25 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were From the Adirondacks and New York’s North Country

High Peaks South along the Adirondack Northway in New York’s Adirondack region. Photo by Brian Kachejian.

New York’s Adirondacks and North Country cover an enormous stretch of northern New York, from Lake Champlain and the Canadian border west toward Watertown and the St. Lawrence River, with the six-million-acre Adirondack Park occupying much of the region’s geographic heart. For this article, the term also includes the traditional southern Adirondack gateway around Lake George and Glens Falls, even though Warren County is officially classified by New York State as part of the Capital Region rather than the seven-county North Country.

That distinction matters because this is a list of people who are genuinely from the region, not simply celebrities who once vacationed, worked, competed, or owned property there. Everyone included here was born in northern New York or spent meaningful formative childhood or school years in the Adirondacks, North Country, or southern Adirondack gateway. The result is a remarkably varied group of artists, actors, musicians, athletes, inventors, writers, business leaders, and public figures whose lives began or took shape in one of New York’s most distinctive regions.

1. Frederic Remington – Canton / Ogdensburg (St. Lawrence County)

• North Country Roots: Frederic Remington was born in Canton in 1861 and moved with his family to Ogdensburg when he was about eleven. His childhood in northern New York preceded the western travels that later defined his artistic career.
• Claim to Fame: Remington became one of America’s best-known painters, illustrators, and sculptors of the Old West. His images of cowboys, soldiers, horses, and Native Americans appeared widely in magazines and books, while bronzes such as The Bronco Buster became enduring examples of American Western art. The Remington Museum of Art in Ogdensburg holds the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of his work.

2. Lana Del Rey – Lake Placid (Essex County)

• North Country Roots: Born Elizabeth Woolridge Grant in New York City, Lana Del Rey was raised in Lake Placid and spent her childhood in the Adirondack village before leaving the region as a teenager.
• Claim to Fame: Del Rey became an internationally successful singer and songwriter whose cinematic style, melancholic songwriting, and carefully constructed imagery made her one of the most distinctive popular artists of her generation. Her albums include Born to Die, Ultraviolence, and the Grammy-nominated Norman F**king Rockwell!.

3. Viggo Mortensen – Watertown / Canton (Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties)

• North Country Roots: Viggo Mortensen returned to New York with his mother and brothers when he was eleven and spent the rest of his childhood in northern New York. He graduated from Watertown High School in 1976 and later graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton in 1980.
• Claim to Fame: Mortensen became an acclaimed actor, writer, photographer, painter, and musician. He is best known internationally for portraying Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and has received multiple Academy Award nominations for his film work.

4. Rachael Ray – Glens Falls / Lake George (Warren County)

• North Country Roots: Rachael Ray was born in Glens Falls in 1968 and raised in Lake George, where she grew up around her family’s restaurant business and developed an early familiarity with food and hospitality.
• Claim to Fame: Ray became one of America’s most recognizable food personalities through television programs, cookbooks, magazines, and her nationally syndicated daytime show. Her “30 Minute Meals” approach helped establish the accessible, time-conscious cooking style that became her signature.

5. Jean Arthur – Plattsburgh (Clinton County)

• North Country Roots: Jean Arthur was born Gladys Georgianna Greene in Plattsburgh in 1900 before her family later moved elsewhere.
• Claim to Fame: Arthur became one of Hollywood’s defining comedic actresses of the 1930s and 1940s. Her films included Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, as well as George Stevens’ Shane. Her distinctive voice and ability to combine comedy with emotional restraint made her one of the era’s most recognizable performers.

6. Jack Shea – Lake Placid (Essex County)

• North Country Roots: Jack Shea was born and raised in Lake Placid, attended Lake Placid High School, learned to skate on Lake Mirror, and remained closely connected to the community throughout his life.
• Claim to Fame: Shea won gold medals in both the 500-meter and 1,500-meter speed-skating events at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, becoming the first American to win two gold medals at a single Winter Games. He also recited the Olympic Oath at the opening ceremonies and later served on the organizing committee for the 1980 Lake Placid Games.

7. Johnny Podres – Witherbee / Moriah (Essex County)

• North Country Roots: Johnny Podres was born in the Adirondack mining hamlet of Witherbee in the Town of Moriah in 1932 and grew up in the surrounding Essex County community.
• Claim to Fame: Podres became a major-league pitcher best remembered for one of the most important games in Brooklyn Dodgers history. He threw a complete-game 2-0 shutout against the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 1955 World Series, giving Brooklyn its first and only World Series championship before the franchise moved to Los Angeles.

8. Frank W. Woolworth – Rodman / Watertown (Jefferson County)

• North Country Roots: Frank Winfield Woolworth was born in Rodman in 1852 and entered the retail business as a young clerk in Watertown. It was there that he experimented with displaying discounted merchandise on a five-cent counter.
• Claim to Fame: Woolworth built the F.W. Woolworth Company into an international five-and-dime retail empire. His fixed-price merchandising approach helped transform American retailing, while the fortune he amassed financed the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan, one of the world’s most famous early skyscrapers.

9. Irving Bacheller – Pierrepont / Canton (St. Lawrence County)

• North Country Roots: Irving Bacheller was born in Pierrepont in 1859 and graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton. Northern New York remained an important setting in his writing.
• Claim to Fame: Bacheller became a bestselling novelist, journalist, and publishing entrepreneur. He founded the Bacheller Syndicate, which helped distribute writers including Stephen Crane to American newspapers, and wrote popular novels including Eben Holden.

10. Jimmer Fredette – Glens Falls (Warren County)

• North Country Roots: Jimmer Fredette is a native of Glens Falls and developed into a standout basketball player while growing up in the southern Adirondack gateway.
• Claim to Fame: Fredette became a national basketball sensation at Brigham Young University, where his long-range scoring ability inspired “Jimmermania.” He was selected with the tenth overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft and later continued his professional career in the United States and overseas.

11. Charles Evans Hughes – Glens Falls (Warren County)

• North Country Roots: Charles Evans Hughes was born in Glens Falls in 1862 and spent his early childhood there before his family moved elsewhere in New York.
• Claim to Fame: Hughes held a remarkable series of public offices during his legal and government career. He served as governor of New York, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. secretary of state, chief justice of the United States, and the Republican presidential nominee in 1916.

12. Roswell P. Flower – Theresa / Watertown (Jefferson County)

• North Country Roots: Roswell Pettibone Flower was born in Theresa in 1835 and built his early career in Jefferson County before entering business and public life on a larger stage. He was later buried in Watertown.
• Claim to Fame: Flower served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of New York from 1892 through 1894. Outside politics, he built a substantial career in banking and finance and remained closely associated with Watertown and northern New York.

13. Robert Lansing – Watertown (Jefferson County)

• North Country Roots: Robert Lansing was born in Watertown in 1864 and practiced law there before his growing expertise in international law drew him into national diplomatic work.
• Claim to Fame: Lansing served as U.S. secretary of state from 1915 to 1920 during the Woodrow Wilson administration. His tenure encompassed American diplomacy during World War I and participation in the Paris Peace Conference following the war.

14. Allen W. Dulles – Watertown (Jefferson County)

• North Country Roots: Allen Welsh Dulles was born in Watertown in 1893 into a family with deep connections to American diplomacy and public service.
• Claim to Fame: Dulles served in the diplomatic corps, worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, and became the first civilian director of Central Intelligence in 1953. He remained in the post until 1961 and became the longest-serving director in the CIA’s history.

15. William A. Wheeler – Malone (Franklin County)

• North Country Roots: William Almon Wheeler was born in Malone in 1819 and built his legal, business, and political career from northern New York.
• Claim to Fame: Wheeler served in the New York State Legislature and U.S. House of Representatives before becoming the 19th vice president of the United States under President Rutherford B. Hayes from 1877 to 1881.

16. Melvil Dewey – Adams Center / Lake Placid (Jefferson and Essex Counties)

• North Country Roots: Melvil Dewey was born in Adams Center in Jefferson County in 1851. Decades later, his connection to northern New York deepened when he and his wife founded the Lake Placid Club in 1895.
• Claim to Fame: Dewey created the Dewey Decimal Classification system and became one of the most influential figures in American library organization. In Lake Placid, his club helped promote winter recreation and opened for its first winter season in 1904. Dewey’s Lake Placid legacy is also complicated by the club’s discriminatory membership policies, which excluded Jews and other groups.

17. Almanzo Wilder – Burke / Malone (Franklin County)

• North Country Roots: Almanzo Wilder was born and raised on his family’s farm in Burke, near Malone, in 1857. The restored Wilder Homestead preserves the landscape and surviving farmhouse associated with his northern New York childhood.
• Claim to Fame: Wilder became the husband of author Laura Ingalls Wilder and the real-life subject of her 1933 book Farmer Boy. The novel recounts a year in nine-year-old Almanzo’s life on the family farm and preserves one of the best-known literary portraits of 19th-century rural life in northern New York.

18. William H. Miner – Chazy (Clinton County)

• North Country Roots: William Henry Miner was born in Wisconsin but was orphaned as a child and moved to Chazy at age ten to live with his aunt and uncle. After building his career in the railroad industry, he returned to Chazy and developed Heart’s Delight Farm.
• Claim to Fame: Miner became a successful inventor and manufacturer of railroad equipment, particularly draft-gear technology designed to reduce shock between railcars. He used much of his fortune to support agriculture, education, and health care in the North Country, including major investments in Chazy and Plattsburgh.

19. Garry Trudeau – Saranac Lake (Franklin County)

• North Country Roots: Garry Trudeau spent his childhood in Saranac Lake and has described the Adirondack village as his hometown. His family had deep connections to the community through the Trudeau Institute and the legacy of Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau.
• Claim to Fame: Trudeau created the long-running comic strip Doonesbury, which became one of the most influential American newspaper strips of the modern era. He received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his work on the strip.

20. Craig Wood – Lake Placid (Essex County)

• North Country Roots: Craig Wood was born in Lake Placid and grew up in a community already developing a strong identity around sports and outdoor recreation.
• Claim to Fame: Wood became one of the leading American professional golfers of his era, winning 21 tour events. In 1941 he won both the Masters Tournament and the U.S. Open, becoming the first golfer to win those two championships in the same year. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2008.

21. Art Devlin – Lake Placid (Essex County)

• North Country Roots: Arthur “Art” Devlin was born in Lake Placid in 1922 and remained closely connected to the village throughout his life.
• Claim to Fame: Devlin represented the United States in ski jumping at the 1952 and 1956 Winter Olympics and later became a television sports commentator. He also served as a vice president of the Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee and worked to help bring the Winter Games back to his hometown in 1980.

22. Andrew Weibrecht – Lake Placid (Essex County)

• North Country Roots: Andrew Weibrecht grew up in Lake Placid, where winter sports were part of everyday life and he began competing at a young age.
• Claim to Fame: Weibrecht represented the United States at three Winter Olympics and became a two-time Olympic medalist in alpine skiing. He won bronze in the super-G at Vancouver in 2010 and silver in the same event at Sochi in 2014.

23. Bill Demong – Vermontville (Franklin County)

• North Country Roots: Bill Demong is from Vermontville, a small Franklin County community near Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, and developed as a Nordic skier in the North Country’s winter-sports culture.
• Claim to Fame: Demong competed in five Winter Olympics in Nordic combined. At the 2010 Vancouver Games he won gold in the individual large-hill event and silver in the team competition, becoming one of the most accomplished American athletes in the history of the sport.

24. Tim Burke – Paul Smiths (Franklin County)

• North Country Roots: Tim Burke grew up in Paul Smiths, just outside Lake Placid, and began cross-country skiing as a child before taking up biathlon at age thirteen.
• Claim to Fame: Burke became one of the most successful American biathletes of his era. He won a silver medal in the 20-kilometer individual race at the 2013 World Championships and became the first American biathlete to wear the World Cup leader’s yellow bib after reaching the number-one ranking during the 2009–10 season.

25. Dave LaPoint – Glens Falls (Warren County)

• North Country Roots: Dave LaPoint was born in Glens Falls in 1959, attended Glens Falls High School, and was drafted into professional baseball directly from his hometown high school.
• Claim to Fame: LaPoint pitched 12 seasons in Major League Baseball for nine teams. He was a member of the 1982 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals and later pitched for clubs including the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, and Chicago White Sox.

Quick Reference: 25 Famous People From the Adirondacks and New York’s North Country

Readers interested in more people and history from northern New York can continue with our 25 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were From Upstate New York, The Beauty and History of Lake George, 15 Historic Great Camps of the Adirondacks and Their Remarkable Architecture, and 25 Olympic Gold Medalists From Upstate New York.