There are few authors who define turn of the century life along the Erie Canal like Walter D. Edmonds. Born along the Black River in the shadow of the Adirondacks in 1903, Edmonds would go on to write dozens of books for children and adults, showcasing the region at a time when few others were and going on to become one of the preeminent writers on Upstate New York.
Edmonds is most known for his novel “Drums Along the Mohawk,” a work of historical fiction telling the story of a family of Mohawk Valley pioneers trying to eke out a meager, precarious existence during the Revolutionary War. The book was an enormous hit, adapted into a film starring Harry Fonda in 1939 and staying atop the bestsellers for two years, before being toppled by Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Beyond sales, Edmond’s work was award-winning as well. He was awarded the Newberry Award for his book, The Matchlock Gun, in 1942, over Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. His book, In Bert Breen’s Barn, a frontier story of a youth dreaming of treasure and security for his rural family, won the National Book Award in 1976. The book was one of Edmond’s last; he released one more work of fiction and one book of non-fiction before his death in 1998.
While he was widely read in his time, contemporary readers are likely most familiar with Edmonds’ work on his native upstate New York. Much of his writing, both stories for a youth audience and his more mature works, are set in the area he called home and his writing bears the marks of a keen observer of nature and the people, particularly as it came to New York farm life and the Erie Canal.
Edmonds’ work is still available today, including one of his favorite novels. The Boyds of Black River is a 1953 work of boys fiction, detailing life on a farm along the Black River in vivid detail for a young audience. The book, originally published as short stories carries many rich details on rural 20th Century life that feel deeply lived in and personal. Edmonds looks back on their creation, how he blended acquaintances, family friends, and stories from his youth until the Boyds were wholly unique. “I don’t know why the Boyds were so instantly realized in my mind,” Edmonds writes in the foreword. “They belonged to the countryside and the old house.”
Mostly Canallers is a survey of Edmonds’ long career writing short stories, collecting his best and best loved works in one volume. Here, Edmonds tackles characters from many walks of life, such as fisherman and forest trappers, travelers and businessman, and showcases a real talent for dialect and dialogue. His bar scenes, filled with canallers, grifters, and ne’er-do-wells feel lived-in and cinematic, as memorable as renderings of rivers, forests, and the challenges of life in the early 20th Century.
Edmonds’ final book, Tales My Father Never Told, is his most personal, a work that places his others in a new, sometimes challenging context. Partially an autobiography, the book sees Edmonds looking back on his life, growing up along the Black River at the foot of the Adirondacks. Readers familiar with Edmonds’ fiction can see the Boyds and many other characters reflected in these memorable scenes. What’s most rewarding here though is Edmonds reckoning with his difficult, painful relationship with his father, and the work done to understand the love shared between father and son.