Photo credit: Courtesy of Cynthia Grant Williams
One of my most romantic stories took place right in Pine Plains on one of its most iconic structures, the fire tower on top of Stissing Mountain.
It was 1966. I was a student at American University in Washington, D.C. I had been dating a handsome United States Marine Captain, Jim Williams, who was stationed at Quantico, Virginia. I invited him home to meet my parents, Henry and Bernice, and to show him the charming small town in upstate New York where I grew up. One of the special things I knew I wanted to do was take him on a hike up Stissing Mountain to the fire tower.
I had climbed it with my dad years before when it was still in operation, and remembered the beautiful views from the top. I have a fear of heights, but I really wanted to share this view with Jim — and perhaps I wanted to impress him a bit with a brave climb up the tower as well. The view was spectacular.
Jim led the way back down the stairs. At one point he stopped, looked up at me – I just wanted to get down to ground level at that point – and asked me to marry him.
To mark our 50th wedding anniversary year in 2016, we traveled from our home in California back to Pine Plains with our four children, their spouses and nine of our 10 grandchildren. We rented the Victorian house and guesthouse on Lake Road. Jim and I didn’t repeat the climb up the mountain and the tower, but all of our children and grandchildren did, in honor of that romantic story from 1966.
— Cynthia Grant Williams
(Cynthia Grant Williams is the granddaughter of John Grant, who became the owner of the original Pine Plains Register-Herald in 1926. His son and daughter, Henry Grant and Eda Grant Aroh, eventually became the paper’s co-owners.)