The Ethel Simmons Memorial Award is presented annually by the Grafton Community Library and the Grafton Historical Society in memory of Ethel N. Simmons, a native of Grafton and, for many years a Grafton teacher, librarian and town historian.

High school seniors attending public or private school (including home school), who are residents of Grafton and will be graduating in June are invited to apply for the $500 award.

Traditionally, the award goes to the applicant who submits the best essay on some aspect of Grafton history.

The deadline for 2010 is May 1st.

Grafton History – The Fire Tower

by Kaitlyn Hensler, 2009 essay winner

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“Do not look down, just keep walking and do not look down, stair by stair, do not look down.”  I reach for my father’s outstretched hand as the cold December air blows through my hair.  It is a clear day and I am climbing the Dickinson Hill Fire Tower for the first time.  The stairs creak beneath us as we slowly climb the sixty foot tower.  When we finally reach the top, the view is breath-taking.  You can see for miles in every direction.  Evergreen trees surround the small desolate tower; the Dickinson Hill Fire Tower remains an unknown secret within the Grafton Lakes State Park.

The view from the Dickinson Hill Fire Tower stretches from the Catskills to the south, the Helderbergs to the west Adirondacks to the northwest, Vermont to the northeast, and the Taconic Range to the east.  Built in 1924 by the Conservation Commission as a fire detection tower at an elevation of 1724 feet, it remained in use until 1980 when the fire tower was decommissioned.  The tower was replaced by the Beebe Hill tower which is south of Grafton, in the town of Austerlitz.  The Dickinson Hill Fire Tower is currently owned by the New York State police and was used as a repeater tower for radio communication.  Today the Dickinson Hill Fire Tower is the only remaining fire tower in Rensselaer County.

The Dickinson Hill Fire tower is most famous for the fact that this tower staffed New York’s first woman observer, Helen Ellett.  Mrs. Ellett, a current and long-time resident of Grafton, remembers coming to visit her grandfather’s house in Grafton when she was just four years old.  Helen first took the job as a fire observer in the 1940s because of the ongoing war and [click here to continue...]