The March 5 Amsterdam Birthday Celebrant was the fastest and most decorated competitive speed skater in this City’s history. Ted Ellenwood was born in Dunkirk, NY on this date in 1919 and moved to Fort Johnson with his family in 1924. The Kayaderosseras Creek that flows through that Amsterdam suburb has long been a a haven for all types of skating and Ellenwood took full advantage of the frozen waterway during winter months as a youngster.

He entered his first formal competition when he was just ten years old, winning one of the two races he competed in that day up in Glens Falls. By 1940, he had been crowned the Central Adirondack Speed Skating Champion and added the Eastern States Champion trophy to his collection that same year.

This prodigy used to skate competitively with the Fort Johnson Athletic Association, which competed in meets every winter against teams from all over  Upstate New York. The greater Amsterdam area had a bevy of young men and women who could burn up the ice with their blades, including the Kuczek brothers, Hagaman’s Henry Flesh, Dick Snyder, Don Reisgl, Don Talmadge and Georgiana Overrocker.

In 1941, Ellenwood won five more titles including the…

I’ve already started work on the second volume of “A Year’s Worth of Amsterdam Birthdays” and Ted Ellenwood’s complete story will be featured in it. I will be sharing the complete posts of some of the Volume II birthday celebrants in future issues of the Amsterdam Birthday Blog Newsletter. If you are not yet a newsletter subscriber, you can sign up for free here.

Ellenwood shares his March 5th Birthday with this former Amsterdam milk-maker.