William Miner: Builder of Adirondack dams, farm innovator

Former philanthropist left his mark in Clinton County

By Tom French

Many tycoons have ties to the Adirondacks: from the Vanderbilts, Guggenheims, and Rockefellers to most recently Harlan Crow, current owner of Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Camp Topridge (whose name was recently linked to news regarding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas).  But one Captain of Industry that deserves more attention is William H. Miner, arguably a native son whose impact continues to influence communities of the Adirondacks.

An inventor of draft gears, devices still used today to absorb impacts between railcars, and with dozens of patents beginning in the 1890s, Miner became one of the richest men in America by the time of his death in 1930.  His life near the Adirondacks began at age 11 in 1873.  After being orphaned, he was raised by his aunt and uncle on a farm in Chazy.

Thousands of Adirondackers rely on CVPH (Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital) for their medical needs and can thank Miner for that too – he financed the original 212-room Physicians Hospital.  

Today, as a result of his endowment, the farm is now the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute with connections to SUNY Plattsburgh, the University of Vermont and other academic institutions.  It provides educational opportunities for North Country students and is on the forefront of agricultural and environmental research relevant to the agricultural industry.

My introduction to the Miner Institute, its work, and history came as part of an Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) tour in the fall of 2022.  In addition to visiting Miner’s Million Dollar Dam and McGregor Powerhouse in Altona, we were treated to a tour of the Heart’s Delight Farm Heritage Exhibit – a significant museum featuring several buildings with an additional opportunity for a self-guided tour of the farm, cow barns, Morgan horse barn, and a dairy milking parlor with the latest technology.  I was treated to the birth of a calf and its first steps – something that occurs almost daily according to staff.  

Growing up and doing chores on the farm under the care of his aunt and uncle, Miner recognized the importance of agriculture to society.  When he returned to Chazy in 1903 after making his fortune, he developed the old homestead into an “ideal farm…(with) every innovation and convenience known to scientific farming.”

He must have also felt some degree of sentimentality as he didn’t remove a single building from his youth.  Indeed, he enlarged the farmhouse by building around it until it had 47 rooms.  Other existing buildings were renovated.  He acquired 15000 adjoining acres and built new structures until the farm consisted of over 300 buildings including a 20-room guest house with an auditorium that could seat 300 people and featured an orchestrion, a machine designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Thousands of acres were used as a wild animal preserve with bison, Japanese deer, elk, partridges, and bears.  Ten springs provided water to several towers that served all the principal buildings and three fish hatcheries that raised hundreds of thousands of brook trout and black bass.

New technology was utilized with milking and butter-making machines, an ice and refrigeration plant, and box factory.  Products such as ham, bacon, sausage, milk, butter, eggs, and maple syrup were transported across the Northeast from Boston to New York and Montreal.

The farm developed a reputation for prize animals such as purebred Percheron horses, Guernsey and Shorthorn Durham cattle, Dorset sheep, and various swine, poultry, and squab.  Many of the bloodlines bred by Miner can still be found today, and the Miner institute continues to maintain a renowned herd of roughly 25 Morgan horses.  Karen Lassell, Equine Barn Manager, was involved in the 2022 PBS Nature episode, American Horses.  The institute has a herd of roughly 500 cows that produce over 2 million gallons of milk per year for Agri-Mark and their McCadam cheeses.  

The backbone of the Miner Institute’s educational programming is in dairy and equine farm management and agricultural research, but they also offer curriculum in water quality research and forestry.  The institute recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its collaborative Applied Environmental Science Program with SUNY Plattsburgh.  Roughly 50 undergraduate and graduate students participate every year along with summer programs, paid internships, and post-doctoral researchers. 

Along with professional staff, cutting-edge research is conducted in several fields with a significant amount of study in dairy cow nutrition.  Diets are specialized and monitored to improve the health of animals.  Exact amounts of feed consumed are measured, and the effects of various differences in diets on milk production are tracked. 

The institute studies the environmental impacts of farming in areas such as water quality and methane mitigation.  Currently, one research scientist is focusing on runoff with an eye toward keeping nutrients on the farm fields instead of leaching into local waterways.  Another study measures the methane that cows expel with the goal of altering diets to reduce that impact in a beneficial way for the animals, farmers, and environment. 

Students in the forestry program have been researching how the ecosystem of the Flat Rock pine barrens has adapted after a 500-acre fire in 2018.

To provide a glimpse into various career opportunities, programs are provided to high schools as well.  The Champlain Valley Educational Service’s forestry program uses the institute’s woodlands to familiarize students with equipment.  Three local high schools utilize a wilderness classroom near the Million Dollar Dam for a chemistry program that culminates in a five-hour lab at Flat Rock where students work collaboratively with professors from the Center for Earth and Environmental Science at SUNY Plattsburgh.  Other students learn to track wildlife by finding animal collars hidden in the woods while learning tree and plant identifications. 

Miner’s legacy along the eastern Adirondacks goes beyond the institute.  His foundation still contributes significantly to CVPH, he built one of the first centralized schools in the country (Chazy Central Rural School), and founded two local museums – the Kent-Delord House in Plattsburgh and Alice T Miner Museum in Chazy.

Photo at top: The William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute is located at the site of Miner’s Heart’s Delight Farm and utilizes several of his buildings along with new structures. The original tree-lined drive is in the bottom left quadrant of this aerial photo. His “Heart’s Delight Cottage,” the main, 47-room residence, was located in the grassy area to the left of the drive. His dairy barn, now the Morgan horse barn, in near the center. The modern dairy facility, which is open to the public year-round, is in the center back. Photo by Tom French