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The Passing of the Old GuideFrequently we notice in magazines and books stories of the pioneers of the “Old West,” desparadoes, gunmen, gamblers, scouts and just plain settlers who have penetrated the far places to find a place they may call home. Some of these may be picturesque and are made more so by expert word artists whose tales fairly bristle with their hair raising adventure.We would venture to say, however, that few persons anywhere in the world have been more picturesque, more original in habits and more genuinely dependable than your old-time Adirondack guide. Warren Bryant, one of the last of the old school, died at Saranac Lake on Saturday at the age of eighty-three.There are guides in the Adirondacks now just as there used to be, of course, but in modern times their contacts with what we call “civilization” have been greater. Villages and even small cities have grown up in the places where the old guides used to travel over trackless forests, or at the outside an occasional hunter’s shack, or an occasional hotel that catered to hunters and real lovers of the woods.Some day someone will write a book carrying whatever can be gathered of the lives and exploits of this department, self-sustaining product of the mountains and forests —and that book ought to make interesting reading. The writer will have to hurry up, however, for some of the most noted of them are fast becoming little more than a tradition.Such men as Mitchell Sabattis, Alvah Dunning, “Old Mountain” Phelps and others whose names were a household word throughout the Adirondacks but a few years ago, are at the present time but memories. Some of these men - may have been eccentric in the extreme, from our point of view, but there was never anywhere a class of men who were closer to nature, who lived their own lives, who possessed character and honesty and who went down through the years carrying the respect and good will of all with whomithey came into contact. The land they roamed ai free as4the Indians who preceded them has been taken up with great private estates, villages and “lodges;” theirtwocation is gone and them with it and it is feared their like will never 6e known again. They formed an unique chapter in the kistory of Northern New York and the Adirondack region.
Newspaper Details
The Adirondack Record - Elizabethtown Post
Au Sable Forks, New York, US
Thu, Jan 25, 1934
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Barbara W.
AZ, USA 30 Sep 2022
Other Publications Near Au Sable Forks, New York
The Adirondack Record
The Adirondack Record - Elizabethtown Post
