Having just assumed ownership of Purple Mountain Press at the start of 2025, the team here is still getting to know all of the books and authors associated with the press over its 52-year history. Van Valkenburgh is one of the stand-out authors. But much like the writer of the obituary, we were unsure of Van Valkenburgh’s whereabouts over the past few years, and our records were scant. As we learned in this report, he died in July 2023, at the age of 92 or 93. We were saddened to hear this, and we offer this brief summary of his remarkable work for Purple Mountain Press in his honor.
Trained as a forester at the University of Maine, Van Valkenburgh began his professional life as a land surveyor but rose through the ranks to become director of the DEC’s Division of Lands and Forests. He was also a prolific author. The books he published with PMP comprise only some of that output, but his “America’s First Wilderness: New York State’s Forest Preserves” is one of the best, particularly to help young readers learn about the region.
“Without Norm’s writing, many an Adirondack and Catskill wilderness advocate would be up a creek without a paddle,” writes David Gibson.
Another title of great interest, but now sadly out of print (and prime for revival?) is Old Stone Walls: Catskill Land and Lore, a series of essays that considers how stone walls record previous generations’ history on the landscape of the Catskills.
Many in the region fondly remember Van Valkenburgh for his Catskills mysteries starring surveyor-sleuth Ward Eastman. He once wrote of his experience writing a detective series set in the Catskills: “Over the years of my career, it has been my good fortune to work in a profession that sent me off to climb the high hills of the Catskills, to wade their cold streams, to stand on their snowy and wind-blown summits, and to visit remote places deep in their cloves and vales where few people have been. The greatest reward of these experiences is the images retained in my mind of the sights, sounds, and smells of these times of my life. I have drawn on these images to set the stage for some of the scenes….”
Murder in the Catskills, was the first of that series, introduced Ward Eastman and his skills to the world. It all started when Eastman discovered a skeleton in some rugged Catskills terrain. This title, however, is currently out of stock.
The second, Mayhem in the Catskills, is currently very limited in stock — get yours now! — finds Eastman at a cabin in the woods where the owner has been murdered, even though all the doors and windows appear locked. A quintessential locked-room mystery.
Mischief in the Catskills appeared next, the tale of a deer hunter who goes missing in a snowstorm. Eastman is called to help, but was the hunter really lost?
Murder in the Shawangunks and Class of ’68 offers two mystery novellas under one cover: one by Van Valkenburgh featuring detective Ward Eastman in new territory, the Shawangunk Mountains, where a fellow surveyor has died; the other by Van Valkenburgh’s daughter, Airilee Ellyn Blessing, set at a 20th high school reunion in Greene County.
Trained as a forester at the University of Maine, Van Valkenburgh began his professional life as a land surveyor but rose through the ranks to become director of the DEC’s Division of Lands and Forests. He was also a prolific author. The books he published with PMP comprise only some of that output, but his “America’s First Wilderness: New York State’s Forest Preserves” is one of the best, particularly to help young readers learn about the region. 
Murder in the Catskills, was the first of that series, introduced Ward Eastman and his skills to the world. It all started when Eastman discovered a skeleton in some rugged Catskills terrain. This title, however, is currently out of stock.