Welcome to the HISTORY OF THE RA(C)QUETTE RIVER RA(C)QUETTE RIVER CORRIDOR PROJECT CLICK ON ANY COMMUNITY FOR MORE INFORMATION

No matter how you spell it, the Raquette River has been a unifying force for human communities in this region for thousands of years. The river has been our road, our well, our power supply, our recreation, our ice tray, our scenery, our income, our sewer.

Anthropology, science of human culture, helps us to understand how, over the years, we have altered the river to serve us, but at the same time adjusted our lives to the river.

Taking the long view is instructive. For ten thousand years humans who came upon the Racquette perceived it as a great resource and a boon to the good life. The pioneers and native Americans depended upon the Racket for food, water, transportation and energy. Today we still depend upon the Racket, though it is a much changed river.

Rivers have their history. Tradition grows up around the industries which have naturally been developed on rivers everywhere.

St. Lawrence County owes much to her rivers and to her forests and the whole history of her industries other than agriculture are based on these natural resources. No story of the Racquette River would be complete without noting the fact that it takes its rise just this side of the actual ridge of the Adirondacks, within a few miles of the source of the Hudson River which flows South while the Racquette finds it's way North to the St. Lawrence.

The wilderness always calls men of a certain type, adventurous men looking for new frontiers and of course seeking wealth from natural resources. 

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"The chief river of Adirondack, however--its greatest highway and artery-is the Racket [sic], which rises in Racket Lake in the western part of Hamilton County, and, after a devious course of about one hundred and twenty miles, flows into the St. Lawrence. It is the most beautiful river of the wilderness. Its shores are generally low and extend back some distance in fertile meadow upon which grow the soft maple, the aspen, alder, linden, and other deciduous trees, inter-spersed with the hemlock and pine. These fringe its borders and standing in clumps upon the meadows in the midst of rank grass give them the appearance of beautiful deer-parks; and it is there, indeed that the deer chiefly pasture."  From Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, The Adirondack Region, by William Cullen Bryant (1872-74).

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