-> Alf Evers (February 2, 1905 – December 29, 2004) was an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

who lived in

Ulster County, New York Ulster County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is situated along the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 181,851. The county seat is Kingston, ...

for much of his life and wrote lengthy, definitive histories of the

Catskills The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...

and

Woodstock The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...

, serving the latter as town historian. At the time of his death his history of

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

was nearly complete and awaited publication.

Biography

Evers was born in the

Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

neighborhood of

Williamsbridge Williamsbridge is a neighborhood geographically located in the north-central portion of the Bronx in New York City. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are East 222nd Street to the north, Boston Road to the east, Adee Av ...

and lived there till the age of nine, when his parents moved to a farm near Tillson. He developed a passion for history from the many stories of the farmhands, the work of British naturalist

Gilbert White Gilbert White (18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) was a "parson-naturalist", a pioneering English naturalist, ecologist, and ornithologist. He is best known for his '' Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne''. Life White was born on 18 Jul ...

and collecting Native American arrowheads with one of his high school teachers in

New Paltz New Paltz () is an incorporated U.S. town in Ulster County, New York. The population was 14,407 at the 2020 census. The town is located in the southeastern part of the county and is south of Kingston. New Paltz contains a village, also with the ...

. He attended

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, Clinton, New York. It was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and received its c ...

and, after graduation, returned to the city and the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

, where he met his wife,

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

Helen Baker. They eventually settled in

Litchfield, Connecticut Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,192 at the 2020 census. The town is part of the Northwest Hills Planning Region. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are ...

, where they wrote and illustrated 50 children's books together, most telling

fable Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a parti ...

s in a simple prose style that earned comparisons to

Aesop Aesop ( ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE; formerly rendered as Æsop) was a Greeks, Greek wikt:fabulist, fabulist and Oral storytelling, storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence re ...

, and raised three children Jane, Barbara and Christopher Evers. In 1950 he and his wife

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

d. He chose to return to Ulster and begin the first of three histories that would define his later career. ''The Catskills: From Wilderness to Woodstock'', published in 1972 (with a later afterword to the 1984 edition) is a comprehensive 720-page history of a region that had previously been lacking for one. Extensive research went into covering every aspect of a long and tangled story, with special attention paid to the

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

that Evers had first heard from inhabitants of the region as a boy. His home in

Shady, New York Shady is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Woodstock and lies on New York State Route 212. The community was named for the fact nearby high ridges often block direct sunlight. Notable people *Albert Gr ...

, which served as a Catskills museum, library, and archive, has been listed on the State Registry of Historic Places. A park honoring Alf Evers is located outside the Woodstock Historical Society museum on Comeau Drive in the town of

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The popula ...

. Evers' library of over 1000 books is owned by th
Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evers, Alf 1905 births 2004 deaths 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers People from the Catskills People from Woodstock, New York People from the Bronx Hamilton College (New York) alumni Historians from New York (state) Historians of New York (state) 20th-century American male writers