High Rock

The High Rock, a glacial erratic from the last Ice Age approximately 10,000 years ago, was located along Route 9 across from the Judd Bridge, at the site of the current National Grid facility.  At one time, Albert Alden was retained by Henry Griffin to build a stone wall in front of it to keep it in place and prevent it from sliding into the road.  This massive boulder was a tourist attraction until the State of New York Transportation Department dynamited the rock to widen Route 9 in May of 1931.  It was registered in Washington, D. C. as one of the "balanced rocks" in the country and is also spoken of in James Fennimore Cooper’s tales.  It has been said that Native Americans met there and used it as their "council rock."

High Rock by Marie Fisher
The traveler approaching the lower borough as the residents called the lower village after crossing the iron bridge which spans the Schroon River, will discover at about forty rods distance a huge boulder whose front over-tops the highway.  In 1790-91, during the trouble between the government and the Indians along the frontier, the Old Indian Trail leading from the Mohawk River past the base of Crane Mountain to the lake being yet open, and memory of former Indian raids being yet fresh in the minds of the inhabitants, they gathered from the surrounding wilderness homes to the hill at the top of the big rock, speedily cleared away from forest which hit its summit, and erected from the logs a two-storied blockhouse with portholes and fastenings, sufficient for the purpose of protection against ordinary Indian attack.  It is not recorded that it was necessary to use it for defense and all of its ruins have been obliterated.