A few months ago I came across a 1788 handwritten letter by a French nobleman, the Chevalier de La Luzerne, that was being auctioned in a gallery in Boston. I was astounded, to say the least.
After many years of looking for items related to the history of the town of Lake Luzerne, this was the first time I came across something by Luzerne himself—the man who is our town’s namesake.
I purchased the letter to donate to the Hadley/Lake Luzerne Historical Society. I really believed that was the end of it until I discovered a painting of Luzerne by the renowned artist Charles Wilson Peale at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I found that I could acquire a very good digital reproduction of the painting and have it printed on canvas. And this led to what I now call the What’s in a Name
