Adirondack French Louie: Early Life in the North Woods

Harvey Dunham’s Adirondack French Louie has become an Adirondack classic. Louie Seymour was the prototype of all the Adirondack woodsmen.

Dunham was born on October 6, 1887, in Saquoit, N.Y. and had an older brother, Raymond, and a younger sister, Florence. He married Bessie Throp in 1912. Shortly after the birth of their daughter Jean, in 1914, Bessie passed away. Harvey never remarried. His sister and parents helped him raise his daughter. In June of 1914, Harvey enlisted in the Merchant Marines. After World War I, he worked as a commercial artist, first in New York City, then in Washington, D.C. He finally settled in Utica, N.Y., a short drive from the Adirondack Mountains. The first writing about outdoor adventure found in Harvey’s hand was in a journal dated August 1919. It contains the record of a camping trip to the wilderness north of the Beaver River Flow--known today as Stillwater Reservoir. Harvey traveled in the company of his brother Raymond, Jess Seitz, and a fellow lover of the woods ten years his senior, Bob Gillespie. The well-illustrated and well-written journal details the men’s jaunts, hunts, and trout fishing excursions. It is also peppered with campfire humor, a trademark that Harvey would refine.