Nicholas K. Burns Publishing

10/24/2025

10/16/2025

"Community-organized fire fighting in Clinton goes back 140 years to 1866 when Excelsior Fire Company No. 1 came into existence. From Clinton’s founding in 1787 to 1866, some seventy-nine years, no volunteer company existed to control fires. What prompted the new fire company was a disastrous fire four years earlier that nearly wiped out one-half the stores on West Park Row."

Discover what that "disasterous fire" was in Dick Williams' new book Collected Historical Writings: Village of Clinton and Town of Kirkland. Get your copy at our on-sale-date launch this Sunday, October 19 at the Clinton Historical Society starting at 2:00PM.

10/13/2025

Launch 2:00PM, Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 at Clinton Historical Society.

“You’d have a hard time naming someone who knows more about local and regional history than Richard L. Williams. For over fifty years, Dick Williams has researched and written about the history of the Village of Clinton and the Town of Kirkland.”
Sharon Williams, Editor of Richard L. Williams: Collected Historical Writings

In this new collection, Sharon Williams curates the best of historian Dick Williams’ most engaging and well-researched articles from the past 25 years, originally published in the Clinton Courier, Waterville Times, and Rome Sentinel.

There’s much to explore in these 90 historical articles, from Clinton’s founding to the Brothertown Indians, Hamilton College to landmark buildings, devastating floods and fires, long-gone local businesses and factories, Schooltown, notable Clintonians, and the evolution of streets, roads, trains, and trolleys.

Plus, moving stories of Clintonians at war, including the heartbreaking tale of a Civil War hero who grew up on a farm at Skyline Drive and College Hill Road.

Readers are introduced to African Americans who lived in Clinton—one of whom played on the Clinton High School hockey team in the 1930s—and local abolitionists in antebellum Clinton and at Hamilton College who petitioned Congress and the State Legislature to end slavery and welcomed black students in local schools.

Dick shares the history of the Rural Art Society, founded in 1854 to beautify the village, and locates all 13 cemeteries in the Town of Kirkland. Sports fans will enjoy histories of the two Clinton Arenas, the Clinton Comets, and Dick’s firsthand sports reporting of a football game between Clinton High School and VVS in 1955.

As Dick Williams says in his preface to the book, “I hope you find the book as informative as it is fun to read as you discover our exceptional community’s past.”

Whether you’re a lifelong Clintonian or new in town, this book offers a deep appreciation of the people and events that have shaped the Village of Clinton and the Town of Kirkland for over 238 years.

10/10/2025

Love the fonts on the cans. Amazing Clinton history that I didn't know much about. Discover more in my latest publication, Richard L. Williams, Collected Historical Writings: Village of Clinton and Town of Kirkland. Sale-date 2:00 PM, Sunday, Oct. 19 at the Clinton Historical Society.

DID YOU KNOW????
The Clinton Canning Factory, on McBride Ave., produced 60,000 cans of local peas in one day in 1892.
Read all about it on page 75 of “Richard L. Williams, Collected Historical Writings: The Village of Clinton and Town of Kirkland,” available at a launch celebration 2 p.m. Sunday, October 19 at the Clinton Historical Society.

10/10/2025

The books are in and waiting for the launch 2 p.m. Sunday, October 19!
Click here to watch Dick WIlliams discuss his new book on The Joe Kelly Show.
https://www.cnyhomepage.com/community/joe-kelly/the-joe-kelly-show-10-5-25-with-richard-l-williams/

10/08/2025

Clinton’s Cliff Clavin? From an article on a local hostelry in Dick Williams’ new book Collected Historical Writings...Can you guess where the mailman may have "had a few"?

10/03/2025

09/29/2025

Announcing My Latest Title!

"Richard L. Williams, Collected Historical Writings: Village of Clinton and Town of Kirkland".

Join me to celebrate Dick Williams’ engaging new book available first on Sunday, October 19, 2025, at the Clinton Historical Society, 1 Fountain Street, Clinton, NY 13323. 2:00 P.M. Refreshments Served

Editor Sharon Williams and her team curated 90 engaging, well-researched historical articles that appeared over the last 25 years in the Clinton Courier, Waterville Times, and Rome Sentinel.

Whether you’re a lifelong Clintonian or new in town, this book offers a deep appreciation of the people and events that have shaped the Village of Clinton and the Town of Kirkland for over 238 years.

Cover price $25.00...See you on the October 19!!

06/12/2025

From Dick Williams' new book of selected historical articles on the Village of Clinton and the Town of Kirkland to be published soon.

This excerpt from an article on Clark Mills and the Hind & Harrison Plush Co. and how tariffs at the time brought them to the Town of Kirkland from England. Tariffs...sound familiar?

"...a wealthy Englishman named Arthur Hind and his partner Mr. Harrison purchased the defunct mill and imported their workers along with their skills from England where they had a factory. This enabled Hind and Harrison to circumvent the disadvantages caused by the McKinley tariff.

"To avoid the tariff, Arthur Hind and H.B. Harrison, both English textile mill owners, set up shop here in 1891 to manufacture plush in the empty mills of the Clark brothers. Plush was used on buggy seats, coffin linings, and furniture."

Photo courtesy of the Clinton Historical Society.

06/06/2025

Remember Dad this Father's Day with our Charlie Chan Returns series. Some comments we've been getting online:

"Read both of these, they were great."

"Both are really fun reads. I hope there are more to come."

"Read both of them. They are good."

"Just ordered them."

Find out more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXMXMLRV?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_m_mng_rwt_sft_tpbk_tkin&qid=1749229054&sr=8-1

05/26/2025

From Dick Williams "Collected Writings" to be published soon:

Captain Isaac Powell and the Fifth Oneida Regiment

"The Powell name has come down to the twentieth century as they lived on the south side of College Hill Road. One member of the family was Isaac Powell, an 1860 graduate of Hamilton College.

"Fresh out of Hamilton when the war began, Powell soon became an officer for the Fifth Oneida Regiment as a captain. He began recruiting for volunteers here for Company G in August, 1862.

"Company G was composed of men primarily from the towns of Augusta, Bridgewater, Kirkland, and Marshall...

"The Maltese Cross was the symbol of the regiment. In early 1863, the 146th wore Zouave uniforms which were fashioned after the French Foreign Legion and featured fatigue caps, short loose jackets, and very full pants. The colors were light blue with yellow trim.

"James Stewart of Clinton was the first lieutenant. Stewart had the distinction of raising the first Union flag in Richmond after the evacuation by the Confederates. He had been confined to Libby prison there.

"At the battle of Chancellorsville, Powell led Company G and did not hear the bugle call to fallback. His company kept advancing and was surrounded, but Powell rallied the men, and they attacked the Confederates fighting hand to hand back to the Union lines."