1.
Adirondack Mountains
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The Adirondack Mountains /ædᵻˈrɒndæk/ form a massif in the northeast of Upstate New York in the United States. Its boundaries correspond to the boundaries of Adirondack Park, the mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles in diameter and about 1 mile high. The current relief owes much to glaciation, the earliest written use of the name, spelled Rontaks, was in 1724 by the French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau. He defined it as tree eaters, in the Mohawk language, Adirondack means porcupine, an animal that may eat bark. The Mohawks had no written language at the time so Europeans have used various phonetic spellings, an English map from 1761 labels it simply Deer Hunting Country and the mountains were named Adirondacks in 1837 by Ebenezer Emmons. People first arrived in the following the settlement of the Americas around 10,000 BC. The Algonquian peoples and the Mohawk nation used the Adirondacks for hunting and travel, european colonisation of the area began with Samuel de Champlain visiting what is now Ticonderoga in 1609, and Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues visited the region in 1642. In 1664 the land came under the control of the English when New Netherland was ceded to The Crown, after the American Revolutionary War, the lands passed to the people of New York State. Needing money to war debts, the new government sold nearly all the original public acreage about 7 million acres for pennies an acre. Lumbermen were welcomed to the interior, with few restraints, resulting in massive deforestation, for the history of the area since industrialization, see The History of Adirondack Park. In 1989, part of the Adirondack region was designated by UNESCO as the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, the rocks of the mountains originated about two billion years ago as 50,000 feet deep sediments at the bottom of a sea near the equator. Because of continental drift these collided with Laurentia in a mountain building episode known as the Grenville orogeny, during this time the sedimentary rock was changed into metamorphic rock. It is these Proterozoic minerals and lithologies that make up the core of the massif, such minerals of interest include, wollastonite, mined near Harrisville magnetite and hematite, formerly mined at the Benson Mines, Lyon Mountain, Mineville, Tawahus, and Witherbee. Graphite, mined near Hague and Ticonderoga, garnet, mined at the Barton Mine, north of Gore Mountain. Anorthosite, visible in road cuts on the New York State Route 3 between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, marble zinc, The Balmat-Edwards district on the northwest flank of the massif also in St. Lawrence County was a major zinc ore deposit titanium was mined at Tawahus. Around 600 million years ago the area began to be pulled apart, as Laurentia drifted away from Baltica, faults developed, running north to north east which formed valleys and deep lakes. Examples visible today include the grabens Lake George and Schroon Lake, by this time the Grenville mountains had been eroded away and the area was covered by a shallow sea. Several thousand feet of sediment accumulated on the sea bed, trilobites were the principal life-form of the sea bed, and fossil tracks can be seen in the Potsdam sandstone floor of the Paul Smiths Visitor Interpretive Center
2.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Saranac River
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Saranac River is an 81-mile-long river in the U. S. state of New York. In its upper reaches is a region of flat water. The river has more than three dozen source lakes and ponds north of Upper Saranac Lake, the highest is Mountain Pond on Long Pond Mountain. In the last third of its length it drops two-thirds of its total drop, and is known for having navigable rapids, the Saranac River empties into Lake Champlain at the City of Plattsburgh in Clinton County, New York. The river flows in a direction from the Adirondack Mountains. Thirty-three miles further northeast, the flows through the Town of Saranac, before winding through Plattsburgh. The river is part of the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail. Jamieson, Paul and Morris, Donald, Adirondack Canoe Waters, North Flow, Lake George, NY, Adirondack Mountain Club,1987
5.
Saranac Lake, New York
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Saranac Lake is a village in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,406, the village is named after Upper, Middle and Lower Saranac lakes, which are nearby. The village of Saranac Lake covers parts of three towns and two counties, the county line is within two blocks of the center of the village. At the 2010 census,3,897 village residents lived in Harrietstown,1,367 lived in North Elba, and 142 lived in St. Armand. The village boundaries do not touch the shores of any of the three Saranac Lakes, Lower Saranac Lake, the nearest, is a mile west of the village. The northern reaches of Lake Flower, which is a part of the Saranac River downstream from the three Saranac Lakes, lie within the village. The town of Saranac is a separate entity,33 miles down the Saranac River to the northeast. The village lies within the boundaries of the Adirondack Park,9 miles west of Lake Placid and these two villages, along with nearby Tupper Lake, comprise what is known as the Tri-Lakes region. Saranac Lake was named the best small town in New York State, in 1998, the National Civic League named Saranac Lake an All-America City, and in 2006 the village was named one of the Dozen Distinctive Destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. 186 buildings in the village are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the area was first settled in 1819 by the Jacob Smith Moody family from Keene, New Hampshire. In 1827, settlers Pliny Miller and Alric Bushnell established a facility with a dam and sawmill. Martins would soon become a place for hunters, woodsmen. In 1876, Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau arrived from New York City to treat his own tuberculosis and he found the fresh air and alpine climate improved his health. In 1884, he founded his Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, starting with a cottage, called Little Red. Little Red, the first cure cottage, was built on a patch of land on the backside of Mount Pisgah. As more and more visited the region, including author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887. Soon, the sanitarium had grown so that it was entitled to its own post office, the Trudeau Institute, an independent medical research center, evolved from Trudeaus work for the sanitarium. In 1964, the Trudeau Institute began researching the functions of the system and how it guards against many infectious diseases
6.
Upper Saranac Lake
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Upper Saranac Lake is one of three connected lakes, part of the Saranac River, in the towns of Santa Clara and Harrietstown, near the village of Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks in northern New York. Upper Saranac Lake is the sixth largest lake in the Adirondacks, with Middle Saranac Lake and Lower Saranac Lake, a 17-mile paddle with only one carry is possible. There are 20 primitive campsites accessible by boat available on a first-come basis, the 37 miles of shoreline is 54 percent privately owned, and much of it is lined with camps, ranging from true Great Camps to small weekend cottages. The lake, along with both Middle and Lower Saranac Lakes, is part of the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail. Bartletts, built soon after at the site of Bartlett Carry was similar, bartletts Carry enabled sportsmen to get from the Upper to the Middle Saranac Lake, while the Indian Carry crossed from Upper Saranac Lake to Stony Creek Ponds and onto the Raquette River. In 1889, the Wawbeek Lodge was opened on the southwest shore,1.5 miles north of the end of the lake, at the historic Sweeney Carry. Guests could choose between luxurious hotel rooms, cottages or carpeted platform tents along the shore, despite its scenic location and lavish appointments, it closed in 1914, a victim of high operating costs and a trend toward shorter hotel stays and increasing private camp and cottage ownership. In 1922, a smaller hotel was built on the site which operated until just after the 1980 Winter Olympics. The northern end of the lake was the site of the Saranac Inn, built in 1864, continued in operation until 1962, it burned in 1978. At its peak, it accommodated up to a thousand guests, and was frequented by US Presidents Grover Cleveland and Chester A. Arthur, and New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes. Camp Eagle Island was a Great Camp built in 1899 as a retreat for New York Governor and United States Vice-President Levi Morton. The mainland camp, now known as Pine Brook, was originally a part of the Morton camp, Camp Eagle Island has been a Girl Scout camp since 1938. Moss Ledge and Prospect Point Camp are two other Great Camps on the lake designed by William L. Coulter, in the 1940s, the latter was sold, and had a brief career as a lodge, Sekon in the Pines. It was sold again in 1951, and used as a camp for young Jewish girls. In 1969, it was purchased by Young Life, a Christian non-denominational ministry based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the cottages that grew up around Saranac Inn still exist, as do some of the Great Camps built in the area. World War I, the Great Depression and the Income Tax combined to put an end to the Great Camp era, however, many were abandoned and lost for unpaid taxes, burned or left to crumble. Tolles, Bryant F. Jr. Resort Hotels of the Adirondacks, Lebanon NH, enjoying the Fresh Air in the Adirondack Mountains, August 12,1906 U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System, Upper Saranac Lake
7.
Portage
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Portage or portaging is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A place where this occurs is also called a portage. Early French explorers in New France and French Louisiana encountered many rapids, the Native Americans carried their canoes over land to avoid river obstacles. Over time, important portages were sometimes provided with canals with locks, primitive portaging generally involves carrying the vessel and its contents across the portage in multiple trips. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over ones shoulders, historically, voyageurs often employed tump lines on their heads to carry loads on their backs. Portages can be many kilometers in length, such as the 19-kilometre Methye Portage, some portages involve very little elevation change, such as the very short Mavis Grind in Shetland, which crosses an isthmus. This section deals mostly with the freight canoes used by the Canadian Voyageurs. Portage trails usually began as animal tracks and were improved by tramping or blazing, in a few places iron-plated wooden rails were laid to take a handcart. Heavily used routes sometimes evolved into roads when sledges, rollers or oxen were used, sometimes railways or canals were built. If the second course were chosen, the boat would be controlled by the avant standing in front with a long paddle, the avant had a better view and was in charge but the gouvernail had more control over the boat. The other canoemen provided power under the instructions of the avant, going upstream was more difficult, as there were many places where the current was too swift to paddle. Where the river bottom was shallow and firm, voyageurs would stand in the canoe and push it upstream with 3-metre poles. If the shoreline was reasonably clear the canoe could be tracked or lined, that is, in worse conditions, the demi-chargé technique was used. Half the cargo was unloaded, the canoe forced upstream, unloaded, in still worse currents, the entire cargo was unloaded and carried overland while the canoe was forced upstream. In the worst case a full portage was necessary, the canoe was carried overland by two or four men The cargo was divided into standard 41-kilogram packs or pièces with each man responsible for about six. One pack would be carried by a tumpline and one on the back, to allow regular rests the voyageur would drop his pack at a pose about every 1 kilometre and go back for the next load. The time for a portage was estimated at one hour per half mile, the Diolkos was a paved trackway in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf. It was constructed to high ranking Despots to conduct business in the justice system
8.
Rail transport
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Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
9.
Car
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A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of the automotive industry. The year 1886 is regarded as the year of the modern car. In that year, German inventor Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, cars did not become widely available until the early 20th century. One of the first cars that was accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the United States of America, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, cars are equipped with controls used for driving, parking, passenger comfort and safety, and controlling a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, examples include rear reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by a combustion engine. Both fuels cause air pollution and are blamed for contributing to climate change. Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles are also gaining popularity in some countries, electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, began to become commercially available in 2008. There are costs and benefits to car use, the costs of car usage include the cost of, acquiring the vehicle, interest payments, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance. The costs to society of car use include, maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, health care, road traffic accidents are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide. The benefits may include transportation, mobility, independence. The ability for humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies and it was estimated in 2010 that the number of cars had risen to over 1 billion vehicles, up from the 500 million of 1986. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India, the word car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum, or the Middle English word carre. In turn, these originated from the Gaulish word karros, the Gaulish language was a branch of the Brythoic language which also used the word Karr, the Brythonig language evolved into Welsh where Car llusg and car rhyfel still survive. It originally referred to any wheeled vehicle, such as a cart, carriage. Motor car is attested from 1895, and is the formal name for cars in British English. Autocar is a variant that is attested from 1895
10.
Lake Champlain
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Lake Champlain /ʃæmˈpleɪn/ is a natural freshwater lake in North America mainly within the borders of the United States but partially situated across the Canada–U. S. Border, in the Canadian province of Quebec, the New York portion of the Champlain Valley includes the eastern portions of Clinton County and Essex County. Most of this area is part of the Adirondack Park, there are recreational opportunities in the park and along the relatively undeveloped coastline of Lake Champlain. The cities of Plattsburgh, New York and Burlington, Vermont are on the western and eastern shores, respectively. The Quebec portion is in the county municipalities of Le Haut-Richelieu. There are a number of islands in the lake, the largest include Grand Isle, Isle La Motte, and North Hero, all part of Grand Isle County, Vermont. The Champlain Valley is the northernmost unit of a system known as the Great Appalachian Valley. The Champlain Valley is a section of the larger Saint Lawrence Valley. Lake Champlain is one of large lakes scattered in an arc through Labrador, in Canada, the northern United States. Although it is smaller than each of the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain is a body of fresh water. Approximately 1,269 km2 in area, the lake is roughly 201 km long and 23 km across at its widest point, the lake varies seasonally from about 95 to 100 ft above mean sea level. Lake Champlain drains nearly half of Vermont, and approximately 250,000 people get their water from the lake. The lake is fed in Vermont by the LaPlatte, Lamoille, Missisquoi, Poultney, and Winooski rivers, along with Lewis Creek, Little Otter Creek, and Otter Creek. In New York, it is fed by the Ausable, Boquet, Great Chazy, La Chute, Little Ausable, Little Chazy, Salmon, in Quebec, it is fed by the Pike River. It is connected to the Hudson River by the Champlain Canal, parts of the lake freeze each winter, and in some winters the entire lake surface freezes, referred to as closing. In July and August, the temperature reaches an average of 70 °F. The Chazy Reef is an extensive Ordovician carbonate rock formation extends from Tennessee to Quebec. It occurs in prominent outcropping at Goodsell Ridge, Isle La Motte, the oldest reefs are around The Head of the south end of the island, slightly younger reefs are found at the Fisk Quarry, and the youngest are in fields to the north
11.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, following this work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be Americas intellectual Declaration of Independence. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print and his first two collections of essays, Essays, First Series and Essays, Second Series, represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet, together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emersons most fertile period. Emersons nature was more philosophical than naturalistic, Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature, Emerson is one of several figures who took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world. He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has influenced the thinkers, writers. When asked to sum up his work, he said his doctrine was the infinitude of the private man. Emerson is also known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau. Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25,1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson and he was named after his mothers brother Ralph and his fathers great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo. Ralph Waldo was the second of five sons who survived adulthood, the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley. Three other children—Phebe, John Clarke, and Mary Caroline—died in childhood, Emerson was entirely of English ancestry, and his family had been in New England since the early colonial period. Emersons father died from cancer on May 12,1811. Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of the women in the family. She lived with the family off and on and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863, Emersons formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine. In October 1817, at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. Midway through his year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read. He took outside jobs to cover his expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel in Waltham. By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Emerson served as Class Poet, as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvards Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29,1821, when he was 18
12.
James Russell Lowell
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James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets and these writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside. Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker and he published his first collection of poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. The couple had children, though only one survived past childhood. After moving back to Cambridge, Lowell was one of the founders of a journal called The Pioneer and he gained notoriety in 1848 with the publication of A Fable for Critics, a book-length poem satirizing contemporary critics and poets. The same year, he published The Biglow Papers, which increased his fame and he went on to publish several other poetry collections and essay collections throughout his literary career. Maria died in 1853, and Lowell accepted a professorship of languages at Harvard in 1854 and he traveled to Europe before officially assuming his teaching duties in 1856, and married Frances Dunlap shortly thereafter in 1857. That year, Lowell also became editor of The Atlantic Monthly and it was not until 20 years later that he received his first political appointment, the ambassadorship to the Kingdom of Spain. He was later appointed ambassador to the Court of St. Jamess and he spent his last years in Cambridge in the same estate where he was born, and died there in 1891. Lowell believed that the poet played an important role as a prophet and he used poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism. However, his commitment to the anti-slavery cause wavered over the years and he attempted to emulate the true Yankee accent in the dialogue of his characters, particularly in The Biglow Papers. This depiction of the dialect, as well as his satires, was an inspiration to writers such as Mark Twain. James Russell Lowell was born February 22,1819 and he was a member of the eighth generation of the Lowell family, the descendants of Percival Lowle who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1639. His parents were the Reverend Charles Russell Lowell, Sr. a minister at a Unitarian church in Boston who had studied theology at Edinburgh. By the time that James Russell Lowell was born, the owned a large estate in Cambridge called Elmwood. He was the youngest of six children, his siblings were Charles, Rebecca, Mary, William, Lowells mother built in him an appreciation for literature at an early age, especially in poetry, ballads, and tales from her native Orkney. In his sophomore year, he was absent from required chapel attendance 14 times, in his senior year, he became one of the editors of Harvardiana literary magazine, to which he contributed prose and poetry that he admitted was of low quality. As he said later, I was as great an ass as ever brayed & thought it singing, during his undergraduate years, Lowell was a member of Hasty Pudding and served both as Secretary and Poet
