The hamlet -- consisting of sixteen dwelling-houses, furnaces, and other edifices, and a building with a cupola, used for a school and public worship -- was the offspring of enterprise and capital, which many years before had combined to develop the mineral wealth of that region. That wealth was still there, and almost untouched-- for enterprise and capital, compelled to contend with geographical and topographical impediments, have abandoned their unprofitable application of labour, and left the rich iron ores, apparently exhaustless in quantity, to be quan-ied and transformed in the not far-off future.

The ores of that vicinity had never been revealed to the eye of civilised man until the year 1826, when David Henderson, a young Scotchman, of Jersey City, opposite I^ew York, while standing near the iron-works of his father-in-law, Archibald M'lntyre, at North Elba, in Essex County, was approached by a St. Francis Indian, known in all that region as a brave and skilful hunter -- honest, intelligent, and, like all his race, taciturn. The Indian took from beneath his blanket a piece of iron ore, and handed it to Henderson, saying, "You want to see 'um ore? Me fine plenty -- all same." When asked where it came from, he pointed toward the south-west, and said, "Me himt beaver all 'lone, and fine 'um where water run over iron-dam." An exploring party was immediately formed, and followed the Indian into the deep forest. They slept that night at the base of the towering cliff of the Indian Pass. The next day they reached the head of a beautiful lake, which they named " Henderson," and followed its outlet to the site of Adirondack village. There, in a deep-shaded valley, they beheld with wonder the "iron dam," or dyke of iron ore, stretched across a stream, which was afterward found to be one of the main branches of the Upper Hudson.