free for children under 15, and includes the museum and all activities.

The public is invited to visit the American and British tent camps, talking with reenactors whose units portray some of the actual units that garrisoned Mount Independence.

On Saturday, the camps open at 10:30 with ongoing demonstrations of camp life, a history scavenger hunt, and special children’s activities. During the day children and the young at heart can learn how to drill, visit the camps, attend Mistress Davenport’s School, and enjoy music from the Seth Warner Mount Independence Fife & Drum Corps. At 1:00 p.m. experience the artillery demonstration and at 2:00 p.m. witness the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence. In the afternoon see how the soldiers would have made fascines, bundles of wood used in military construction. At 3:00 p.m. is the narrated military tactical demonstration with military action encircling the audience.

On Sunday the camps open to the public at 10:00 and the history scavenger hunt is on.

At 11:30 or attend Mistress Davenport’s School, and experience the narrated military tactical demonstration at 1:30. The camp closes at 2:00 pm. At 2:30 site interpreter Paul Andriscin will give a short talk in the auditorium on the construction of Mount Independence. Call for details.

American forces built Mount Independence in 1776 and 1777 to defend New England and Lake Champlain from the British enemy in Canada. On the night of July 5 and 6, 1777, the Northern Department of the American Army withdrew from Mount Independence in Orwell and Fort Ticonderoga, as British Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne sailed down the lake pursuing his plan to split New England off from the rest of the United States. Following the Battle of Hubbardton on July 7, the British and Germans occupied Mount Independence until November of that year.

Mount Independence, a National Historic Landmark, is near the end of Mount Independence Road six miles west of the intersection of Vermont Routes 22A and 73 in Orwell. It includes an air conditioned visitor center and museum and nearly six miles of hiking trails. It is open daily through October 10, 9:30 to 5:00. Call (802) 948-2000 for more information or visit www.HistoricVermont.org/sites.

Photo: American Revolutionary War Soldiers firing at Mount Independence. Courtesy Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

New S. R. Stoddard Exhibit: New York Harbor

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The Chapman Historical Museum in Glens Falls (Warren County) has opened a new exhibit of Seneca Ray Stoddard photographs featuring views of New York Harbor. Taken in the 1880s on his visits to New York City, the fifteen photographs include images of sailboats and steamers in the harbor, people bathing on the beach at Coney Island, the Brooklyn Bridge and other landmarks. A highlight is Stoddard’s famous night-time photo of the Statue of Liberty, captured using magnesium flash powder. The exhibit, planned to coincide with The Hyde Collection’s exhibit, &#8220NY, NY,&#8221 will be on view through September 4th.

The Chapman Historical Museum is located at 348 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY. Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm, and Sunday, noon to 4 pm. For more information call (518) 793-2826.

Photo: Coney Island bathers by Seneca Ray Stoddard, ca. 1880

Collection Storage Tours at Adirondack Museum

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Visitors can see some of the more than 7,000 historic artifacts not currently on exhibit at the Adirondack Museum in a state-of-the-art collections storage facility in Blue Mountain Lake, New York.

The Collections Storage and Study Center holds an amazing array of objects from the Adirondack past. Collections consist of boats, including power boats, canoes, kayaks, guideboats, and unusual boats- traditional and rustic furniture- hand tools and machinery- large vehicles, including horse-drawn carriages and sleighs, snowmobiles, fire trucks, and a Jitterbug- maple
sugaring equipment- ice harvesting tools- and agricultural artifacts.

Adirondack Museum Conservator and Collections Manager Doreen Alessi will lead the tours. Alessi cares for more than 100,000 two and three-dimensional artifacts in the collection of the Adirondack Museum. She is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC).

Tours of the Collections Storage and Study Center will be held each Monday through August from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The tours are free for museum members and $10 for non-members. Visitors can sign up for a tour on Mondays at the Membership Desk in the Visitor Center. Each tour is limited to thirty people.

The Adirondack Museum, accredited by the American Association of Museums, tells stories of the people &#8211 past and present &#8212- who have lived, worked, and played in the unique place that is the Adirondack Park. The museum is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. For information about the museum call (518) 352-7311 or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Social Dance Saturdays at Iroquois Museum

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The Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY has announced the second in a series of three “Social Dance Saturdays” featuring Iroquois social dance groups. On Saturday, July 23, the HAUDENOSAUNEE DANCERS from Onondaga will perform three sets at approximately 11, 1, and 3. Visitors are encouraged and welcomed to join in with the dancers.

Led by Sherri Waterman Hopper, the Haudenosaunee Dancers will perform Iroquois social dances as practiced in their small traditional community near Syracuse. Sherri Waterman-Hopper has traveled internationally as an artist and cultural speaker. The Dancers feature a core group of seasoned singer/musicians and talented and dedicated young adults. Pride in the culture and adherence to the traditions are the hallmarks of this troupe. Hopper is also a designer and seamstress who incorporates her knowledge of the construction and significance of traditional outfits into her presentations.

For more information contact the Museum at 518-296-8949, [email protected] or visit their website.

Photo: Haudenosaunee Dancer from 2010 (provided).

Brooklyn Museum Announces New Trustees

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Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School Tamara C. Belinfanti, Forest City Ratner Companies Executive Vice President and General Counsel David L. Berliner, and Brooklyn-based artist Fred Tomaselli were elected to the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Museum at the June Board meeting. The election of Tomaselli marks the first time in recent years an artist has served on the Museum Board.

&#8220We are delighted to welcome these three new Members. They bring a breadth of experience, interest, and expertise that will further enhance and strengthen our Board, working together with Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman and the Staff,&#8221 states newly elected Board Chair John S. Tamagni.

Tamara C. Belinfanti is an Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School and lives in Brooklyn. Previously, she was a Corporate Associate with the international law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was a Clinical Intern to Professor Alan M. Dershowitz.

Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Forest City Ratner Companies, a Brooklyn-based real estate developer and property owner, David Berliner is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Madison Square Park Conservancy and a founding member of their Curatorial Committee, an advisory group that sources and evaluates proposals to commission work of contemporary artists to be shown in Madison Square Park.

A native of California, Fred Tomaselli emerged from the California art scene, creating installation and performance art in the early 1980s. In 1985 he moved to New York, where he was one of the pioneering artists of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His work has been shown worldwide in both galleries and museums and is represented in public and private collections. In the fall of 2010, the Brooklyn Museum presented a critically acclaimed mid-career survey of his work.

John Brown Lives! Concert Promotes Cultural Exchange

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On Wednesday, July 20, 2011, John Brown Lives! (JBL!) is presenting “desert blues” musician, Bombino, live and in concert, at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. performance. Omara “Bombino” Moctar is a young Tuareg singer from Niger, Africa, on his first North American tour. He has received advance praise as a “guitar wizard” likened to Jimi Hendrix (KCRW), who plays “some of the most sublime guitar licks you’ll hear in 2011” (NPR).

The concert is an outgrowth of JBL!’s Dreaming of Timbuctoo Exhibition detailing a black settlement effort in the Adirondacks in the mid-1800s. It is also inaugurates the Timbuktu Sahara * Timbuctoo Adirondack Project, a cultural exchange initiative John Brown Lives! is developing to link schoolchildren and communities in the Adirondacks with a Tuareg village on the outskirts of Timbuktu, Mali. A share of proceeds from this concert will benefit the Scarab School in the desert village of Tinghassane.

The Tuareg, often called the “Blue Men of the Desert” by outsiders, are a nomadic people descended from the Berbers of North Africa. In his short life, Bombino, and many Tuareg, have endured drought, rebellion, tyranny, and exile. Fusing traditional rhythms of nomadic peoples of the Sahara and the Sahel with the drive of rock and roll and songs about peace, Bombino plays an influential role today in educating the Tuareg about the importance of the fragile democracy in Niger while maintaining their rich cultural heritage.

John Brown Lives! (JBL) is a freedom education project founded in 1999 to promote social justice through the exploration of issues, social movements and events, rooted mainly in Adirondack history, and their connection to today’s struggles for human rights.

Individual tickets are $18 in advance or $20 at the door. Children under 12 are admitted for $5. Sponsor tickets are also available at $160 for a book of 10 tickets. Tickets are available at the LPCA Box Office 518-523-2512. For sponsor tickets, please call 518-962-4758 or 518-576-9755.

For more general information, contact John Brown Lives! at [email protected] or 518-962-4758. To learn more about Bombino and the Tuareg, check out these links (1, 2).