LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 16 Moose Mountain was first identified on maps in 1876 when it was la- beled Moose Pond Mountain. The pond was labeled, too. In 1898 state surveyor Verplanck Colvin described this 3,898-foot mountain, then si- multaneously known as Mount St. Armand, as a "lofty, dark, forest-cov- ered mountain mass." It was called Mount St. Armand because it stands in the Town of St. Armand. The town is named after Canada's communi- ty of St. Armand where Charles Toof, "one of the leading men… at the time of the formation of the town," had emigrated from. "Moose" is a popular New York place name. There are at least fifty such toponyms, and almost all are found in the Adirondack Mountains. Approximately 1,000 moose now reside within the Adirondack Park. While the hamlet of Paul Smiths is named for leg- endary hotelier, land developer, and philanthropist Apollos Smith, Lydia Pond is named for his wife, Lydia Martin Smith. She was born in 1834, died November 5, 1891, and is buried in Saint Johns in the Wilderness Episcopal Cemetery nine miles from her namesake body of water. It was recalled within an obituary that "her life has been a busy one and much of the success which has come to be regarded as inseparable from the name of Paul Smith is due to her ability and tireless industry. She was ever her husband's best counselor in his growing business in the Adirondacks and numbered among her friends thousands who yearly visited the great hotel over which she presided." Lydia Pond was featured on the first United States Geological Survey topographic map of this area published in 1905. Place Names of the ADK By Erik Schlimmer Lydia Pond Moose Mountain Photos by Eric Adsit

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