The four men presented themselves as Issac Smith & Sons, cattlemen from New York. They sought a small farm to serve as a feeding lot for the cattle they intended to purchase and fatten--in fact they were searching for a "staging area" for their intended raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. John Unseld, a resident of the neighborhood, suggested the old Kennedy farm. Doctor Kennedy had died earlier that spring and the farmhouse was vacant and unfurnished.

Brown and his followers went to the farm and liking what they saw leased the place for $35 in gold for nine months to come.

Following the occupation of the house, "Issac Smith" sent home for Mrs. "Smith" to come down to give the appearance of a family at the Kennedy Farm. She was much too busy at home-blessed what he was about to do and sent daughter-in-law Martha, Oliver's 17 year old wife and her 16 year old daughter Annie Brown.

Annie and Martha served as the cook and housekeepers for the Provisional Army of the United States as they arrived, one or two at a time throughout the summer months. By the end of summer there were twenty-one members of the army hidden in the attic loft and the girls were sent home.

As the October raid became eminent the army now thoroughly trained and armed by Anderson was prepared to attack the Harpers Ferry arsenal. Brown and his followers spent some 3 1/2 months at Kennedy Farm in the summer of 1859.

The Federal Government has deemed the house a National Historic Landmark- the government way of saying that this house played a significant role in the history of the United States. The old farmhouse has been completely restored with the use of federal, state and philanthropic funds under the direction of the Maryland Historical Trust at Annapolis, Maryland.

Heiden first competed at the Olympic Winter Games in 1976 in Innsbruck, at the age

of 17. He finished 7th in the 1,500m and 19th in the 5,000m, so it was a great surprise when the following year at the World Championships he won the overall title. Many believed it to be a fluke, but he successfully defended it in 1978 and 1979, and thus was the favorite in every distance going into the Lake Placid Games. Heiden won his first four races, and the night before his final race, which would be a historic attempt to be the first Olympic athlete to win five individual gold medals in a single Olympics, he attended the game between the U.S. men's hockey team and the Soviet Union. Jubilant over the Americans' dramatic victory and excited about his upcoming race, Heiden could hardly sleep all night. He ended up oversleeping and had almost no time for breakfast or a proper warm-up. But that didn't stop him from breaking the 10,000m world record by more than six seconds.

Overwhelmed and repelled by his sudden fame, Heiden retired from speed skating right after the Olympics.

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Mount Marcy is the perfect highpoint for the Empire State. It has a rich, dramatic history in a stylish mountain range. It overlooks a towering building and trendy vacation destination and it is often overrun with people. 

Of all my pages, I have caught the most grief because people think I do not like Marcy because of that opening paragraph.  It is quite the opposite!  You can not visit the 'dacks without falling in love with the place. 

Marcy can be hiked in a day from the base camp at Adirondack Loj.  It is not a difficult climb -- just long.  I started at 4 a.m. at the end of  September and after wondering off inadvertently on the maze of ski trails at the trailhead, I managed to make the roundtrip returning at 3 p.m.  This was a goodtime.  The dreaded black flies were long gone. 

Lake Tear of the Clouds below the summit is the headwaters of the Hudson River. Theodore Roosevelt was picnicking there when he was summoned to succeed the dying William McKinley as President. His route down the mountain is thoroughly commemorated. 

The Adirondacks deserve the accolades of among the most beautiful place anywhere. The Adirondack Park is maintained by a peculiar partnership of private and state land. The Adirondack Mountain Club does a wonderful job of maintaining the trails. Mountain stewards (as they do on all Northeastern name alpine mountains) attempt to inform the hordes of the fragility of the environment. However, this is New York after all (the Adirondack Loj is less than six hours from New York City) and the peak can be overrun in the summer with hikers who sometimes have a tendency to pull out cellular phones to make calls to their Manhattan offices. The Club has tried to reduce congestion by closing the parking lots when they are full (hence you should start the trek very early). However, even if the lots are full, hikers just park further back. 

Although the state makes much of Marcy, it really isn't much to look at. Postcards with photographs of the neighboring more dramatic mountains fill the souvenir stands in nearby trendy Lake Placid (home of two sets of Winter Olympics -- Marcy is a prime cross country skiing destination and special ski trails have been established). The Winter Olympics also meant that quaint little Lake Placid has a huge ski jump that towers over everything and whose airline warning lights obnoxiously ruin the ambience -- even from the summit. 

Doonesbury was launched in 1970, and now appears in nearly 1400 daily and Sunday newspaper clients in the U.S. and abroad. His work has been collected in nearly 60 hardcover, trade paperback and massmarket editions, which have cumulatively sold over 7 million copies worldwide. In 1975, Trudeau became the first comic strip artist ever to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. (In 1989, he was a finalist for a second Pulitzer.)

Working with John and Faith Hubley, Trudeau wrote and co-directed the animated film, A Doonesbury Special, for NBC-TV in 1977. The film was nominated for an Academy Award and received the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Collaborating with composer Elizabeth Swados in 1983, Trudeau wrote the book and lyrics for the Broadway musical, Doonesbury, for which he was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards. A cast album of the show, recorded for MCA, received a Grammy nomination.

Trudeau again collaborated with Swados in 1984, this time on Rap Master Ronnie, a satirical revue about the Reagan Administration that opened off-Broadway at the Village Gate. Over the next four years the show was continuously updated for numerous productions around the country. A filmed version of Rap Master Ronnie, featuring Jim Morris, the Smothers Brothers, and Carol Kane was broadcast on Cinemax in 1988.

In 1988, Trudeau wrote and co-produced, along with director Robert Altman, HBO's critically acclaimed Tanner '88, a satiric look at that year's presidential election campaign. The show won several awards both in the U.S. and abroad, including the gold medal for Best Television Series at the Cannes Television Festival, and Best Imported Program from the British Broadcasting Press Guild. Tanner '88 also earned an Emmy -- as well as four ACE award nominations.

Trudeau has received honorary degrees from Yale, Colgate, Williams, Duke and 18 other universities. He has been inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He has contributed articles to publications such as Harper's, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, The New Yorker, New York, and The Washington Post. For five years he was an occasional columnist for the New York Times op-ed page, and is currently a contributing essayist for Time magazine.

Trudeau lives in New York City with his wife, Jane Pauley, and their three children.