From family retreat to public trail: A mountain’s transformation into a civil rights memorial
The little peak near Tupper Lake has gained an unfortunate measure of fame lately due to its closure since early June in deference to a young bull moose that took up stubborn residence in proximity to the mountain’s hiking trail.
The moose has since been euthanized due to its deteriorating health, and the trail remains closed with the Department of Environmental Conservation unsure when this 2,174-foot mountain—part of the Tupper Triad hiking challenge—might reopen .
But Goodman Mountain has to be considered among the most significant in the annals of Adirondack nomenclature, connecting a tragic moment in American history with happier circumstances in the mountain wilderness.
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The story goes back nearly a century when a New York City contractor named Charles Goodman—whose firm worked on projects including the New York subway, George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel—assembled a work crew of stone masons in 1933 and built a granite cottage on 644 acres south of Tupper Lake.
From the shoreline, the mountain previously known as Litchfield, now known as Goodman,dominated the view and became a family bushwhacking favorite, as Goodman’s grandsons David, Andrew and Jonathan tacked lids from soup cans onto trees to mark the route.
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”We saw deer, bear, everything,” David Goodman told The New York Times in 2002. ”But we never, ever saw a human being other than a Goodman.”
The Goodmans painted their name on the bare rock of the summit where, for all they could tell, they were on top of the world. The paint has faded over the years, but not the name.
In 1964 the nation was stunned when Andrew—who had left the comforts of New York wealth to venture south to help register Black voters—was one of three young men murdered by the Ku Klux Klan—aided by the Neshoba County Sheriff ’s Department—on a deserted country road in Mississippi and buried in the red clay of an earthen dam.
Goodman was not yet 21, but his activism had taken him to Washington, D.C., at age 14 to participate in the 1958 Youth March for Integrated Schools, as well as West Virginia to advocate better working conditions for coal miners and to Western Europe to study the detrimental effects of agribusiness on small farmers.
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The slow pace of integration was a constant frustration to him, and in part he blamed white Northerners for being so “shockingly apathetic.”
His death, along with fellow activists James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, added much-needed urgency to the fight, and the publicity surrounding the disappearance of the young freedom fighter is credited with helping to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, even before the bodies of the three men had been found. The story was later dramatized in the 1988 film, “Mississippi Burning.”
Preserving a legacy
Back in Tupper Lake, the late village historian Bill Frenette did not want the memory to fade like the name painted onto the summit rock so many years ago. In 2002, he successfully petitioned the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to have the name officially appear as Goodman Mountain.
Next, advocates, including Frenette and David Goodman, approached the Department of Environmental Conservation about the possibility of a formal trail to the summit. “I immediately thought it was a great idea, and a wonderful way to celebrate a life that had been cut very tragically short,” said then-DEC Commissioner Joe Martens.
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The ceremonial opening of the trail in 2014 coincided with the 50th anniversary of Andrew Goodman’s death. “It was a great and beautiful day,” Martens recalled, “and probably 40 or 50 people showed up for the event, and most of them hiked up the mountain with me. So it was one of those nice things that I did when I was commissioner that I’m very proud of.”
Today, hikers are greeted with a trailhead kiosk outlining Andrew’s story, as well as some interesting details from even farther back in time when the area was a popular watering hole in the 1800s for horse-drawn wagons and stagecoaches.
A short, separate little trail leads to the Lumberjack’s Spring, whose springhouse was restored by the Goodmans—one of many community improvements they bestowed upon the community.
Oddly, the first half of the 1.5-mile trail to the top is pavement covered with a patina of duff—this was the historic highway from Long Lake to Tupper Lake before the improved highway was built closer to the lake.
The second half of the hike is steeper and rockier, the reward being expansive open views of the lakes and mountains to the south.
In its trail description, Protect the Adirondacks also advocates using the time to take a broader view of the fight for social justice as well: “Goodman’s remembrance on the mountain urges hikers to reflect on the history of racism in the outdoors, the historical links between police forces and racism, and the countless Black activists and peoples whose memories do not have the privilege of living on publicly.”
That’s what those who petitioned for the name had hoped. As Frenette told the Times, “I would like to think people will look at it and say, ‘That’s Goodman Mountain,’ and have it ring a bell that it’s the mountain loved by the wealthy kid who gave up his life to help people in Mississippi.”
Photo at top: David Goodman at the Goodman Mountain trailhead. Photo by Phil Brown
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