Born: March 12, 1809
Died: November 27, 1878
Married: Emeline Anne Humphrey
Children: Six
Samuel Haight Hammond was a New York lawyer, author, newspaper editor and politician. He wrote one of the earliest books popularizing the Adirondacks, Hunting Adventures in the Northern Wilds, published in 1858.
From the preface to Adirondacks, Hunting Adventures in the Northern Wilds:
If the reader will lay before him a map of the counties of Clinton, Franklin, St. Lawrence and Essex, and beginning at the Chazy lake, run his eye along thence to Bradley's Lake, then to the Chateaugay, then west to Ragged Lake and Indian Lake, and so down through the series of small lakes, to the St. Regis, and then to the Saranacs, and down along again through three small lakes to the Racquette river, and then down that beautiful watercourse to Tupper's Lake, and to Long Neack, he will note a broad sweep of country, containing millions of acres, which, when the following pages were written, was a perfect wilderness. He can trace out a circle of some two hundred miles in circumference, enclosing natural scenery the most wild and romantic, lakes and rivers the most beautiful imaginable. I was out there several weeks in the woods, along the streams, and floating on those beautiful lakes, and saw during that time no face of a white man, save that of my guide, or perhaps my own, reflected back from the quiet depths of some of those pure waters, that nestle so quietly among the ancient forests and the hills.
I was on a " tramp," partly for health and partly for pleasure. I had no intention of publishing a book of adventures, but I kept memoranda in pencil in small field books, and after my return wrote them out as my leisure permitted. Some three or four of the first chapters were published in the shape of letters to editors of my acquaintance. The balance rested until I became connected with the press, as the editor of the Albany State Register. I looked upon the manuscript as a sort of fund, upon which I could draw for light reading, with which to amuse my readers when pressed for "copy"…
Full text here.
External link:
Wikipedia: Samuel H. Hammond
