Nicholas K. Burns Publishing

12/04/2025

An earlier version of today's Clinton Historic Preservation Commission (CHPC)? Excerpt from Dick Williams' Collected Writings (available at the Clinton Historical Society and Amazon at the link below).

Article 39: The Rural Art Society
"By 1880, the Rural Art Society boasted 110 members and was credited with converting what, for years, had been a plain, rural village into a beautiful community for its size.

"Tree-lined streets, well-kept homes, and the attractive village green go back to the influence of the men in the Society, who transformed a swampy cow pasture into a park filled with trees."

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

11/28/2025

Beyond Murder follows Honolulu's best-known detective to San Francisco, where drug smuggling and a sinister conspiracy threaten to overshadow the anticipated birth of his first grandchild.

Oldest Chan son Henry accompanies his mother to the City by the Bay to be on hand when daughter Rose and husband John Quincy
Winterslip welcome their firstborn.

Get your copy today: https://a.co/d/bN06iLO

Charlie Chan's plan to join them collides with a plea for help from San Francisco police. Faced with a dual commitment, the detective boards the China Clipper bound for the mainland and finds mystery en route.

A conversation overheard in darkness high above the ocean is just the first of murderous clues so numerous that Chan compares them to bits of sand.

With Henry's help and grandbaby Chan on the way, Charlie must apply his customary combination of ancient wisdom, investigative know-how, and razor-sharp wit to gather the clues and solve a case fraught with greed and international intrigue.

Available on Amazon in paperback or ebook: https://a.co/d/bN06iLO

11/26/2025

Dick Williams' book Collected Historical Writings is for sale during the Shopper's Stroll at the Clinton Historical Society this weekend. If you're not in town, it is also available on Amazon (paperback & ebook).

Excerpt from "Clinton Fire Department, 148 Years Old":

"CFD, Inc. bought the brick building on North Park Row from William H. Ford for $5,000; it was then occupied by James Clark's hardware store and Dawes Brothers Meat Market. Previously, Peter and Augustus Fake ran a dry goods store there until the mid-1800s. This structure had been built in the early 1830s by Amaziah Stebbins, a member of an early Clinton family."

New Book by Local Historian Richard L. Williams—90 captivating stories of Clinton and Kirkland’s people, places, and rich history.

11/10/2025

Excerpt from The Lithia Water Story in Dick Williams' Collected Historical Writings:

"Dugway Road farmer Fred Suppe dug a well on his hop farm in the summer of 1888. The new well exceeded expectations but also had a rather unusual but pleasant taste. He had stumbled upon a natural mineral water similar to the famed springs of Europe.

"Before long, others were digging up and down the Dugway and Deansboro Roads. This discovery spawned visions of another Saratoga or Richfield Springs but these dreams..."

Get Dick's book here:

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

11/06/2025

Available Now On Amazon!

New Book by Local Historian Richard L. Williams—90 captivating stories of Clinton and Kirkland’s people, places, and rich history.

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/