Lightning took the life of famed Fort Johnson skater
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 02-28-15
Speed skating champion Ted Ellenwood, Jr., 27, died instantly on June 11, 1946 when struck by lightning while golfing on what was then the Antlers Course in Fort Johnson.
A friend, Lee DeGroff, was ten feet away but not injured. The golf course today is called Rolling Hills.
Ellenwood had skated for the Fort Johnson Athletic Association, which produced other top racers including Hank Flesch, Don Talmadge and Gene Gage.
Ellenwood was an inspiration to Gage and once gave him a fine pair of skates that Gage used in racing competitions until he was in his mid 30s. Gage is now in his mid eighties.
Born in Dunkirk, N.Y., in 1919, Ellenwood and his family moved to Fort Johnson when he was five. He started skating at age ten. He won the Eastern States Speed Skating Championship in Fort Johnson in 1941. He tied for third place at the North American races in Schenectady. He won the 220 and 440 yard races at the National Championships in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, just before entering the U.S. Navy in 1942.
A machinist’s mate, Ellenwood served in the war aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Cotton which took part in numerous actions in the South Pacific. He, his wife Lucia (from Portland, Maine) and their five month old son Ted III had returned to the local area to settle down by purchasing a gas station in Fort Johnson.
ANOTHER CHAMPION
Ellenwood never qualified for U.S. OIympic speed skating teams apparently because he was better at the American style of skating as opposed to European style used in the Olympics. American skaters raced in a group while European skaters went in pairs and a time clock was used.
George Hare of Fort Johnson was very good at European style racing and was named a regular on the U.S. Olympic team in 1939. Hare competed in events in the United States as an Olympian but there were no Olympic games in 1940 and 1944 because of the war.
Among Fort Johnson skating coaches in the late 1930s and early 1940s were Leroy Eckerson and W.C. Snyder
POST WAR
Another top skater for the Fort Johnson club was Raymond Knapik who won a gold medal in the 220-yard sprint at the national speed skating championships in Alpena, Michigan in 1948. Knapik, who grew up in Amsterdam, also skated at Hasenfuss Field in that city.
Amsterdam native and longtime Californian Fred Wojcicki and LaVerne Colts ran the Fort Johnson skating rink in the winters of 1949 and 1950. Wojcicki for a time was president of the Northeastern Skating Association.
FORT JOHNSON MEMORIES
Fort Johnson native David Noyes, born in 1931, said when he was a child, adults in the village provided children lifetime values by deed and example and maintained an active community.
Noyes, who lives now in Colorado, recalled commercial institutions in Fort Johnson such as Whalen’s grocery store, Huen’s gas station, Sweet’s furniture store and Tollner’s ice cream shop.
Noyes was the second of four Noyes brothers. His brother Dan drowned in the Mohawk River in 1947; his brother Randy died in an accident while serving the U.S. Air Force. His brother Harold also lives in Colorado.
After U.S. Army service in the 1950s David Noyes married Mary Gawron of Amsterdam and earned degrees from the SUNY College of Forestry. His career took him to the world headquarters of Johns Manville Corporation in Denver.
Describing himself as one of the “run of the mill” skaters in Fort Johnson, Noyes said he picked up a few medals along the way. He kept skating until knee and hip replacement surgeries in 2000.
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