Major William A. Welch served in a number of roles at the PIPC between 1912 and 1940. He began as a junior engineer in the Palisades Interstate Park, NJ, assisting with drawing and plans primarily for the construction of park facilities and the Henry Hudson Drive. Around 1915, he took over responsibilities as Chief Park Engineer and General Manager, serving in this role until his retirement from the PIPC in 1940.

During his time at the PIPC, Major Welch was responsible for the design and construction of nearly all the parks’ major infrastructure, including all the park dams, Seven Lakes Drive, group camp buildings, the Bear Mountain Administration Building, park electrical and water systems, the Storm King Highway, the Popolopen Viaduct, the Bear Mountain Bridge, and more. He was the founder of the Palisades Trail Conference, which became the NY-NJ Trail Conference and helped design and build the first section of the Appalachian Trail and the Long Path. He served as mentor to the early National Park Service and drew the boundaries of Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountain National Parks while advising park managers and developers in nearly every state in the US.

Major Welch is one of the most significant figures in US environmental and outdoor recreational history, yet very few people know his name.

The Town of Middleburgh is located in Schoharie County and is one of the original towns within the county. The town was established at the end of the eighteenth century, after it survived many raids by the British during the Revolutionary War. Middleburgh grew in the area of industry and takes pride in the businesses within the town.

The St. Lawrence-Lewis School Library System collection consists of high school yearbooks from area high schools. Memories is the annual yearbook of the Madrid-Waddington Central School.

Emily (1906-1998) and J. Hayward (1905-1987) Madden of Livonia, NY amassed perhaps the largest private collection of canal manuscripts, photographs and other artifacts. Both had professional careers in social work that brought them to Livingston County, near the route of the 19th-century Genesee Valley Canal. By the late 1950s they had become well-recognized scholars of New York State canal lore. Emily Madden was among the first directors of the Canal Society of New York State. They were also instrumental in the founding of the Canadian Canal Society.

Their physical collection amounts to approximately 600 cubic feet. It includes hundreds of books and serials related to 19th- and 20th-century canal life. The Maddens' special interest in the Genesee Valley Canal is especially noted in their holdings. They collected historic photographic prints and negatives on New York State canals. For more than thirty years they traveled the still-operating Barge Canal system and the historic now-abandoned canal alignments in New York State, documenting structures and other landmarks. Their notebooks, 35mm color transparencies and other photographs have proven to be among the most valued portions of their collection. They often did this work in conjunction with other Canal Society members. When the work of those colleagues was in jeopardy, the Maddens acquired that material. The Madden collection incorporates such noteworthy elements as the photographic collections of Canal Society members Dr. David Ennis of Lyons, NY and Robert Rose of Fulton, NY.

Mabel Addis was a former society president, trustee, historian and author of several local history books. Mabel helped spearhead and conduct history interviews with long-time residents, recognizing the value of oral histories as tangible artifacts.

Lydia Sayer was born on Dec. 20, 1827 near Bellvale, a hamlet of the Town of Warwick, New York. As a child she was fearless, self-reliant, physically active, and skilled in horsemanship and the domestic arts. Keenly interested in books and learning, she was devastated when as a young woman she was refused admittance to nearby Seward Institute for her habitual mode of dress--an adaptation of Turkish pantaloons with shortened skirt. In her own words, “As I left…I fairly bathed my soul in an agony of tears and silent prayers….I registered a vow that I would stand or fall in the battle for women’s physical, political and educational freedom and equality.”

Lydia finished her education elsewhere, studying hydropathy at the Hygeia-Therapeutic College in New York. After practicing medicine in Washington and becoming a newspaper correspondent, she established the women’s dress reform newspaper, The Sibyl in early July 1856. The main focus of the paper was the new reform dress, also called "the bloomer", which usually consisted of a knee-length dress and a pair of trousers. An image of a woman wearing a reform dress is printed at the top of the front page of every issue of paper. A few weeks later on July 27th she married her publisher John W. Hasbrouck, editor of the Middletown Whig Press (NY).

Throughout her life, Lydia pursued her social and political goals, writing and lecturing, in addition to being a successful wife and mother. Even through the Civil War years she was unflagging in her energy and determination to achieve women’s dress reform and suffrage. It was her view that women could not hope for equality or to be able to compete in a man’s world while hampered with constricting, heavy, and impractical garments. To this cause she devoted her entire life, passing away in August 1910, just ten years before women’s right to vote was at last realized.

Lumber camps were a popular Adirondack industry in the early 1900s. The images from this collection are from the travels of Presbyterian missionaries working in the camps. The lumber camp missionary program was started in 1914 and visited about 150 camps in the Adirondacks. It was created by Reverend Frank E. Higgins, and other missionaries including Aaron W. Maddox, Charles Atwood, C.W. Mason, John Logan, and Frank A. Reed.

Lucy Maynard Salmon was born in 1853 in Fulton, New York. She entered University of Michigan in 1872, one year after it began to admit women. She taught high school in Iowa and then returned to Michigan and received a Master’s degree in History. She continued her studies at Bryn Mawr, and in 1887 was hired by Vassar College to establish the history department. Adelaide Underhill of Skaneateles, New York, was a senior when Lucy Salmon joined the faculty and quickly became a star pupil and ardent admirer. After she graduated in 1888, she attended the Library School at Columbia University and received her Master’s degree, and returned to Vassar as a librarian in 1892.