Millions of nineteenth-century immigrants came from relatively peaceful native countries simply because America could offer more opportunity. Emanuel Maroun’s family was well-known in Tupper Lake in the twentieth century for their store, Maroun’s Market. His grandfather, Astanteen Maroun, arrived in the Adirondacks in the 1890s via Utica, where a number of Syro-Lebanese immigrants had settled as part of the peddling network, bringing linens and dry goods from New York City to geographically remote places up north. Villages like Tupper Lake were experiencing booming economic and population growth in the 1890s thanks to the availability of lumber.
Emanuel Maroun’s father, Said or Siede “Charlie” Maroun, grew up in a peaceful and stable Lebanon while his father peddled in upstate New York, but following his father’s path offered greater opportunities than sustenance farming in the mountains of Lebanon. Charlie Maroun arrived in 1909 at age fifteen and joined his father, walking to and from lumber camps in the Adirondacks with suitcases of dry goods to sell. Emanuel remembers his father selling to Italians, Polish, Russians, Swedes, and French Canadians in those camps before establishing a store in Tupper Lake in 1937. Both Charlie and Emanuel Maroun returned to Lebanon to find wives in the traditional manner.
Camil Maroun's Store, courtesy of Adirondack Experience
Two members of the Maroun family standing in front of their store. Camil Maroun is Emanuel’s brother.
Emanuel Maroun, 1986, courtesy of Adirondack Experience
Emanuel Maroun, born in Tupper Lake, in his store in the 1980s.
Emanuel Maroun Oral History Interview, courtesy of Adirondack Experience
An interview with Emanuel Maroun in 1986, part of the Mathias Oppersdorff photography and oral history project Adirondack Faces, commissioned by the Adirondack Museum.
The Lebanese Community of Tupper Lake by Ellen N. Maroun, courtesy of North Carolina State University
An undergraduate research paper from the late 1970s about the Lebanese community of Tupper Lake as researched by a woman married to Emanuel Maroun’s cousin.