I first met John Courtney in what can only be described as tragic circumstances. Here is how it happened:
A young Air Force pilot, who had only recently graduated from St. Lawrence University, was on a training flight from the Rome Air Force Base. For reasons not fully explained he lost control of his fighter plane and was jettisoned from his cockpit. The plane crashed into John’s sawmill located in the remote Joe Indian Pond area, some 16 air miles north of this village.
A huge search effort was launched to find the young pilot. The flight pattern was pretty well defined, large amounts of radar chaff were discovered near the summit of Matumbla Mountain, and the search effort was centered in that location.
Many local people were involved and the military sent a search group of cold-weather specialists who bivouacked for many days in the cold and snow very near where the proposed prison is to be built. In spite of the efforts, which involved hundreds of man hours, and with all hopes of finding the pilot alive extinguished, the Air Force reluctantly called the search officially closed.
Some people, however, continued the search on their own. I seem to especially remember Bob O”Neil, Louis Henke (now Gnann), and my kid brother, Jim. Thus it was that I found myself skiing generally northwest along the summit ridge and flanks of Mr. Matumbla. Darkness came early that snowy day and I headed for the access road that leads to the Kildare Estate. As I skied along the road heading for the gate house, a pickup truck came rumbling along at high speed heading in the opposite direction. Perhaps surprised at someone skiing under a headlamp in this remote spot, the truck ground to a stop. It was driven by John Courtney, and he was accompanied by a full colonel who was a friend of the missing pilot.
John hurriedly explained that a member of the Sanford family (Kildare caretakers at that time), had been walking along an abandoned log road near the Jordan River, which courses through Kildare property, and had discovered the hapless pilot still strapped into his cockpit seat.
Space and other constraints preclude me detailing the somber evacuation that lasted well after midnight that fateful day, but I do feel compelled to mention the wonderful hospitality extended by the Sanfords. They not only opened their warm house through the late hours but Eloise set a wonderful table of food and even insisted on putting our soaked outer clothing into her dryer. Those caring considerations have always remained in my memory.
As the years went by since that epic night, John of course became a highly regarded community leader and my close neighbor. I often watched him begin his herculean work schedule each day, his pickup crunching the gravel as he turned off Byram Road in the half light of the early morning, and then the clang of his mailbox (everyone else had long ago picked up their mail on the wooden span that holds the neighborhood mailboxes) long after sundown — a very long day indeed.
The point of all this is that an important non-fiction best seller published this summer devotes almost two chapters to a portrayal of John and his son as part of the curve of human occupation in the Adirondack Park.
The title of the book is The Adirondacks: A History of America’s First Wilderness. Written by Paul Schneider and published by Henry Holt Co., it is billed as a history book but the author, who has written articles for publications like Audubon magazine and Esquire, makes it into a narrative which is interesting and entertaining to read.
Schneider writes at one point that “our Adirondacks are bigger than Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Yosemite combined,” but it isn’t the size of the Adirondacks that makes our history so hard to encompass. It’s the fact that unlike so many other parks, it has human occupation and that’s us folks, trying to make a living still stay in harmony with the environment.
It is a large conflict and the author doesn’t try to evade it. He has, in fact, interspersed this history with vignettes that use present activities and people to illustrate the struggle between the economy and the environment so salient here.
The vignette that takes us into John’s everyday world is powerful and I found it fascinating. John’s unfortunate death robbed us of his rapier wit and his sometimes controversial counsel. This history book gives us a lasting record that you will want to read.
Incidentally, the editor of this paper will print in next week’s edition the chapters that tell us about John and his son, John III. Chapter 20 is entitled Death and Taxes and chapter 17 is called ***** Buncher.
 

(***Please note that the entire name of chapter 17 is illegible in the newspaper article.)