General Joseph Warren (1741-1775). The county gets its name from this Revolutionary War patriot and hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was a Provincial Grand Master of Masons in Boston. With no prior military education or experience, Warren was elected Major-General before the famous Battle of Bunker Hill. He fought bravely but was killed with a shot to the back of his head. It is said he would have become President of the United States had he not perished in the war. Warren County was given his name when the state was assigning county names by luck of the draw.

Father Isaac Jogues (1607-1646) was a Jesuit priest from Orleans, France who is said to be the first white man to ever set eyes on Lake George, which he named “Lac du Saint Sacrement,” (Lake of the Blessed Sacrament), in honor of the Feast of Corpus Christi. He passed over Lake George on his way to spread Christianity among the Iroquois. He was captured and tortured by the Indians for over a year, during which time they mutilated his hand to keep him from ever giving a Catholic mass again. With the aid of Dutch settlers, Father Jogues escaped from the Indians and traveled back to France, only to return to North America to carry on his missionary work in Montreal, Canada. Pope Pius XI gave him a pardon so he could give mass with a mutilated hand. Ironically, he was murdered by his former Indian captors when the French insisted he find them in order to extend a peace offering. Father Jogues was declared a saint and martyr in 1930 by Pope Pius XI.

Charles R. Wood (1914-2004). Known as the “Father of Theme Parks,” Charles Wood founded Storytown, USA in 1954 in Lake George. An opportunist and brilliant businessman, Wood continued building on the park throughout his life, later renaming it The Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom. Wood built Gaslight Village, the Tiki Resort, the Blacksmith Shop, Cavalcade of Cars, and a wax museum, all in the Lake George area. He served as the President of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions in 1977 and was inducted into its Hall of Fame. Wood became one of the area’s greatest philanthropists, contributing to The Hyde Collection, the Charles R. Wood Theater, and an unprecedented $1.4 million to the cancer center at the Glens Falls Hospital. His greatest act of charity was the opening of the Double H-Hole in the Woods Ranch in Lake Luzerne, a camp for terminally ill children that he co-founded with Paul Newman. Charles Wood survived five heart attacks throughout his lifetime, but he lost his battle with cancer on September 30, 2004 at the age of 90.

Major-General Sir William Johnson (1715-1774). Upon Johnson’s arrival to the area, he renamed Lac du Saint Sacrement “Lake George” for his sovereign, King George II. Along with the colonial army, Johnson built Fort William Henry in 1755 as a key part of the defense of the colony of New York against the threatening French empire to the north. He received his knighthood as a consequence of this victory. In August of 1757, the Battle of Fort William Henry was fought. This French and Indian War massacre inspired the 1826 novel by James Fenimore Cooper, and later the 1936 and 1992 films The Last of the Mohicans. The English fought bravely for seven days, but were overwhelmed and outnumbered by Louis-Joseph Marquis de Montcalm’s 8,000 French, Indian, and Canadian troops.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). Upon hearing that President William McKinley had been shot in September of 1901, Vice President Teddy Roosevelt rushed from his vacation in the Adirondacks to McKinley’s side in Buffalo, New York. When he arrived, however, Roosevelt was told to return to the Adirondacks in order to assure the people of America that the President would soon return to perfect health. Two weeks later, Roosevelt was told that the President had taken a turn for the worse and that he was needed. After an all-night series of wagon rides, Roosevelt arrived at the Upper Hudson River Railroad in North Creek, where he was handed a telegram informing him that President McKinley had died only three hours earlier. Later that day, Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States.

Charlotte Pruyn Hyde (1867-1963) was born and raised in Glens Falls. After attending private schools in both Glens Falls and Albany, she went to Boston for finishing school. In addition to meeting her husband, Louis Hyde, she gained her deep appreciation for art both while in Boston and on trips to Europe with her family. She and Louis moved back to Charlotte’s hometown of Glens Falls, where she and her husband began to acquire works by such famous artists as Rembrandt, Degas, and Van Gogh. In 1938, Charlotte enlisted the services of a curator, and thus the Hyde Collection was born. In 1952, eighteen years after the death of her husband, Charlotte established a public trust bequeathing her Italian Renaissance-style home and its extensive collection of fine and decorative arts to the community of Glens Falls. In 1963, the Hyde Collection opened and remains to this day one of the most distinguished art museums in New York.

Seneca Ray Stoddard (1844-1917) was truly a Renaissance man. Among his many passions were photography, poetry, cartography, traveling, lecturing, and travel guide writing. Born in Saratoga County in 1844, he was attracted to the Lake George area in his early twenties by its “genuine wilderness.” He devoted himself to showing the world the beauty of the Lake George area through thousands of photographs that document the Adirondack wilderness as well as the development of the region. He also published a series of maps and travel guides for the area annually from 1873 to 1915 that were invaluable to attracting visitors to the region. A large collection of his work can be seen at the Chapman Museum in Glens Falls.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Ten years before Thomas Jefferson was president, he and future president James Madison embarked on a “botanical tour” of the northern states, which Alexander Hamilton and his allies interpreted as a journey motivated by recruiting political allies in the growing conflict between Republicans and Federalists. Jefferson wrote of Lake George in a letter to his daughter, Martha, “Lake George is without comparison the most beautiful water I ever saw, formed by a contour of mountains into a basin…finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid with crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves…down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.” -May 31, 1791.

Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1986) and Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946). This world-famous artistic couple, O’Keefe a painter and Stieglitz a noted photographer, dealer, and promoter of modern art met in New York City when Stieglitz showcased O’Keefe’s paintings at his gallery, 291, and they began dating soon after. Soon after the start of their relationship, Stieglitz brought O’Keefe to his family’s home in Lake George to spend the summer. This tradition continued every summer for several years, and many of O’Keefe’s famous paintings were scenes of the Lake George area.

Madame Marcella Sembrich (1858-1935) first sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera in its initial season in 1883. Retired from the Opera in 1909, Mme. Sembrich sang concert tours for eight years before becoming a vocal teacher at the Curtis Institute and Julliard. She summered at her beautiful home in Bolton Landing from 1922-1934, where she continued to give lessons to music students. Mme. Sembrich’s summer home is now known as the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum, where one can view her 100-year-old costumes and art from her various homes. The property is sprawled over 1,100 feet of shoreline and the museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.