Brief Description of the Future Work: Sit back, Adirondack affectionis, the time machine has just cranked -- perhaps -- the last comprehensive human interest inspired work that will ever be written about one of the most interesting characters to rise out of Adirondack Mountain lore.

Noah John Rondeau, most famous hermit of the Adirondack Mountains, became a legend before he died in 1967. From early twentieth century's sporting public to Clayt Seagears, who put him in a New York state Conservationist magazine article, Rondeau was celebrated as the "mayor of Cold River city -- population one," and a woodsman.

But until he was the age of 30 Rondeau was just one more hemmed-in barber who cut hair and trimmed beards and every year saw his savings account at the Lake Placid bank remain at zero. He was an unimpressive figure, of short height; simple in lifestyle and dress; his voice could be quaint when telling a tale but turn sharp when expressing his abrupt vocal straight forward criticism toward authority. This turned his normally composed nature a bit ostentatious. His piercing eyes were a signal for the view of intention and detachment in them. For he had a fancy of a remote valley, a secluded separatist fur trapper's life in the woods, without the hassles and care, boredom of an ordinary job and the rules civilization required.

Cold River, flowed beyond the Sawtooth and Seward mountain ranges, more or less uninhabited wilderness save for the occasional logging camp. Few men had ever been there except loggers and trappers.

On a late summer morning in 1913, Rondeau set out determined to reach Coreys -- a remote hamlet at the end of the "Indian Carry," his jumping off place into the wilds.

There, he made the acquaintance of pioneering families who managed to eak a living on the edge of a vast forested territory. People bent toward scandalmonger, speculated Rondeau might have had something to hide or to hide from. The quixotic gambled that he was living a romantic life of freedom. The vast majority of mountain folk simply paid little or no attention to the long black bearded stranger who rarely appeared in public.

Hardened, self reliant, skilled in woodcraft, capable of surviving nature with the benefit of crude technology, Noah John Rondeau made a life for himself in the mountains where others less skillful might have failed.

Once, he killed a bear with five arrows. He cooked unbelievable concoctions he termed "Everlasting Stew" in a big iron kettle and roasted field mice. He guided parties and could let off a hearty laugh as he shook the hands of mountain climbers he led to the summit of Couchsachraga -- "Cou-a-cra-ga or the Dismal Wilderness"

Rondeau accepted the trials associated with a desolate way of life. There was plenty of game in the forest and fish in the river. Survival required hard work. Thirty-seven years of living in the woods free the need to earn wages, pay taxes, hearing men wearing "Roman collars," and listening to "Jackass Democrats" provided ample time for the reflective ex-barber to explore what he called his "dozen points of failure" to focus on what mattered most to him and to invent a code that stumped cytologists. The diverse landscape of the Cold River country afforded the backdrop for the hermit to develop an affable philosophical outlook that his friends found most pleasing.

This book is about Noah John Rondeau and how his friends knew him. It was the author's purpose to rely on primary sources of information to provide a view of Rondeau that has not been documented. It is also about the Adirondack Mountains. Its face. Its environment.

Many of the Adirondacks champions have been fanciers of Noah John Rondeau. Remembering Noah uses extensive quotes from Rondeau's journals, interviews with journalists and acquaintances. Additional insight is provided in antidotes that have come from Rondeau's circle of friends. Through their eyes, the 'Mayor' is seen pure, not in a pseudo-folksy image but as he was known by those who were there, the people who knew him best.

Through a succession of incidents, stories, recorded conversation of humor and adventure ( run-of-the-mill as one might think the doing of a hermit were), Rondeau's unique choice of blended words convey the peacefulness he had found living in the wilderness. Having escaped the borders of civilization where he felt failure at every turn, Noah John Rondeau regained his sense of direction, self esteem and learned how to live well with those things wild. The simple peace engendered was exactly what his admirers who lived in crowed cities could only long for until their long awaited once-a-year experience in the Cold River country.

Brief Description of the Future Work: This is a series of three books that cover the stages of logging in the Adirondacks.

Brief Description of the Future Work: Determined to establish a conservation work program for unemployed Americans during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt directed the secretaries