Alma Farm Adirondack Meeting Place 1999 First Ed

🏛️ Alma Farm: An Adirondack Meeting Place — The Summer Retreat That Shaped American Reform

A richly illustrated first edition documenting the influential Adirondack community at Bolton Landing, New York.

THE FARM

In the 1870s, New York lawyer Theodore Meyer created a 1,000-acre estate in North Bolton on the shores of Lake George. Known as Alma Farm, it became a summer gathering place for a remarkable circle of German-American intellectuals, physicians, and reformers — a community that quietly influenced American medicine, science, and civic life for nearly half a century. A historical marker placed at the site in 1997 by the Historical Society of Bolton reads: “In memory of the Alma Farm and those who loved it.”

THE PEOPLE

Each chapter profiles a key figure connected to the farm: Carl Schurz, the Civil War general and U.S. Senator whose last words — “Es ist einfach zu sterben” (It is easy to die) — are recorded here alongside his guest book entries from 1890; Abraham and Mary Putnam Jacobi, pioneering physicians in New York whose medical careers at Mount Sinai and the New York Medical College are detailed with archival precision; and Franz Boas, the father of modern anthropology, whose family summered at the farm alongside the Meyers and Jacobi families.

THE BOOK

Written by Norman Francis Boas, M.D. (a grandson of Franz Boas) and Barbara Linton Meyer, this first edition draws on family collections, the Alma Farm guest book, and the archives of the Historical Society of the Town of Bolton. The 166-page volume includes chapter-length biographies, two appendices (Family Lines and the Alma Farm Guest Book), and reproductions of handwritten signatures and guest entries from the 1880s–1900s.

COVER ART & ILLUSTRATIONS

The deep navy blue paperback features a central black-and-white photograph of Alma Farm’s valley — buildings nestled among rolling hills, with a white picket fence in the foreground. Surrounding the image are facsimile signatures of the farm’s notable guests. The back cover displays nine portrait photographs of key figures: the Meyer, Krackowizer, Jacobi, Schurz, and Boas families. Inside, the book reproduces rare images including a Mathew B. Brady carte de visite of Abraham Jacobi, a Falk studio portrait of Carl Schurz, photographs of doctors Jacobi and Meyer together ca. 1915, and period images of the McAneny family at Bolton Landing.

WHY IT MATTERS

• ISBN 0-9672626-0-7 / Library of Congress Catalog No. 99-094343 — cataloged and indexed in Open Library (OL61123M)
• One of the few published accounts of the Alma Farm community, a significant but largely overlooked chapter in Adirondack and American social history
• Features facsimile reproductions of the Alma Farm guest book entries from the 1880s–1890s, primary source documents of a vanished world

FOR COLLECTORS

This copy is sourced from the Bolton Landing Library — likely a donation from the local historical society — and is in as-new condition with crisp, acid-free pages. A clean, complete first edition of a book that doesn’t turn up often: the intersection of Adirondack regional history, Gilded Age intellectual life, and the genealogy of some of New York’s most prominent families.

Book Details
Authors: Norman Francis Boas, M.D. and Barbara Linton Meyer
Publisher: Boas & Meyer, Mystic, CT (1999)
Format: Trade Paperback, 166 pages, 23 cm
Edition: First Edition (stated “FIRST EDITION” on copyright page), printed on acid-free paper

Condition Report
Overall Grade: As New (appears unread, no handling flaws to be seen)
Cover & Spine: High-gloss deep blue covers are vibrant and clean. Spine is completely straight, tight, and uncreased.
Dust Jacket: N/A
Text Block & Pages: Crisp, clean white pages showing no visible toning or foxing. Stated printed on acid-free paper.
Binding: Square and very tight; appears unread.

See accompanying images for full condition details. Will ship promptly, carefully packaged.

HFB-SEO-v1: 2026-07-02

2 in stock