Town of Keene Historian Tony Goodwin (Provided photo)

Beginning on Jan. 14, the Town of Keene Historical Society is launching a series of four presentations drawing from the town’s archives — the John T. Loomis Collection — all held at the Keene Valley Library on Sundays at 2 p.m.

As both the Lake Placid-North Elba and Wilmington historical societies have experienced public interest in stories about their community’s past, Keene is following suit.

The birth of the historical society’s new winter lecture series — Adventures in the Archives — is an outgrowth of the combination of the Keene and Keene Valley archives; until this past year, each hamlet housed their archive in their respective libraries. Last year, when the Keene Library was going through its renovation and structural repair, its librarian, Aaron Miller, accepted an offer by Keene Valley Library Director Karen Glass to relocate their staff to Keene Valley.

Together, they enabled the Keene Valley Library to be open six days a week during the fall, winter and spring months, resulting in greater access. However, it did mean that Keene residents had a longer commute to visit their library. At that time, they agreed to merge their two archives, which included removing any duplication of materials. They also discovered that each library handled some aspects better than the other, thus the merger also enhanced the overall quality of the collection and services provided.

A couple of years previous, Keene Valley seasonal resident Jery Huntley launched a project to capture stories about the community, its people and history, told in short recordings illustrated by images provided and from the archives. Subsequently named OurStoryBridge, the program has captured over 200 local stories and inspired a growing number of similar initiatives in the region and beyond.

Peter Slocum (Provided photo)

A clear lesson for the Town of Keene Historical Society is that locals are interested in learning more about the history of Keene; thus, led by the society’s president, Peter Slocum, and organized by town Historian Tony Goodwin, the initial lecture series was developed.

“Tony, Tom Both, Donna Austin, others and I have been kicking around different ideas about how to publicize the treasures that are in the archives, especially as we began categorizing all the materials after the decision was made to create a single Town archive and improve community access,” said Slocum. “The lecture series and the cemetery restoration work evolved from that.”

After the recent storm, Goodwin volunteered to lead a presentation titled “Keene Flood Disasters.”

“We have plenty of materials to work with, so that was a natural,” said Slocum. “We combined the cemetery restoration work with the idea of organizing tours that many people have been urging us to start again.”

This year, both Lake Placid and Keene are launching their winter lecture series with one of the same lecturers, author-historian Amy Godine with a presentation titled “Black Woods.” She will speak about the untold story of the Black community launched by abolitionist Gerrit Smith. She will be in Keene on Jan. 14 and Lake Placid on Jan. 18. Having attended other presentations by the loquacious and engaging Godine on this topic, I can assure readers that while both will have much in common, both will also share different information as the story is that rich.

“We just learned the other week that the abolitionist Gerrit Smith donated land back in 1849 for one of the early schools in Keene, the small red one up on the E’town Road near the Baxter Mountain turn,” said Slocum. “Much of Godine’s recent work is based on research she did in the Harrietstown, Lake Placid and our archives.”

Keene’s second session, led by Goodwin, is on Jan. 28. While we think of the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, it was by no means the biggest, and the flooding in December was by no means the only to happen in winter .. and again, far from being the worst.

“I’ll start with the 1856 flood, and the next big one, for which there is a record, was in 1924. Neither was caused by a tropical storm, with the 1924 in the winter,” said Goodwin. “Snowmelt, like the recent flood, was involved. 1956 was a very local flood, probably similar to the 1962 that resulted in the slides on Giant, where you had a bunch of thunderstorms that piled up and didn’t move. Aside from burying Route 73, part of the AuSable dam on the lower lake broke.”

In August 2022, a historical marker was unveiled in Keene Valley designating the home of Katharine Notman, a leading suffragist whose home became the suffrage headquarters for Essex County and the eastern Adirondack region. At the time, Slocum noted that the men of Keene were not supportive of the women’s cause, defeating the referendum granting women the right to vote by four votes in 1917.

However, the women’s cause was on many people’s minds. Illustrating that point, on Feb. 11, the historical society will present “Feminism the Play,” a reflection on Prestonia Mann, Keene’s utopian socialist and a founder of Summerbrook and the Keene Public Library.

Though a utopian, Mann did not support many women’s desire to vote. Before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, Prestonia was a leading anti-suffragette. She believed that women were the weaker sex and that “the remedy for political ills is better men. Men are what women in the home have made them. There is where reform should begin.”

“Prestonia is a great story,” said Slocum. “We haven’t decided on a presenter yet, but that will be finalized and announced shortly. We are putting together a call for volunteers.”

The final event, titled “Cemeteries Reborn” and held on Feb. 25, provides an overview of the multitude of cemeteries in and about Keene and the creation of the Norton Cemetery. The late Louise Gregg made a concerted effort to locate the cemeteries and sought to discover who was buried where. The current effort builds on her work, identifies tombstones needing repair, such as the headstone of the famed guide Orson “Old Mountain” Phelps, and hopefully will encourage locals to volunteer to help clean and repair headstones.

“We already started on restoration work thanks to the Worth family that has the Estes Cemetery, where Orson Phelps is buried,” said Slocum. “The need is great. For example, the Phelps headstone is broken off and lying on the ground. Hopefully, putting his headstone back in shape and upright will be a spring project.”

The Wilmington series has not yet been announced; they tend to begin in April and continue until the fall. Lake Placid’s can be accessed on the historical society’s website, lakeplacidhistory.com.

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley. He has been covering events for the Lake Placid News for more than 15 years.)