Dennis Webster - Wicked Adirondacks

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2013 by Dennis Webster

All rights reserved

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.61423.906.2

Library of Congress CIP data applied for.

print edition ISBN 978.1.60949.717.0

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is dedicated to the people who live within the blue line of the Adirondack Mountains. These hearty residents reside under the shade of tall pines while fighting the bloodsucking black fly horde, and for that, they are truly noble. Id also like to dedicate this book to my longtime first reader and cousin Evelyn Webster, whose positive feedback and expert guidance helped make this book possible.

Contents

Preface

I have spent my life fascinated by the grandeur of the Adirondack Mountains, the most unique mountain range on the planet Earth. The Adirondacks have an abundance of water. Lakes, rivers, streams and ponds are strewn throughout the range. The glaciers of the Ice Age pushed up the rocks that make up the Adirondack Mountains and then melted and retreated, leaving behind the aqua-laced beauty before us. I have climbed the fire tower of Rondaxe Mountain, fished the lake trout of Piseco Lake, walked the shops of Old Forge and slid down the bobsled run on a luge sled on Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid. The area within the blue line is the most marvelous I have ever encountered in all my travels. Its within the grandeur of the Adirondack Mountains, below the needles of the tall pines, that the criminal activities and insidious events detailed in this book occurred, and by no means are they an indication of the noble and honest residents who make this beautiful area their home. I handpicked the following stories as I scoured through historical archives. I always tell readers that I pull out stories I find fascinating, did not know or thought would be of interest to the readers. Now, lets pull up one of those random Adirondack Mountain boulders and examine the criminal crawly things that squirm underneath.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank editors Whitney Tarella and Darcy Mahan and the staff at The History Press for giving this book a home. Writers cannot exist in a vacuum and must rely on friends to give them advice, assistance and a shoulder to cry on. I would like to thank Bernadette Peck, the website Murderpedia.org, Caryl Hopson, Susan Perkins, Woody Sins, the Herkimer County Historical Society and the Fulton County History website. Id also like to thank my mother and father, Milton Lee and Charlene Webster, as well as my wife, Kelly Webster, and my children, Ashley, Jakob and Stephanie, for their patience, understanding and love.

Introduction

The Adirondack Mountains

The Adirondack Mountains are part of the Adirondack Park system and are considered a new mountain range made up of old rocks that had been pushed up into the beautiful dome of forty-six peaks at an elevation over four thousand feet. There are over 2,500 rivers, lakes, ponds and streams within the eighteen thousand square miles that make up the Adirondacks. The uniqueness of the Adirondack Mountains is in the sheer amount and styles of water upon them. Melting glaciers left waterways strewn in awe-inspiring amounts that exist nowhere else on this spinning ball of mud. The Adirondack Mountains are located in the northeastern part of New York State and include Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Saint Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren and Washington Counties. The Adirondack Park boundary contains the entire Adirondack Mountain range and is called the blue line. Lake Champlain and Lake George border the eastern side of the range. The Mohawk Valley borders the south, and the Tug Hill Plateau is to the west. The name Adirondack is a version of the Mohawk ratirontaks, meaning they eat trees, a moniker given to Algonquian-speaking tribes located in the mountains who were said, when food was scarce, to eat the buds and bark of trees. The Adirondack Mountains are a popular tourist attraction that bring in admirers from all over the world coming to climb the peaks, boat on the lakes, fish in the ponds, white-water raft on the rivers, jump down the water slides of Water Safari and walk the hallowed ground of Olympic champions at Lake Placid. Its within this range that guides stomped and crime simmered between the pines and along the banks of the liquid nights. Its with this love and devotion to the glorious Adirondack Mountains that I present to you a taste of the evil side of the beauty, the criminal side, the side that fascinates and brings forth fearfear beneath the shadows of the steep cliffs of the Adirondack Mountains.

Chapter 1

Nat Foster, Indian Killer

Ha. Nat Foster, you bad man, you kill Indians.

Indian Hess, on meeting legendary woodsman and trapper Nat Foster

Disclaimer: The following account was taken almost exclusively from the book The Life and Adventures of Nat Foster, Trapper and Hunter of the Adirondacks by A.L. Byron-Curtiss. Although Nat Foster is well known as a legendary hunter, trapper and woodsman, most of his tales come from this single book, based almost entirely on verbal legends and some interviews with Nats descendants. The book was published in 1897, and the language, especially with regard to Native Americans, is of the time periodthus the phrasing Indians and Injuns. Never in Byron-Curtisss book did I find any particular tribe mentioned. Its always Indians. I found it peculiar that Nats father, Nathanial Foster, had fought bravely in the Revolutionary War and used his interactions with the Native Americans at that time to build a hatred of that race that he would ingrain into his children, especially Nat. Nathanial fought at the Battle of Oriskany, where it is well known that the Oneidas fought bravely to help this country gain its freedom from Britain. However, Nathanial makes no mention of this bravery or the fact that the Oneidas died to help the colonists. The Oneidas decision to assist the colonists broke apart the Iroquois alliance, as the other tribes would fight alongside the Loyalists. What Im describing in the following account takes us back to another time, a time when a man would be judged on the color of his skin or be slandered based on the actions of some who might not even had been affiliated with his tribe. With this disclaimer out of the way, I give you the tale of Nat Foster, Indian killer.

BEGINNING OF AN INDIAN KILLER

The woodsman Nat Foster was well known in the southern Adirondacks as a man who could load and fire his flintlock quicker than any man known to carry the weapon. In the rugged eighteenth century, the Adirondacks was a place where wild animals roamed and only the heartiest of humans could hunt, live and survive. Nat Foster was certainly one of the best-known woodsmen, but he had a side to him that we in the modern age could say was rather brutal. However, we have to go back to the time and place of his life and determine what exactly led Nat Foster to kill his fellow man, making him famous as an Indian killer.

It all started when Nathanial Foster was born in a solitary log cabin in the rugged backwoods of Hinsdale, New Hampshire, on June 30, 1764. His fathers name was also Nathanial, but everyone called his son Nat. Young Nats father was an accomplished man with his knife and his guns. Nat learned sharpshooting and survival skills from his father, as well as from Nats older brother, Elisha, known as Lish, who was only a few years older than Nat. At the time, the Fosters had seven children, and all of them were brought up to hate and distrust Indians. Nats father had encountered Native Americans before and during the Revolutionary War. The Loyalists had started to ply Native Americans with rum, animal skins and other goods to push them to lash out against colonists in order to drive them out or force their loyalty to the British. Nat Fosters father would say that Indians were his greatest enemy and that they would steal supplies, burn down settlements and scalp colonists under the guide of their Loyalist employers.