Shelter Rock

Location:   Manhasset, New York
Year:   10,000 B.C.E.

Shelter Rock is a huge boulder deposited on the north shore of Long Island by glacial action during the last Ice Age. The Rock lies about ten feet from the eponymously-named Shelter Rock Road just within the bounds of the old Whitney family estate. It takes its name from the fact that the local Indians used it as a weather break in inclement conditions. The Rock weighs about 1,800 tons and has an overhang some thirty feet high. 

Infamous New Yorkers: Fernando Wood

Location: New York City and Washington D.C.
Year: 1812-1881

Fernando Wood (1812-1881) was the ultimate Tammany Hall machine politician.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he grew up in New York City, where he became a cotton merchant.

Wood first went to Congress as a Tammany Democrat from 1841 to 1843, where he had an unremarkable two-year term. However, he paid his political dues in full and soon commanded the stage.
 

Elected Mayor of New York City in 1855, Fernando Wood proved himself so corrupt that the New York State Assembly voted to shorten his term by two years. Not that it helped --- he recruited the notorious street gang the Dead Rabbits to stuff ballot boxes with names they'd lifted from tombstones and got himself reelected handily.

In 1857, Wood bought the New York City police force. Literally bought it. Decent folk in New York City were so outraged that they took their grievances to Albany again. New York’s Finest was legislatively dissolved as a result, and was immediately reconstituted under new laws. Presaging his Secessionist future, Wood refused to acknowledge the New York State Assembly’s authority over New York City. 

Holed up in City Hall with “his” police force (the now illegal “Municipals”) Wood fought a pitched battle with the “Metropolitans” (the legally-constituted NYPD). 52 police were injured in street fighting, several severely. Wood refused to surrender until State Militia arrived with artillery, ready to blast City Hall to smithereens. 

Regardless of his more-than-checkered past, Wood was returned to the Mayor's office again in 1860. In the early days of the Civil War, Mayor Wood declared his sympathies for the South. He led a faction of politicians, businessmen, slave traders and thugs who wanted to declare New York a “Free City” and take it out of the Union.

When even his Tammany bosses chose not to implement this scheme, they mollified Wood by sending him back to Congress (1863-1865), where he became the leader of the pro-Confederate, anti-war, anti-black, anti-Lincoln Copperheads, “an aptly-named dense obstructive object” in the words of Thaddeus Stevens, his nemesis, who was leader of the Radical Republicans. 

Wood was an articulate speaker who enjoyed shock value in a time when it truly did shock. Wood's vitriolic attacks on Republicans, and particularly upon President Lincoln, whom he referred to as "King Abraham Africanus The First," upon Abolitionists, and upon blacks, whom he referred to in the vilest terms imaginable, became legendary in a House of Representatives already famous for its vituperativeness. He stunned many of his 19th Century colleagues by introducing obscenities into the Congressional Record in an era when "damned" was spelled "d----d" if it was spelled at all. Wood was not deterred, even by censure. 

  

 

In his last and longest Congressional stint (1867-1881) he was Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and undoubtedly contributed much to the Public Debt of the United States. 

A thoroughly unrepentant scoundrel, Wood died while on vacation in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1881.

The Shawangunk Mountains

Location:   Near Ellenville, New York
Year:   430,000,000 B.C.E.

The Shawangunk Mountains are a little-known but frequently visited area of New York State. The name means "Smoky" in the Munsee language.

The Shawangunks are an ancient long ridge of exposed bedrock, a subrange or ridge of the Appalachians that transects Sullivan and Ulster Counties. They are geologically separate from the Catskills, though geographic proximity conflates the two ranges in most visitors' minds. 

The Sam's Point Preserve ice caves are concentrated near Sam's Point at the northern end of the range. The ice caves are deep fissures in the bedrock that retain ice through the summer. This results in a cool microenvironment that supports several far northern species of trees such as black spruce, hemlock, rowan, and creeping snowberry.  A popular and much-abused tourist attraction in the heyday of the Borscht Belt, The Nature Conservancy now controls the ice caves and limits tourist access to the area. 

Lakes and wetlands occur mostly on the flat-topped ridges at the northern and southern ends of the Shawangunks. The northern Shawangunks have five lakes, the "sky lakes," which are, from north to south: Mohonk Lake, Lake Minnewaska, Lake Awosting, Mud Pond, and Lake Maratanza.

The area is known for its fascinating geological formations and is a world-class destination for rock climbers.

Covenants That Run With The Land

Location:   Salamanca, New York
Year:   1913

The city of Salamanca, once called "Hemlock" but renamed in honor of José de Salamanca y Mayol, 1st Marquis of Salamanca and Grandee of Spain (1811-1883) who had invested heavily in the region of western New York State,  lies completely within the Allegheny Indian Reservation and is owned by the Seneca Nation. 

The city is therefore exempt from all Federal, State and County taxes. 

In order to maintain a municipal tax base, the Seneca Nation established a system of long-term leases. As covenants that run with the land these leases are transferrable from resident to resident. City taxes are assessed on the leases and are paid by the residents.

Members of the Iroquois Nations, about a third of Salamanca's residents, are exempt from the lease taxes, while non-Iroquois must pay them. The city no longer allows taxed properties to go into foreclosure, as this causes the leases to void. The property then reverts to the Seneca Nation, and is removed from the tax rolls. 

In the 1990s, many of the long-term leases expired. As they had been leases with very small payments and no cost-of-living or valuation increases, the Seneca Nation attempted to rectify this problem by increasing the payments very significantly. This caused an outcry among the tax-paying citizenry, several foreclosures, and the relocation of several local businesses away from Salamanca. After much negotiation, a system of stepped increases was adopted.  The current leases run until 2070.

Montauk Point Lighthouse

Location:   Montauk Point
Year:    1792

The lighthouse at Montauk Point is famous as the first lighthouse in New York State.   Construction on the lighthouse was authorized by the Second United States Congress, under President George Washington on April 12, 1792, and was  the first public works project of the United States. Construction began on June 7, 1796. The lighthouse was completed on November 5, 1796. It is the fourth-oldest active lighthouse in the nation. 

Civilian keepers operated the light from 1796 until 1943. The U.S. Army assumed control of the light in 1943, and passed it to the Coast Guard in 1946. The light was automated in 1987. The Montauk Historical Society  assumed control of the light in 1996, returning it to civilian control.

The lighthouse made the sea approaches to New York City far safer. By 1797 New York harbor was handling a third of the nation’s trade with other countries. It was, and remains, America's busiest port overall.

The tower is 110'6" high. The current light emits 290,000 candlepower, flashes every 5 seconds, and can be seen at a distance of 17 nautical miles.

Sea Scorpions

Location:  New York State
Year:   1984

The ancient Sea Scorpion (Eurypterus Remipes) is the official State Fossil of New York. 

They are related to today's Horseshoe Crabs.

Eurypterids lived during the Silurian Period, some 400 million years ago. Their remains are rare worldwide, but very common in New York, which was covered by a shallow brackish sea at the time. 

Reading Law

Location:   Albany
Year:   1665-present

Although New York is generally a "progressive" State, it maintains some antiquated traditions, especially where its legal system is concerned. 

A person can become an Attorney in New York State if:

(1)   They attend an ABA-accredited law school for three years and pass the Bar Exam; or

(2)   They remain "in residence" at a law school for at least 75 weeks as a full-time student or 135 weeks as a part-time student, and then pass the Bar Exam;  or

(3)   They attend the first year of law school and then "read law" at a New York law firm for three years---this is. work under the supervision of New York State-licensed Attorneys, and then pass the Bar Exam.

The first method is the most common, modern way; the other two methods hearken back to British colonial days, and are rarely used anymore. New York State's Bar Exam is considered one of the toughest in the nation.