This is great news for my hometown! The Agnew's have been in E-Town since the 1800's first running a stage coach and livery on Park St - where the nursing home now sits - which eventually became a taxi and coal trucking business that closed in the late 1950's when my granddad passed suddenly, just before I was born. I wish Mr. Woolfe all the success in the world with his projects. E-Town is a jewel.
Ken, Will - read your Substack with no editor. Valiant effort. Substack replaces the daily newspaper. Dan Alexander’s once Denton Publications now just Valley News is a newspaper without a true reporter that is now free and worth what it costs. Lives on classified ads, solicits donations. Dan and his family run it - land Rep. Elise Stefanik (R) is not covered - for her politics. As policy, Dan’ Valley News ignores all politics. Jori Wekin was a Wilkerson, a lapsed Mormon from Washington State. So, Church of the LDS Jori Wekin ran The Hub on the Hill in Essex. Four owned the property and wanted to sell. No buyers. Now. The Hub on the Hill has become something different in Westport. The region includes the Towns of Essex and Westport and Keeseville and Willsboro and Lake Placid and Elizabethtown - Keeseville is no more. Westport is no more. No government in these towns. The schools have consolidated. Random House Publisher Bennett Cerf once ran Westport. His name is forgotten. Jori devoted herself selflessly to small farmers and her marriage failed. No one is nicer. No one. I love her. The Hub she ran is now supported by state grants and run by a single mom, a tall, smart, divorced Black mother that graduated Columbia Law School and does not practice. Lawyers are scarce. The renewed location of The Hub is no longer serving dozens of small farms and feeding NYC from Essex by Hub truck delivery. All that remains is the promise of an effort. The one true CSA that works is Essex Farm. Spinoffs are everywhere. The Hub served all from Essex. With terrific fresh food produced on 504 acres, Mark and author Kristin Kimball run their Essex Farm CSA. Their food is amazing. The Hub once distributed it regionally and in Brooklyn. No more. We are not what was.
The North Country supplied the wood and the hard rock that built New York City. Mountains were clear cut, stripped. Mineville thrived as miners excavated the funnels. Mineville is no more. The tunnels have collapsed. Mineville is now lumpy and hilly. The mines closed.
Elizabethtown has a court, a supermarket, B&B, two or three gas stations, a drugstore, the oldest Ford dealership in America, a Chevy dealer, a small hospital owned by UVM in Burlington VT, a hardware, a failing barbershop, motels, a declining population.
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to be VP under President Trump. She returns no call from GOP stalwarts. She runs unopposed by a winner. Democrats cannot win without door to door. The 21st is huge. Tiny failing towns vote R. No Black comes to stay. Failing churches are empty. The roads are heavily salted. Plowed, paved and repaved and failing. All able children leave. Incest is common and ignored. Type II and obesity and Covid-19 and illegal drugs are beyond common. The four physicians that ruled are dead or dying out. Medicaid rules. Medicare is dominated by UVM in Burlington. Drugs, addiction and crime rule Burlington, VT. Farms fail unless dairy and supported. Organic doesn’t matter. They cheat.
And tall friendly Yale University professor of history Timothy Snyder speaks the languages of Eastern Europe and publishes the truth and sells. He’s on Substack gone fishing. Trolling works.
Thank you, Ken for describing the visions for E'town that Mr. Wolf and his determined community partners have for new and permanent residents. It contrasts greatly with our neck of the woods, where we have a lack of affordable housing for families and young single people and a lack of public transport connectivity for permanent disabled and elderly residents, especially between outlying villages and towns, and a lack of employees for our hospital and our service enterprises, BUT we have a well developed vision as a tourist draw.
I love our area because it has so much to offer within a relatively compact area, but we could do better in repairing, updating and promoting our quaint and sometimes abandoned homes, rather than razing and replacing them with sterile, unimaginative and pricey box construction housing, as Will Doolittle pointed out this past Sunday. Perhaps a better balance is due for our "Hometown" areas.
A fact is something that has occurred, a project is something that may occur. So, there are no facts to base an argument on to persuade others with. Just a belief in the project or leader.
If you eat a processed food diet, a huge portion of your calories come from corn in one way or another. If it’s not corn it’s soybeans. Beyond the obvious corn kernels, tortilla chips, and popcorn are all the products derived from corn, which are not really in and of themselves food, but are added to processed food-like substances. Think all the sweeteners, starches, thickeners, oils, etc. You may think you’re eating a varied diet, but if it comes out of a box or plastic bag, it all comes back to corn and soy. It is no wonder there are so many dietary related health problems in this country!
If you’re curious, here is a little info-graphic on just how many things are made with corn.
Some might surprise you, but what shouldn’t surprise you is just how entrenched the corporate interest in corn as a commodity is. It is bad for people and bad for the planet, but the only way to get it all out of our lives is to stop buying the stuff, and go back to whole foods.
That is an interesting concept for sure, as are other bioplastics. I think there is also a type made from mushrooms somehow. Plastic is simply too useful to the modern world, like in medical devices, to give it up entirely, so any way we can invent something less harmful and truly biodegradable will be a start. If I could have my wishes granted, I would ban all use of any plastic for cheap, low quality, throwaway stuff, but as I write this I am wearing a bracelet (precious only to me) made for me by my granddaughter of cheap, low quality, throwaway beads, so I know just how hard a sell that ban would be!!
It would also be interesting to know what scientists not associated with the Illinois Corn Growers Association think of corn based plastic. It may or may not be as rosy a picture when seen from another angle! Plus there is still all the fossil fuel used to produce the corn to consider, both to power machinery and for fertilizer. And all the biological harms done by herbicides and pesticides, and mono-cropping…
I think I could get behind it if it is truly biodegradable, and as long as concurrent with producing it, the world cuts way back on its addiction to unnecessary plastic.
An angle different from the one that people who make their living growing and processing corn see it from. All of what they said could be true, but what if the procedure for making corn plastic produces carcinogenic waste, or something else like that? That’s why I said it would be good to know what scientists who do not earn a paycheck from the corn growers association think about it.
It is Meadowmount, Bob. But you are correct. It is “world famous.” Students come from around the world, and its “grads” occupy chairs in many of the world’s finest symphonies. Its summer concerts, which are open to the community, are fabulous. Thanks, Bob, for reminding us of it.
Having come from another very small town in NY - I agree that if the goals these folks are working for - bringing in residents of single homes or apartments rather than the 1% with their second homes - do become reality - this is great. I just hope that as this moves along, the mayor & town governances do look far enough into the future to make sure that the laws, regulations, zoning also works to that purpose. Looking & reading about the smaller Western towns & cities that have been overcome by too much population, too many second homes, AND not forward thinking enough to have set those laws, regulations & zoning boundaries in place BEFORE they expanded & ballooned. They had and have no boundaries to prevent too much development, but no housing for ordinary residents who dont have millions or billions to spend! Which means sadly, the wildlife and the wild places that drew them there are being over run and destroyed!!
I apologize if this sounds pessimistic - I dont mean it to - but I do mean these are issues that MUST be addressed before the issues come up.
Gréât story! Hopeful,positive , and definitely the timing is perfect in light of so many negative stories that have been shared too often. I read this story and hear the pride, the hope , the determination to bring new life and energy to an area that should b integral part of the Adirondacks attraction to residents and out of towners! Well done! Carry on carry on ! Can’t wait to head up to Elizabethtown this summer and this fall. The foliage people remember the foliage!! 😁😍👍👏🏼👏🏼
Thanks for highlighting E’town again, Ken, and the vision for the town of Aaron Woolf and his colleagues. So much potential in that community!
As I mentioned previously, E’town has a special place in the hearts of the Shuler family. Sixty-six years ago, Meg and I spent our honeymoon in a cottage on the side of Cobble Hill, and our burial plots are in the local cemetery. Our three “kids” along with mom and dad have fond memories of summering in E’town, and hiking and climbing in the ADKs.
In the early 1900’s Meg’s grandfather George Levi Brown was editor of the Elizabethtown Post. His wife, Edith Durand Brown, was active in the women’s suffrage movement, along with Inez Milholland. George was one of the 100 men in the North Country who signed the petition in support of the movement. I could go on and on, but I’ll stop!!!!
P.S. wouldn’t Aaron Woolf have made a fine Congressman, one who was really vested in the North Country?
As I mentioned in the first column about Aaron, his loss (and ours) was Elizabethtown's gain. Probably has done more good with this course than what he ever could have done in Congress.
God Bless him & his people that believe like him and you can't wish him any more success than he has had a slight taste of, Thank God.
I come from Burlington Vt. and of course Vermont has many small towns that are having the same problems. I pray that at least some of these areas can survive because as much of a different kind of living, that it is, there is a LOT to be said for it in so many ways. God Bless & GREAT LUCK - you see I am different also - I used GREAT rather than the normal GOOD & I also believe in prayer - I am not a fanatic but I do believe in GOD & PEOPLE.
Lots of people who live in small rural towns have plenty of vision but what is very much lacking is capital. It takes people who decide to move into the town and invest in it, as this fellow Woolf has done. I have lived in the Town of Johnsburg for 53 years and watched business after business close and not revive. I have watched some come, invest, and then go belly up. It is hard for sure. No jobs, no transportation to job centers, and the people who do not leave after graduation "get by" but never have enough money to invest in something new or to spend money on anything but necessities.
What an exquisite idea!
It’s really refreshing to see people pursuing solutions instead of grievances! Working together to promote positive action is our only way forward.
Thanx for the article. Steve Knox, Willsboro Point.
This is great news for my hometown! The Agnew's have been in E-Town since the 1800's first running a stage coach and livery on Park St - where the nursing home now sits - which eventually became a taxi and coal trucking business that closed in the late 1950's when my granddad passed suddenly, just before I was born. I wish Mr. Woolfe all the success in the world with his projects. E-Town is a jewel.
Hi, Ray! and your grandmother, Marguerite Agnew Pratt, was “a diamond in the rough”!
Amen to that, Pastor Don!
Ken, Will - read your Substack with no editor. Valiant effort. Substack replaces the daily newspaper. Dan Alexander’s once Denton Publications now just Valley News is a newspaper without a true reporter that is now free and worth what it costs. Lives on classified ads, solicits donations. Dan and his family run it - land Rep. Elise Stefanik (R) is not covered - for her politics. As policy, Dan’ Valley News ignores all politics. Jori Wekin was a Wilkerson, a lapsed Mormon from Washington State. So, Church of the LDS Jori Wekin ran The Hub on the Hill in Essex. Four owned the property and wanted to sell. No buyers. Now. The Hub on the Hill has become something different in Westport. The region includes the Towns of Essex and Westport and Keeseville and Willsboro and Lake Placid and Elizabethtown - Keeseville is no more. Westport is no more. No government in these towns. The schools have consolidated. Random House Publisher Bennett Cerf once ran Westport. His name is forgotten. Jori devoted herself selflessly to small farmers and her marriage failed. No one is nicer. No one. I love her. The Hub she ran is now supported by state grants and run by a single mom, a tall, smart, divorced Black mother that graduated Columbia Law School and does not practice. Lawyers are scarce. The renewed location of The Hub is no longer serving dozens of small farms and feeding NYC from Essex by Hub truck delivery. All that remains is the promise of an effort. The one true CSA that works is Essex Farm. Spinoffs are everywhere. The Hub served all from Essex. With terrific fresh food produced on 504 acres, Mark and author Kristin Kimball run their Essex Farm CSA. Their food is amazing. The Hub once distributed it regionally and in Brooklyn. No more. We are not what was.
The North Country supplied the wood and the hard rock that built New York City. Mountains were clear cut, stripped. Mineville thrived as miners excavated the funnels. Mineville is no more. The tunnels have collapsed. Mineville is now lumpy and hilly. The mines closed.
Elizabethtown has a court, a supermarket, B&B, two or three gas stations, a drugstore, the oldest Ford dealership in America, a Chevy dealer, a small hospital owned by UVM in Burlington VT, a hardware, a failing barbershop, motels, a declining population.
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to be VP under President Trump. She returns no call from GOP stalwarts. She runs unopposed by a winner. Democrats cannot win without door to door. The 21st is huge. Tiny failing towns vote R. No Black comes to stay. Failing churches are empty. The roads are heavily salted. Plowed, paved and repaved and failing. All able children leave. Incest is common and ignored. Type II and obesity and Covid-19 and illegal drugs are beyond common. The four physicians that ruled are dead or dying out. Medicaid rules. Medicare is dominated by UVM in Burlington. Drugs, addiction and crime rule Burlington, VT. Farms fail unless dairy and supported. Organic doesn’t matter. They cheat.
And tall friendly Yale University professor of history Timothy Snyder speaks the languages of Eastern Europe and publishes the truth and sells. He’s on Substack gone fishing. Trolling works.
Thank you, Ken for describing the visions for E'town that Mr. Wolf and his determined community partners have for new and permanent residents. It contrasts greatly with our neck of the woods, where we have a lack of affordable housing for families and young single people and a lack of public transport connectivity for permanent disabled and elderly residents, especially between outlying villages and towns, and a lack of employees for our hospital and our service enterprises, BUT we have a well developed vision as a tourist draw.
I love our area because it has so much to offer within a relatively compact area, but we could do better in repairing, updating and promoting our quaint and sometimes abandoned homes, rather than razing and replacing them with sterile, unimaginative and pricey box construction housing, as Will Doolittle pointed out this past Sunday. Perhaps a better balance is due for our "Hometown" areas.
I grew up in Plattsburgh and E town was a favorite place. Love that area and hope this project will bring good people back to the North Country.
Bravo! Collaboration is a key ingredient - all too often missing - in making projects like this work.
Al, if collaboration is missing in a project, wouldn’t that be a failure of the leadership to successfully explain their vision to others?
Not necessarily. Facts don’t sway emotionally-based beliefs. And you can’t persuade someone whose mind is closed. I live this every day.
A fact is something that has occurred, a project is something that may occur. So, there are no facts to base an argument on to persuade others with. Just a belief in the project or leader.
Good luck to them!
If you eat a processed food diet, a huge portion of your calories come from corn in one way or another. If it’s not corn it’s soybeans. Beyond the obvious corn kernels, tortilla chips, and popcorn are all the products derived from corn, which are not really in and of themselves food, but are added to processed food-like substances. Think all the sweeteners, starches, thickeners, oils, etc. You may think you’re eating a varied diet, but if it comes out of a box or plastic bag, it all comes back to corn and soy. It is no wonder there are so many dietary related health problems in this country!
If you’re curious, here is a little info-graphic on just how many things are made with corn.
https://www.businessinsider.com/corn-product-infographic-2012-7?op=1
Some might surprise you, but what shouldn’t surprise you is just how entrenched the corporate interest in corn as a commodity is. It is bad for people and bad for the planet, but the only way to get it all out of our lives is to stop buying the stuff, and go back to whole foods.
Hi Tanya in one case it might be good for the plant, edit correction (planet) the production of Polylactic acid or corn plastic.
https://ilcorn.org/news-and-media/current-news/article/2022/01/what-in-the-husk-are-corn-plastics#:~:text=Corn%20plastic%20is%20a%20non-petroleum%20material%20made%20by,from%20sugarcane%2C%20tapioca%20root%2C%20cassava%20and%20sugar%20beet.
That is an interesting concept for sure, as are other bioplastics. I think there is also a type made from mushrooms somehow. Plastic is simply too useful to the modern world, like in medical devices, to give it up entirely, so any way we can invent something less harmful and truly biodegradable will be a start. If I could have my wishes granted, I would ban all use of any plastic for cheap, low quality, throwaway stuff, but as I write this I am wearing a bracelet (precious only to me) made for me by my granddaughter of cheap, low quality, throwaway beads, so I know just how hard a sell that ban would be!!
It would also be interesting to know what scientists not associated with the Illinois Corn Growers Association think of corn based plastic. It may or may not be as rosy a picture when seen from another angle! Plus there is still all the fossil fuel used to produce the corn to consider, both to power machinery and for fertilizer. And all the biological harms done by herbicides and pesticides, and mono-cropping…
I think I could get behind it if it is truly biodegradable, and as long as concurrent with producing it, the world cuts way back on its addiction to unnecessary plastic.
you write " It may or may not be as rosy a picture when seen from another angle! " What angle would that be?
An angle different from the one that people who make their living growing and processing corn see it from. All of what they said could be true, but what if the procedure for making corn plastic produces carcinogenic waste, or something else like that? That’s why I said it would be good to know what scientists who do not earn a paycheck from the corn growers association think about it.
You make no mention of Meadowmount - the world famous music Colony in Elizabethtown
It is Meadowmount, Bob. But you are correct. It is “world famous.” Students come from around the world, and its “grads” occupy chairs in many of the world’s finest symphonies. Its summer concerts, which are open to the community, are fabulous. Thanks, Bob, for reminding us of it.
Made the correction to my post above
Sorry, that one did not come up in conversation.
Having come from another very small town in NY - I agree that if the goals these folks are working for - bringing in residents of single homes or apartments rather than the 1% with their second homes - do become reality - this is great. I just hope that as this moves along, the mayor & town governances do look far enough into the future to make sure that the laws, regulations, zoning also works to that purpose. Looking & reading about the smaller Western towns & cities that have been overcome by too much population, too many second homes, AND not forward thinking enough to have set those laws, regulations & zoning boundaries in place BEFORE they expanded & ballooned. They had and have no boundaries to prevent too much development, but no housing for ordinary residents who dont have millions or billions to spend! Which means sadly, the wildlife and the wild places that drew them there are being over run and destroyed!!
I apologize if this sounds pessimistic - I dont mean it to - but I do mean these are issues that MUST be addressed before the issues come up.
Gloria
Gréât story! Hopeful,positive , and definitely the timing is perfect in light of so many negative stories that have been shared too often. I read this story and hear the pride, the hope , the determination to bring new life and energy to an area that should b integral part of the Adirondacks attraction to residents and out of towners! Well done! Carry on carry on ! Can’t wait to head up to Elizabethtown this summer and this fall. The foliage people remember the foliage!! 😁😍👍👏🏼👏🏼
Make sure to stop at the Deer Head Inn. The food is outstanding.
Thanks for highlighting E’town again, Ken, and the vision for the town of Aaron Woolf and his colleagues. So much potential in that community!
As I mentioned previously, E’town has a special place in the hearts of the Shuler family. Sixty-six years ago, Meg and I spent our honeymoon in a cottage on the side of Cobble Hill, and our burial plots are in the local cemetery. Our three “kids” along with mom and dad have fond memories of summering in E’town, and hiking and climbing in the ADKs.
In the early 1900’s Meg’s grandfather George Levi Brown was editor of the Elizabethtown Post. His wife, Edith Durand Brown, was active in the women’s suffrage movement, along with Inez Milholland. George was one of the 100 men in the North Country who signed the petition in support of the movement. I could go on and on, but I’ll stop!!!!
P.S. wouldn’t Aaron Woolf have made a fine Congressman, one who was really vested in the North Country?
As I mentioned in the first column about Aaron, his loss (and ours) was Elizabethtown's gain. Probably has done more good with this course than what he ever could have done in Congress.
God Bless him & his people that believe like him and you can't wish him any more success than he has had a slight taste of, Thank God.
I come from Burlington Vt. and of course Vermont has many small towns that are having the same problems. I pray that at least some of these areas can survive because as much of a different kind of living, that it is, there is a LOT to be said for it in so many ways. God Bless & GREAT LUCK - you see I am different also - I used GREAT rather than the normal GOOD & I also believe in prayer - I am not a fanatic but I do believe in GOD & PEOPLE.
Lots of people who live in small rural towns have plenty of vision but what is very much lacking is capital. It takes people who decide to move into the town and invest in it, as this fellow Woolf has done. I have lived in the Town of Johnsburg for 53 years and watched business after business close and not revive. I have watched some come, invest, and then go belly up. It is hard for sure. No jobs, no transportation to job centers, and the people who do not leave after graduation "get by" but never have enough money to invest in something new or to spend money on anything but necessities.