Verplanck Publishing

Verplanck Colvin, 1847–1920

Colvin was a lawyer from Albany who spent nearly thirty years surveying the Adirondacks so that the rest of us could find our way around them.

He began the Adirondack Survey in 1872, working with chains, levels and a small crew across country that had never been mapped to any standard. That first season he traced the Hudson to its highest source, a small pond high on the shoulder of Mount Marcy that he named Lake Tear of the Clouds. He set bolts and benchmarks on the summits, and some of them are still there.

His annual reports to the Legislature helped to make the case for protecting the mountains, and the case was won. The Forest Preserve was created in 1885, the Adirondack Park in 1892, and in 1894 the state constitution declared the Preserve "forever wild." The Survey lost its funding in 1900. Colvin died in Troy in 1920.

His reports are in the public domain. We borrowed his name because the mountains he measured are the ones we keep going back to.

A short timeline

YearEvent
1847Born in Albany, New York.
1872Begins the Adirondack Survey and identifies Lake Tear of the Clouds as the Hudson's highest source.
1885New York creates the Forest Preserve.
1892The Adirondack Park is established and its boundary is drawn in blue.
1894The "forever wild" clause enters the state constitution.
1900The Survey's funding ends.
1920Dies in Troy, New York.

Read the Survey reports at the Internet Archive

Studio portrait of Verplanck Colvin, a bearded man in a dark coat, from the late nineteenth century.
Verplanck Colvin, about 1875, with his signature beneath. From an album of portraits in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
A man stands at the snowy edge of Lake Tear of the Clouds in 1888, looking out over the small pond toward the spruce on the far shore.
Lake Tear of the Clouds from the head of the lake, photographed by S. R. Stoddard in 1888. Library of Congress.