Murray - Adirondack Wilderness Writer and Outdoorsman

William Murray was a tall, powerful man with a keen interest in hunting, fishing, and backpacking. In the mid-1800's hiking was called "tramping" and backpacks were wicker baskets strapped to one's back. While attending college at Yale, Murray made at least two friends who would deeply influence his life, O.H. Platt and Joseph Cook. Plat was a fellow Connecticut native who discovered the wonders of hunting and bivouacking in the Adirondack wilderness. Cook was a New York native whose family's Morgan horse farm lay on the edge of the Adirondacks on Lake Champlain. Cook's father would eventually sell several of his best Morgans to Murray for his own farm.

From 1864 to 1877, Murray made annual trips to the Adirondacks, especially with Platt, but also with his first wife Isadora Hull, and also with many friends and lovers of Adventures. Murray loved to stay on Osprey Island on Racquette Lake. The island became know as Murray's Island for many years.

In the spring of 1869, William published his first book, Adventures in the wilderness; or, Camp-life in the Adirondacks, which became an instant best-seller. Murray became an overnight success as an author, opened the Adirondack wilderness to the American public, and made wilderness camping and backpacking into recreations for the common person - man, woman, or child. The book's popularity created a "rush' of hundreds of new visitors to the Adirondack region that summer in search of rest, relaxation, recreation, sport, and even healing for ailments such as consumption (tuberculosis). This "rush" overtaxed the region's resources of both manpower and materials for several years. (Coincidentally, Adventures was first released on or about April Fools' Day, 1869 hence the reference to Murray's Fools.) Adventures in the Wilderness is credited with much of the growth in tourism in the Adirondacks for the next four decades.