Friday, July 24, 2009

Timbucto


Gary, a noted fossil alpinist put away his rope, rack, and rock shoes to climb up on the scaffold and work on the apartment/garage. Last evening I attended a roundtable discussion in Elizabethtown - in the old court house - where John Brown's body spent the night 150 years ago. The discussion was about the work of 19th century philanthropist and abolitionist Gerrit Smith who gave away 120,000 Adirondack acres to black freemen and fugitive slaves. They settled into a small community called Timbucto. As it turns out from our conversation with the archaeology professor at SUNY, our property (and a section of the NCS campus) were part of those 1850 land grants!