Horicon's Mill Pond story has mills, tanneries, and a library

Horicon’s history starts with water and work. Moses Stickney bought much of the land in the late 1700s, built early dams on the creek from Brant Lake, and helped start saw and grist mills.

In 1813, Stickney and his son Frank were remembered as early local loggers to float logs down the Schroon River toward Glens Falls mills.

Then the Mill Pond becomes the town’s stage. Judson Barton and his sons built houses and businesses around it. By the mid-1800s, the area had general stores, a cabinet shop, a hotel, a hat shop, a saw mill, a grist mill, a blacksmith shop, and churches. Nearby hamlets had schools, and tanneries in South Horicon and Adirondack pulled hemlock bark and workers into the story.

Later the town turns toward summer life on Brant Lake: hotels, fishing, hunting, camps, and visitors who loved the area enough to put down roots.

The little stone library adds the sweetest civic piece. Local residents and summer people raised money through socials, fairs, food sales, and ice cream events, and the building still sits in the town memory.

A good Horicon walk has all of that in the background: water power, wood smoke, tannery work, lake visitors, and community memory sitting close together.