Hamilton County

Barrage Balloons in the Adirondacks

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It’s the 1940s, and a world war is raging overseas. The fear of a homeland invasion is constant, and in communities across the nation, air wardens monitor the sky daily for enemy planes. The Adirondack Park seems like a safe haven, but just a few miles from its northwest corner, a military installation is suddenly called to action. A large aircraft has penetrated US air space, and ground damage is reported. Sheriff’s deputies, New York State police, military MPs, and foot troops spring into action.

It’s a great show of force, but it’s not enough. After several unsuccessful encounters with the vessel, reinforcements are needed. Corporal Boyd Montgomery of the 34th Armored Regiment is dispatched, speeding across the countryside in an army tank.

Power lines are downed by the aircraft, but Montgomery continues his pursuit. Two miles into the chase, he employs a bit of ingenuity to bring the craft down. It is soon nothing more than a flattened heap.

That’s how it happened in July 1943. It’s all true, but with a few details omitted. The craft that was spotted actually was huge (75 feet long) and it did come from a foreign land (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). The damage was no less real?a dangling cable tore down power lines between Evans Mills and Philadelphia in Jefferson County. Lawmen from several agencies did pursue the craft, but three times it slipped from their grasp.

The military installation was Pine Camp, later expanded and renamed Fort Drum. And it was an Army tank that provided the solution, driving atop the 1800-foot-long cable after a two-mile chase, forcing the vessel to the ground until nothing was left but a flattened balloon.

That’s right … a balloon. But this wasn’t just any balloon. A staple of defense systems around the world, this was a Barrage Balloon. If you’ve never heard of them, you’ve probably seen them in photographs but didn’t realize what you were seeing at the time. Though they weren’t ever deployed in the Adirondacks, they did pay the area a few surprise visits during the war.

The primary use of Barrage Balloons was to prevent attacks by low-flying aircraft, and it was in WW II that they became ubiquitous. A heavy cable was used to tether the gas-filled balloons, and when hovering from a few hundred to 4,000 feet high, the effect was often deadly. Any dive-bombing aircraft had to avoid the cable tether, which could easily tear a wing off and cause the plane to crash. Besides negating low-level attacks, the balloons forced other planes to fly higher than intended on bombing runs, thus affecting their accuracy.

Many tethered balloons were flown simultaneously, and the result was multiplied when several additional cables were suspended from each balloon, providing a veritable curtain of protection from strafing aircraft. The Germans countered by equipping their planes with wing-mounted cable-cutting devices, and the British responded with explosive charges attached to many of the tethers, set to detonate on contact.

The balloons caught on in a big way in England and were often used effectively. During one of the two major German onslaughts on London during the war, 278 Flying Bombs were intercepted by the balloons, surely saving many lives.

In summer 1941, British officers warned America that Nazi planes could fly at 20,000 feet and reach the US mainland within 12 hours, with no defense system to greet them. Months before the United States entered WW II, the Navy established two Barrage Balloon squadrons with more than 150 balloons.

Intended to protect American fleet bases from air attacks, the balloon strategy was very popular for another reason: cost. Building a large coastal hangar for planes involved an expenditure of $600,000- a more secure underground facility carried a price tag of $3 million- but each barrage balloon cost only $9,500.

After the assault on Pearl Harbor, America employed an extensive balloon defense capability. Attacks were feared by the Germans on the East Coast and by the Japanese on the West Coast. San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Seattle were among the cities protected in part by Barrage Balloons, along with Norfolk, Pensacola, and New York City in the east. Vital facilities in the Great Lakes were also shielded.

Many North Country men were assigned to Barrage Balloon outfits, and it was anything but a cushy job. Since troops as well as installations needed protection, balloon men were often among the first ashore, as was the case in several beach landings in Italy and North Africa. And on D-Day, Barrage Balloons dotted the sky above the invasion fleet.

Back home in America, balloons occasionally broke free and floated towards the North Country, causing a bit of excitement. Sometimes rogue balloons escaped capture for extended periods (the Fort Drum balloon was loose for more than a week).

In March 1943, a hulking Barrage Balloon 65 feet long and 30 feet in diameter toured the Central Adirondacks, damaging power lines before snagging in a balsam tree a few miles south of Indian Lake, where a crew of men managed to deflate it.

To raise public awareness of the war effort and relieve anxiety about the occasional balloon escapee, the military dispatched a road crew in an army jeep with a smaller, 35-foot balloon strapped to the roof. In summer 1944, they visited Troy, New York. The craft was inflated and floated at 300 feet for an entire day while the men fielded questions. It was the same model as those used to defend the city of London and the beaches of Normandy.

Towards the end of the war, German capabilities of long-range attacks drastically reduced the effectiveness of the balloons, and in 1945, Britain ended their Barrage Balloon program, which at one time had upwards of 3,000 in use. The same was done with the US system, which once featured more than 400 balloons at home besides those deployed overseas.

Photos?Top: Barrage Balloon on the cover of LIFE magazine. Middle Right: The training facility on Parris Island, South Carolina (1943). Middle Left: Barrage Balloons above the Normandy shore (1944). Bottom: German plane equipped with a cable-cutting device.

Lawrence Gooley has authored ten books and dozens of articles on the North Country’s past. He and his partner, Jill McKee, founded Bloated Toe Enterprises in 2004. Expanding their services in 2008, they have produced 19 titles to date, and are now offering web design. For information on book publishing, visit Bloated Toe Publishing.

Lecture: Famous Murder Case at the Adk Museum

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The first program of the Adirondack Museum’s 2012 Cabin Fever Sunday series, &#8220Chester Gillette: The Adirondacks’ Most Famous Murder Case&#8221 will be held on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

It’s the stuff movies are made of- a secret relationship, a pregnancy and a murder. Over a century after it happened in Big Moose Lake, Herkimer County, the Chester Gillette murder case of 1906 is the murder that will never die. The murder of Grace Brown and the case following was the subject of Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 book An American Tragedy, and the Hollywood movie A Place in the Sun.

The story continues to be told today with a 1999 Opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and in a 2011 documentary North Woods Elegy. Author Craig Brandon, considered among the world’s foremost experts on the case, and author of Murder in the Adirondacks, will present and lead a discussion.

Craig Brandon is a national award-winning author of six books of popular history and public affairs and a former award-winning reporter.

Held in the Auditorium, the program will begin at 1:30 p.m. Cabin Fever Sundays are offered at no charge to museum members or children of elementary school age and younger. The fee for non-members is $5.00. The Museum Store and Visitor Center will be open from noon to 4 p.m. For additional information, please call (518) 352-7311, ext. 128 or visit
www.adirondackmuseum.org.

An Early Schenectady Communications Experiment

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In late 1932, on a dark mountainside in the far southern Adirondacks, a group of scientists prepared for a groundbreaking effort in the world of communications. The plan was to conduct a long-distance, telephone-style conversation with their counterparts stationed 24 miles away on the roof of the General Electric Company in Schenectady. No wires were involved. The voices of those on GE’s rooftop would be carried by a searchlight beam aimed directly at a concave, 30-inch mirror on a hillside near Lake Desolation.

This particular effort was the brainchild of GE research engineer John Bellamy Taylor. It involved a unique process he called “narrowcasting” because the tight focus of the beam differed substantially from the growing technology known widely as “broadcasting.”

Earlier in the year, Taylor had likewise communicated from the navy blimp Los Angeles floating high above the GE buildings. The effect was accomplished by making a light source flicker in unison with voice fluctuations. A photoelectric cell received the flickers, or pulsations, and converted them to electrical impulses, which were then amplified by a loudspeaker. The term narrowcasting was apt—any interruption of the narrow light beam halted the transmission.

This new attempt in the Adirondacks challenged Taylor’s abilities, covering more than ten times the distance of the dirigible effort and spanning some rough terrain. While trying to place the mirror in the Lake Desolation area, engineering crews twice buried their vehicles in the mud. Another technology—the shortwave radio— was used to effect a rescue.

A second issue arose involving the visibility of the large light beam. From 24 miles away, the searchlight blended among the stars on the horizon. Instructions were radioed to blink the light, which immediately solved the problem. Further communications by radio allowed the proper alignment of the light and mirror. With everything in place, the big moment was at hand.

A member of the extensive media coverage took part in the experiment. As Taylor waited on the distant hillside, famed newspaper columnist Heywood Broun began to interview him from atop the GE roof in Schenectady: “Do you suppose it might be possible in 50 or 100 years to communicate with Mars over a light ray?” Taylor’s reply included a bit of humor. “It might be within the range of possibility, but one difficulty would be how to inform the Martians what apparatus to set up.”

While Broun’s voice rode the light beam, Taylor’s end of the conversation was sent by shortwave radio back to Broun at Schenectady, where it was received and then rebroadcast on AM radio stations. The two-way conversation was the first ever of its kind.

In an area where few people had ever used or even seen a telephone, locals were suddenly talking across a beam of light. Old trapper James Link of Lake Desolation shared that “it’s getting mighty cold up here,” and two young women also spoke with Broun. It was a public relations coup for GE, and a powerful advertisement for Taylor’s wonderful innovation. The experiment was a resounding success, followed soon by other intriguing demonstrations.

A few months later, an orchestra played before a sole microphone high in New York City’s Chrysler Building. Pointing a beam of light at a lens in the window of a broadcast studio half a mile away, Taylor transmitted the performance to an audience of shocked listeners. Stunning successes like that would influence all future communications efforts in a variety of fields.

Among his many achievements, John Bellamy Taylor is credited with being the first ever to make light audible and sound visible, and with developing the first portable radio. Just how important was his work? The effects his discoveries had on radio, television, telephone, and other technologies are immeasurable. Due to the work of Taylor, Thomas Edison, and their contemporaries, the world was forever changed.

Top Photo: John Bellamy Taylor in Popular Mechanics magazine, 1931- Middle, map of the historic “narrowcast” area- Below, Taylor’s New York City experiment transmitting music.

Lawrence Gooley has authored ten books and dozens of articles on the North Country’s past. He and his partner, Jill McKee, founded Bloated Toe Enterprises in 2004. Expanding their services in 2008, they have produced 19 titles to date, and are now offering web design. For information on book publishing, visit Bloated Toe Publishing.

Adirondack Museums Fabric and Fiber Arts Fest

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The Adirondack Museum will hosts its annual Fabric and Fiber Arts Festival on Saturday, September 17, 2011. Fabrics and regional artists are featured at this one day celebration of spinning, weaving, quilting, knitting, knotting and all fiber arts.

There will be textile appraisals by Rabbit Goody in the Visitor
Center from 9:30 a.m. &#8211 12:00 p.m. and a variety of yarn installations, or yarn bombings, displayed throughout the museum campus during the event. Yarnbombing is a type of street art typically found in urban areas.

Regional fiber guilds and artists will &#8220yarn-bomb&#8221 more utilitarian parts of the museum in celebration of the fiber arts, and to showcase how traditional crafts like knitting and crocheting are being applied in new ways in the 21st century. This year’s
event includes a crocheted SUV cover by Jerilia Zempel.

In addition to the yarn-bombing displays, the museum will also feature the Third Annual Great Adirondack Quilt Show on September 17. The show is a special display of quilts inspired by or used in the Adirondacks, and will be open through October 9, 2011.

Demonstrations during the festival include: art quilting with the Adirondack Regional Textile Artists Alliance- bobbin lace-making with Judy Anderson- mixed-media textile arts and quilting with Louisa Woodworth- quilting with Northern Needles- rug hooking with the Country Ruggers- a variety of wool arts with Serendipity Spinners and felt making with Linda Van Alstyn. Linda will offer informal sessions of make your own felt flowers for a $5 fee.

Museum Curator Hallie Bond and guest Rabbit Goody will offer a presentation at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. entitled &#8220Weaving Through History,&#8221 telling the history of the weaving tradition. Presentations will take place in the Auditorium. Visitors will be able to browse and buy from a small group of talented North Country fiber artists at the vendor fair. Enjoy fiddle and guitar music by talented musicians Doug Moody and John Kribs throughout the day.

Hands-on activities include recycled rugs &#8211 help braid strips of blue jeans into a floor rug and placemats for the museum’s Little Log Cabin, or make a coaster for home from recycled tee-shirts. This year’s Fiber Fest will include an afternoon knit-in hosted by Carol Wilson. This will be an opportunity for knitters to work on a project in the company of other knitting enthusiasts, and to exchange tips with other participants about how to tackle tricky techniques. Knitters are highly encouraged to bring finished projects to display, as well as works in progress.

Visit www.adirondackmuseum.org for a list of fiber related workshops that will take place on Sunday, September 18, 2011.

Rustic Furniture Fair at the Adirondack Museum

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The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York will host the 24th annual Rustic Furniture Fair on September 10 and 11, 2011. The Fair is a festival of rustic arts featuring handcrafted furniture, furnishings and original Adirondack paintings.

Renowned craftsman from all over the United States will showcase and sell their one-of-a-kind creations. Exhibitors will be on hand to answer questions about their work, or discuss custom made pieces.

The Adirondack Museum’s Rustic Furniture Fair is recognized as the premier event of its kind in the country. This gathering of talented artisans includes both traditional and contemporary styles of furniture design, handcrafted from natural materials. More than fifty-five artisans, including six new craftsmen, will showcase their creations.

Visitors will enjoy music by Intermountain Trio, demonstrations, and great food throughout the day &#8211 including treats from North Country Kettle Corn and Ben & Jerry’s.

An original work of art &#8220Tupper Lake&#8221 (oil on canvas) by Barney Bellinger of Sampson Bog Studio, Mayfield, N.Y. will be sold via silent auction at the Fair. The winner will be announced at 3 p.m. on September 11, 2011. Visit www.adirondackmuseum.org to view the
piece.

Alternative parking will be available Saturday and Sunday on Route 28 in the village of Blue Mountain Lake, at the museum’s Collections Storage and Study Center, a little over a mile from the museum grounds with a free shuttle to and from the museum provided. Rustic Furniture Fair activities and demonstrations are included in the price of regular museum admission. All museum exhibits will be open as well.

Adirondack Life, North Country Public Radio, and Mountain Lake PBS are media
sponsors of the Rustic Furniture Fair.

Join the museum at the Preview Party on Friday, September 9 from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., and socialize with friends and others interested in rustic art and craftsmanship. Shop, and meet the artisans who create these one-of-a-kind pieces. Learn about their techniques, materials, inspiration and the rustic art form. Enjoy festive music with The Barn Cats, delicious hor d’oeuvres, cocktails and early Fall in the Adirondacks. Tickets may be purchased in advance by visiting www.adirondackmuseumstore.com.

Adirondack Museum Offer Free Days For Locals

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This year, the Adirondack Museum has introduced two new programs just for year-round Adirondack Park residents. The museum invites year-round residents of the Adirondack Park to visit free of charge every Sunday, and on all open days in May and October. Proof of residency such as a driver’s license, passport, or voter registration card is required.

The Adirondack Museum has also introduced a new &#8220Friends and Neighbors&#8221 Adirondack Park Resident Membership Program. Year-round Park residents can now enjoy all the museum has to offer every day of the season through a very special program that makes museum membership more affordable than ever before &#8211 half the regular price at the Individual, Companion, and Family

levels. Call the membership office for more information: (518) 352-7311 ext. 112 or email [email protected].

The museum is open 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., 7 days a week, including holidays, from May 27 through October 17, 2011. There will be an early closing on August 12, and adjusted hours on August 13- the museum will close for the day on September 9.

Adirondack Museum Welcomes 4 Millionth Visitor

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The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York welcomed its 4 millionth visitor, Katie Alexander of Ewing, N.J., on August 16, 2011. Katie was accompanied by her parents, Daniel and Jean, and sisters, Emma and Hannah. To recognize this milestone in their fifty-four year history, the museum provided its special and significant visitor with a membership for her family and a $100 gift certificate to the Museum Store.

The Adirondack Museum, which opened to the public in 1957, is a regional outdoor history museum that has been sharing the stories of the region with more than 70,000 visitors each year. The museum has grown from one building in 1957 to more than 22 indoor and outdoor exhibit spaces today. Offerings include continuously changing exhibits, public programs, lectures, field trips, and school programs.

The Adirondack Museum welcomed its one millionth visitor in 1976, two millionth in 1987, and three millionth in 1998.

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. History is in our nature. The museum is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. For information about all that the museum has to offer, please call (518) 352-7311, or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Photo: Left to right: Michael Lombardi, Interim Director, Adirondack Museum- Emma, Hannah, Jean, Daniel, and (in front) Katie Alexander. Katie Alexander was the 4 millionth visitor to the Adirondack Museum in it’s 54-year history.

Mountain Men Encampment at the Adk Museum

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The Adirondack Museum will host the annual American Mountain Men Rendezvous on Friday, August 19 and Saturday, August 20, 2011. The event features educational interpreters in period dress showcase a variety of historical survival skills.

Visitors will see demonstrations of firearms and shooting, tomahawk and knife throwing, fire starting and campfire cooking. There will be displays of pelts and furs, clothing of eastern and western mountain styles, period firearms and much more.

All of the American Mountain Men activities and demonstrations are included in the price of regular Adirondack Museum admission. There is no charge for museum members. The museum is open 7 days a week from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., including holidays.

Participants in the museum encampment are from the Brothers of the New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts segment of the national American Mountain Men organization. Participation in the encampment is by invitation only.

Mountain men are powerful symbols of America’s wild frontier. Legends about the mountain man continue to fascinate because many of the tales are true: the life of the mountain man was rough, and despite an amazing ability to survive in the wilderness, it brought him face to face with death on a regular basis.

The American Mountain Men group was founded in 1968. The association researches and studies the history, traditions, tools, and mode of living of the trappers, explorers, and traders known as the mountain men. Members continuously work for mastery of the primitive skills of both the original mountain men and Native Americans. The group prides itself on the accuracy and authenticity of its interpretation and shares the knowledge they have gained with all who are interested.

New Executive Director Named for Adk Museum

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Kevin J. Arquit, Chairman of the Board of the Adirondack Museum has announced that the Board of Trustees has unanimously confirmed the appointment of David M. Kahn as the new Executive Director.

“The Board was very fortunate to identify Kahn as the museums next Director,” said Arquit. “This is an exciting time for the Adirondack Museum to bring in someone as accomplished as David because he has devoted his entire career to the museum profession. His skills, experience, and passion for history will undoubtedly continue to move the museum forward as a rich cultural resource and intellectually engaging place.”


A native New Yorker, David Kahn will be coming to the Adirondack Park from San Diego, C.A. He is currently Executive Director of the San Diego History Center, and prior to going to San Diego, Kahn was Director of three other institutions. He was Executive Director of the Brooklyn Historical Society from 1982 &#8211 1996. While he was there, the institution built a national reputation for its community history projects that focused on topics ranging from new Chinese immigrants to the Crown Heights Riots. From 1996 – 2006 David served as Executive Director of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, the seventh oldest historical organization in the United States. During his tenure, the Society’s annual operating budget grew from $1.7 million to $5 million and the institution quadrupled its audience to 70,000.

In May 2006 David assumed the directorship of the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans. While in Louisiana he was responsible for 13 facilities and secured major grants including $1.4M from the National Science Foundation for an exhibition about Hurricane Katrina and $2M from the National Park Service for a jazz center.

Throughout his career, David has been involved in a wide variety of professional activities. He has served on peer grant review panels for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Council for the Humanities, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Smithsonian Institution. He was Vice President of the New York State Association of Museums from 1992-1995 and is currently Vice President of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership. He has been an Editorial Board Member of the journal Curator since 1994 and he has served on two Ford Foundation Advisory Committees, “Documentation, Editing, and Archives” (1998) and “Expanding the Civic Role of the Arts” (1996 –1997). David has moderated panels and presented professional papers at numerous history museum conferences in San Francisco (2009), New Orleans (2008), Vienna (2007), Amsterdam (2005), Sao Paulo (2004), Luxembourg (2000), Istanbul (1999), Quebec (1999), Bonn (1996), and Harrogate (1996). He has published articles in Curator and Museum News as well as a series of travel pieces about Japan (a personal interest) in The New York Times. He earned both a B.A. Magna Cum Laude and a M.A. in Art History from Columbia University.

&#8220I am absolutely thrilled that the Adirondack Museum’s Board has chosen me to lead the organization into the future,” said Kahn. “The challenge for me will be to take what is obviously already a great institution and to find even more new and innovative ways for it to serve its many visitors and the community. I look forward to working with the museum’s dedicated board, its professional staff, and its many volunteers and donors.&#8221

David Kahn will assume the position of Executive Director, Adirondack Museum on September 5, 2011.

Adirondack Museums Antiques Show and Sale

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The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, will host their annual Antiques Show and Sale on August 13 and 14, 2011. Sixty antique dealers from around the United States will be on hand featuring authentic historical furnishings, vintage boats, folk art,
taxidermy, and everything else for camp and cottage.

Rod Lich, Inc. of Georgetown, Indiana will manage the show. The show will be open from 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. on August 13, and 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. on August 14, and is included in the price of general museum admission. Porters will be on site to assist with heavy or cumbersome items.

The Antiques Show Preview Benefit will be held on August 13 from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. Guests will enjoy exclusive early access to the show and an elegant brunch with wine. Proceeds from the benefit will support exhibits and programs at the Adirondack Museum. Tickets may be reserved online or call (518) 352-7311, ext. 119.

A complete listing of dealers can be found online.