Lightning Claimed the Life of Famed Fort Johnson Speed Skater

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History-Daily Gazette 

     Speed skating champion Ted Ellenwood, Jr., 27, died instantly on June 11, 1946 when struck by lightning while golfing.

A friend, Lee DeGroff, was ten feet away but not injured. The golf course then was called the Antlers, today it's called Rolling Hills.

Ellenwood had skated for the Fort Johnson Athletic Association, which produced several top speed skaters including George Hare, Hank Flesch, Don Talmadge and Gene Gage.

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 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.

Ellenwood served as a machinist's mate 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.

MORE ON FORT JOHNSON

     Ellenwood never qualified for the U.S. Olympic speed skating teams because he was better at American style 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 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.

Ellenwood was an inspiration to fellow speed skater Gene Gage and Ellenwood once gave him a fine pair of skates that Gage used in racing competitions until he was in his mid-30s.

Among Fort Johnson skating coaches in the 1930s and early 1940s were Leroy Eckerson and W.C. Snyder.

A top skater after the war for Fort Johnson was Raymond Knapik who won a gold medal in the 220-yard sprint at the national 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 managed the Fort Johnson skating rink in the winters of 1949 and 1950. Wojcicki was president of the Northeastern Skating Association.

Describing himself as one of the "run of the mill" skaters in Fort Johnson, the late Dave Noyes said he picked up a few medals along the way. He kept skating until knee and hip replacement surgeries in 2000.

Noyes worked at Johns Manville Corporation as a research engineer at their world headquarters in Denver.

Dave was the second of four 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.

Dave Noyes said when he was a child, adults in the village provided children lifetime values and maintained an active community.

Noyes, who lived his last years in Colorado, recalled commercial institutions in Fort Johnson such as Whalen's grocery, Huen's gas station, Sweet's furniture and Tollner's ice cream.

The village of Fort Johnson formally dissolved on the last day of 2023, becoming a hamlet in the town of Amsterdam.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]