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“The Fenwick Lumber Company. Edgewood: Almost Forgotten 1906-1917” by Elaine Warfield
August 20, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Elaine Warfield will present a slideshow on the Fenwick Lumber Company at the Mountain Top Historical Society’s 1913 Ulster and Delaware Train Station, 5132 Route 23A, Haines Falls, NY on Sunday, August 20 at 1 p.m. Copies of her new book on the Fenwick operation will be available for sale.
Elaine has lived on the mountain top for over 40 years and enjoys creating projects pertaining to the rich mountain top history, past and present, in book and photographic formats. Her new book, “The Fenwick Lumber Company. Edgewood: Almost Forgotten 1906-1917″ will be available at the event, before its official September release date. 224 pages, 160+ images, 8.5″ x 11”. $16.99.
The book can be purchased from Elaine at 518-965-8601, www.ElaineWarfieldBooks and will be available on Amazon.
Please pre-register for the event with the Mountain Top Historical Society by calling (518)-589-6657 or RSVP below.
Early in the 1900s, there was a change occurring in the town of Hunter. Actually, a revolutionary change, high up on the Southwest (back side) of Hunter Mountain. No one alive today seems to know exactly why, but two enterprising brothers from Steuben County, New York found their way to the Catskills and began purchasing land and timber rights up on that lofty mountain.
Deeds show that the Slawson brothers, Alfred and John, in 1903 bought approximately 2,000 acres from Hiram and Anna Whitney, land in the town of Lexington, at about three dollars an acre.
There were other acquisitions, including rights-of-way, timber rights and a mill site on the “old Harrison Benjamin lot” in the town of Hunter near Edgewood. It might have been a wonderful money opportunity to log that side of the mountain for the brothers, but unfortunately, their idea for bringing the logs down the steep grade (approximately 28% in some places), via a log chute, did not work out well. The logs gained such momentum that upon reaching the bottom of the chute, everything was torn apart.
In 1906, the Slawsons sold their operation to the Tennant-Richards Lumber Company, who in turn sold it to the Fenwick Lumber Company. It was said the Slawson brothers went bankrupt, but there are several newspaper articles that may indicate otherwise. And so began an operation that disappeared just over 10 years later almost as mysteriously as it may have begun.