North Country At Work

Blacksmiths Fred Mayor and Dan McDougal working inside their blacksmith shop on Main Street. They stand at two anvils.  Circa 1910. Hammond, NY.

Nine men holding tools stand on a wooden trestle bridge across Tanner Creek near Stellaville, a hamlet of De Kalb. The bridge was part of the Adirondack and St. Lawrence Railroad. Four women and a man sitting in a horse-drawn wagon are on the ground next to the bridge. The bridge is under construction, and […]

Unknown man surveying land around the remains of the Clifton Mines, using a theodolite mounted on a tripod stand. Circa 1968. DeGrasse in the Town of Russell, NY.

Six carpenters assemble wooden brooder boxes inside Van Dwyer Furniture Works. Circa 1910. Gouverneur, NY.

Workers Henry Jones (owner, right front), Davis (2nd from right), Lewis Jones (left). They are standing near blacksmithing tools and equipment. Circa 1907. Richville, NY. Donated by Mr. Judd.

Men work together using pikes to break up a log jam on the Grasse River. Circa 1910s. Pyrites, NY.

Sugaring at the Wallace Farm’s sugar bush near Langdon Corners. Pictured is Herbert Judd behind the horses pulling a skidder with a wooden box—possibly used to hold sap. Circa April in the 1910s. Canton, NY. Photo taken by Matthew Wallace. Check out this North Country at Work story on a modern, downtown take on this […]

Jeff Hunt’s crew cleaning up after the 1998 Ice Storm, which blacked out a region from northern New York across southeastern Ontario and Quebec (as far north as Montreal), and across northern New England. Power outages lasted as long as 3 weeks in some areas. Judd’s Farm on Farnes Road in Canton, NY. June of 1998.

Loggers with peaveys atop logs piled at head of skid way, which is where logs brought out of the woods were aggregated. Note the two logs placed underneath the log pile, used to keep harvested logs from freezing to the ground during the wait for transport loading. Circa  1900-1915. Canton, NY.

(From left to right) Art Mayne, Lawrence Putney, and Frank Harper inside a feed store. Sacks of grain are loaded on hand cart to move. The chutes for filling bags and scales for weighing them are shown. Store was later owned by the Aldrich family. Circa 1920. Lisbon, NY.