The Adirondack; or Life in the Woods, by J. T. Headley The Adirondack Joel Tyler Headley is remembered in the annals of Adirondack history, and by book collectors and aficionados, as one of the first writers, if not the first, to draw true, widespread attention to the region. The Adirondack; or Life n the Woods, written after a pair of trips north in the 1840’s, sold well and promoted interest in the Adirondacks as an unspoiled wilderness and a potential health and recreational retreat. Headley’s long career, though, was hardly defined by the book. He went on to work in the New York City newspaper business, he was elected to the assembly, and he served as New York’s Secretary of State for a brief term. His trips, enforced vacations taken soon after his ordination as a Presbyterian minister, were dictated by what was apparently over-work, a mental breakdown, or some similar situation. In his words, an “attack on the brain first drove me from the haunts of men to seek mental repose and physical strength in the woods.” Whatever the reason, the book is seminal. He paints the mountains and the journey in the light of similar European tours historically ...