WCHS Local History Book Club

August meeting of WCHS Local History Book Club 

Washington County Historical Society’s local history book club will meet at noon on Friday, August 12, at the society’s Wing-Northup House, 167 Broadway, Fort Edward.  The club usually meets on the second Friday of the month.  Historical Society membership is not required. 

The August meeting of the book club will be discussion of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, published in 1826.  Alternative reading is Steele’s Betrayal, Fort William Henry & The Massacre; or Fort William Henry, Digging Up History.  

Cooper’s historical romance is set in 1757 during the French and Indian War.  The siege of Fort William Henry is imminent.  Chingachgook and Uncas are “the last of the Mohicans,” Hawkeye is their close friend, Natty Bumppo is a frontiersman.  They are part of the contingent shepherding Alice and Cora Munroe to their father, Colonel Munroe, commander of Fort William Henry.  Commander Webb at Fort Edward refused to send reinforcements to the Colonel so the fort at Lake George is doomed to fall.  Our book club’s discussion is in Fort Edward.                                                                     

Future sessions of the club will include books about the larger Adirondack area as well as some works by local authors.  The proposed list includes works on Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River, Benedict Arnold’s building of the first Navy in Whitehall, and Robert Rogers’ writing of the rules for rangers in Fort Edward.  For additional information, email Connie Harris Farrington at connieandlee@roadrunner.com.