October 3, 2025 • 12 mins
In July of 1971, eight-year-old Douglas “Dougie” Legg was spending the weekend with family at Great Camp Santanoni in Newcomb, New York. When his uncle told him to run back to the lodge and change into long pants before a hike, Dougie set off on a short, familiar walk of just a few hundred feet. He never arrived. What followed became one of the largest search operations in Adirondack history—yet no trace of the boy was ever found.
More than fifty years later, the disappearance of Douglas Legg remains one of the park’s most haunting unsolved mysteries. Was he lost to the vast Adirondack wilderness? Or was something more sinister at play?
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Douglas Legg, please contact the New York State Police Troop B in Ray Brook at (518) 897-2000.
Looking for help to improve your your fitness for hiking, nutrition, discipline, and daily habits?
Apply to work with James 1-on-1 in his Seek To Do More coaching program at www.seektodomore.com
Join the next GREAT RANGE ATHLETE Team and get in mountain-hiking shape alongside a likeminded group in just 6 weeks from your local gym or house.
Join the team at www.greatrangeathlete.com
Follow on Instagram & Facebook:
@46of46podcast
@jamesappleton46
Get my books:
1.) The Adirondack 46 in 18 Hikes: The Complete Guide to Hiking the High Peaks
2.) Adirondack Campfire Stories: Tales and Folklore from Inside the Blue Line
Visit my other websites:
www.46OUTDOORS.com
www.46OF46.com
More than fifty years later, the disappearance of Douglas Legg remains one of the park’s most haunting unsolved mysteries. Was he lost to the vast Adirondack wilderness? Or was something more sinister at play?
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Douglas Legg, please contact the New York State Police Troop B in Ray Brook at (518) 897-2000.
Looking for help to improve your your fitness for hiking, nutrition, discipline, and daily habits?
Apply to work with James 1-on-1 in his Seek To Do More coaching program at www.seektodomore.com
Join the next GREAT RANGE ATHLETE Team and get in mountain-hiking shape alongside a likeminded group in just 6 weeks from your local gym or house.
Join the team at www.greatrangeathlete.com
Follow on Instagram & Facebook:
@46of46podcast
@jamesappleton46
Get my books:
1.) The Adirondack 46 in 18 Hikes: The Complete Guide to Hiking the High Peaks
2.) Adirondack Campfire Stories: Tales and Folklore from Inside the Blue Line
Visit my other websites:
www.46OUTDOORS.com
www.46OF46.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Adirondack Park is six million acres of mountains, rivers, swamps,
and endless forest. It's a place of beauty, but also
a place of danger. Every year hikers, hunters, and travelers
find themselves tested here, sometimes fatally. This wilderness can be unforgiving.
(00:23):
Trails vanish under snow and storm. A simple wrong turn
can lead to hours or days of being lost. Cold
isolation and rugged terrain can strip away every advantage of
person thought they had to get out of the woods.
But is it always the wilderness that's responsible for people
(00:45):
going missing? Or is it something more nefarious. This October
Sessions will be revisiting some of the Adirondack's most chilling mysteries,
real disappearances, real families left searching, and real cases still unsolved.
(01:05):
And tonight will begin with one of the most haunting
stories of all, the disappearance of eight year old Douglas
John Legg at Great Camp Santinoni in nineteen seventy one.
This is the forty six of forty six podcasts October Sessions.
(01:26):
It was July tenth, nineteen seventy one. The leg family
was enjoying a summer afternoon at Santinoni, one of the
Adirondacks sprawling great camps near the town of Newcombe. Eight
year old Dougie was with his uncle walking along a
trail when the uncle noticed poison ivy up ahead. Dougie
was wearing shorts, so he told him, hey, run back
(01:48):
to the lodge, change into some long pants and then
come join us. It was only a couple hundred feet
back to the lodge. Dougie knew the way, He'd walked
it many times so far. He even passed his brother
and his cousin along the way. But Dougie never made
it to the lodge. In fact, he was never seen again.
(02:16):
The Great Camp Santinoni had been built in the eighteen nineties.
It was a retreat for wealthy industrialists, complete with rustic lodges, barns,
and nearly thirteen thousand acres of Christine Adirondack wilderness. By
nineteen seventy one, the Melvin family who owned the estate,
they were preparing to sell it and that summer gathering
(02:37):
would be one of their last. Dougie himself was just
shy of his ninth birthday. He was four foot six
seventy six pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes, and
on that day he wore a striped polo shirt, blue shorts,
and black sneakers. He was described as adventurous but slightly shy,
with a slight speech impediment, and when his uncle sent
(02:59):
him back to the lodge, the distance was short, only
about one hundred and fifty yards through some very familiar woods.
But in that short walk Dougie vanished. At first, the
family thought he was playing hide and seek, just messing around,
but when they couldn't find him, panic set in. By nightfall,
(03:22):
he still hadn't returned and they hadn't found him, so
the New York State Police were on the scene, and
in the days that followed, the search became one of
the largest ever held in the Adirondacks. According to an
article in The New York Times published July thirteenth, nineteen
seventy one, it stayed that hundreds of volunteers, state police,
(03:42):
and forest rangers scoured a ten square mile area around Santinoni,
with helicopters, bloodhounds, and divers enlisted in the search. Adirondack
Life magazine later reported that as many as a thousand
people were involved. At the peak of the search, crawling
through bogs, cutting through dense spruce forests, even draining ponds,
(04:06):
and dragging the bottoms of lakes. They'd even brought in
an elite mountain rescue team from California. The rescuers described
the Adirondack brush as impenetrable. Gary Carter, a young rescue
squad leader from Newcombe who worked the case for forty
straight days, later recalled, we were crawling through swamps on
(04:27):
our hands and knees looking for a sign, anything, but
we never found a thing. Despite the massive search effort,
no clothing, no footprints, no remains whatsoever were ever recovered.
If you've hiked in the Adirondacks, you know how unforgiving
the terrain really is. It's thick spruce and balsam groves,
(04:52):
waiste high blowdown wetlands that pull at your boots. One
searcher told reporters at the time that it was so
dark in the brush that you needed a flashlight in
broad daylight, and the weather didn't help. Rain washed out
scent trails. The bloodhounds track dougies sent to the edge
of a pond, but when the pond was drained, nothing
(05:13):
was found. By the time the official search ended in
August of that year. More than eighty square miles had
been covered, but still no trace of the eight year
old boy. Over the years, the case has attracted theories, rumors,
and false leads, like these things tend to do. In
(05:34):
nineteen ninety three, a woman came forward claiming that a
relative had abducted and murdered Dougie, dumping his body in
a lake in Lewis County. The police drained that lake, too,
but nothing was found. Investigators later determined that the woman
was suffering from psychiatric issues, and that same year, a
Montana man admitted that while hunting near Newcomb Lake twenty
(05:58):
years earlier, he stumbled across what he believed was a
child's skull, but he hadn't reported it at the time.
When police searched the site decades later, they didn't find anything.
Even as recently as twenty twenty, divers with the New
York State Police Underwater Recovery Team found what they thought
might be a skull fragment in Newcomb Lake, but forensic
(06:20):
testing revealed it was non human. Adirondack Life magazine summed
it up best again and again the case hits a
dead end, so what happened to Douglas leg Well. The
most common theory is the simplest, that he wandered off
(06:43):
the path, got lost in the dense forest, and succumbed
to the elements. After all, the Adirondack terrain is unforgiving.
But the hike back was only one hundred and fifty yards,
even a short distance for a young child. How could
that become fatal? How could he get lost? But many
(07:05):
people find that explanation that he simply wandered off to
be too hard to accept. Dougie wasn't miles into the
back country. He was a mere steps from camp. He
was seen by family all along the way, and yet
no trace. Ever, That's why some have speculated about abduction.
(07:27):
But as The New York Times noted at the time,
police found no evidence of foul play, no suspects, and
no witnesses to suggest such a kidnapping. Others, of course,
point to the chaotic nature of the search. Adirondack Life
reported that too many untrained volunteers may have trampled evidence
and contaminated search zones, making it nearly impossible to track signs.
(07:51):
What is certain is that the case highlighted flaws and
wilderness search and rescue at the time, and in its aftermath,
New York State improved ranger training protocols and coordination for
future searches. More than fifty years have passed since that
day in July nineteen seventy one, Dougie leg would be
(08:13):
in his sixties now. His name is still listed on
the New York State Police Missing Persons database and his
case remains open to this day. But the question remains,
how could an eight year old boy vanish within sight
of camp and never be found? Not one trace? A
(08:34):
heartbreaking story in every way, and if you have any
information about the disappearance of Douglas John Legg, you're asked
to contact New York State Police Troop B in Raybrooke
at five eight eight nine seven two thousand. The Adirondacks
are filled with stories both triumph and tragedy and mystery,
(09:01):
and some like this one may never be solved. Next
time on the forty six to forty six podcasts October sessions,
we'll head into the high Peaks for the chilling disappearance
of a teenager near Mount Marcy. Until then, be safe
out there, be prepared, and always respect the mountains. You're
(09:22):
climbing in Hey everyone, it's James. Thanks for listening to
this year's October sessions. Speaking of October, the next Great
Range Athlete team kicks off this month October nineteenth. So
if you've ever felt exhausted halfway through your hike and
run down for days to follow, no matter how much
(09:44):
cardio you do to prepare, it probably means you're training
isn't building the strength and endurance that your body really
needs for the mountains. I've been there, and we're going
to help you fix that. Join the Next Great Range
Athlete program, where we will help you train smarter, get stronger,
and build real trail fitness that lasts. That translates to
your ability to climb mountains, and you'll do it amongst
(10:06):
a group of like minded people. Head over to Great
Range Athlete dot com so you never have to burn
out on your hikes again. Instead, you'll start hiking stronger, longer,
and with way more confidence. The next team kicks off
October nineteenth. Join at Great Range Athlete dot com and
I will see you on the team.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Hey everybody, my name is Andrea and I'm from Sullivan County,
just outside the Catskills area in New York State. I
just finished Great Range Athlete as a member of the
Cascade team. I joined because I had seen some of
James's content on Instagram and I was curious about the program.
I have a background with high school and college athletics.
I continued my fitness journey afterwards, and I discovered I
(10:46):
really loved hiking, so when I saw this program posted,
I want to try it out of curiosity and get
a new experience and try something fresh and new. Overall,
I really enjoyed the experience. I work out in my
garage solo, so it gave me an access to some
different program thing that I hadn't seen before. I thought
the program went well. The workouts and time commitments were reasonable.
(11:08):
You can work at your own ability and comfort level
and pace and adjust it as necessary. On that note,
I pushed myself really hard on the workouts and I
found I was working out harder than I had been
before because of the accountability through the Marco Polo app.
The program focuses a lot on like strength and endurance,
and I've seen improvement in my squat related exercises, so
(11:29):
hopefully that's going to mean some better times on the trails.
Aside from physical gains, I also gained connections and friendships
with other members of my team. We still communicate daily
a Marco Polo to encourage each other towards our workout
goals and our hiking goals and other goals that we
have set for ourselves. My favorite takeaway from this experience
(11:51):
was connecting with like minded hiking friends and having our
daily discussion and interaction regarding working out and hiking. I
completely recommend this program to anyone, whether you're looking for
something fresh and new to try like I did, or
if you're looking for a place to start and connect
with people who also love the outdoors and hiking and
working out. So if you're thinking of giving great Range
(12:12):
athlete to try, definitely go for it.
The Adirondack Park is six million acres of mountains, rivers, swamps,
and endless forest. It's a place of beauty, but also
a place of danger. Every year hikers, hunters, and travelers
find themselves tested here, sometimes fatally. This wilderness can be unforgiving.
(00:23):
Trails vanish under snow and storm. A simple wrong turn
can lead to hours or days of being lost. Cold
isolation and rugged terrain can strip away every advantage of
person thought they had to get out of the woods.
But is it always the wilderness that's responsible for people
(00:45):
going missing? Or is it something more nefarious. This October
Sessions will be revisiting some of the Adirondack's most chilling mysteries,
real disappearances, real families left searching, and real cases still unsolved.
(01:05):
And tonight will begin with one of the most haunting
stories of all, the disappearance of eight year old Douglas
John Legg at Great Camp Santinoni in nineteen seventy one.
This is the forty six of forty six podcasts October Sessions.
(01:26):
It was July tenth, nineteen seventy one. The leg family
was enjoying a summer afternoon at Santinoni, one of the
Adirondacks sprawling great camps near the town of Newcombe. Eight
year old Dougie was with his uncle walking along a
trail when the uncle noticed poison ivy up ahead. Dougie
was wearing shorts, so he told him, hey, run back
(01:48):
to the lodge, change into some long pants and then
come join us. It was only a couple hundred feet
back to the lodge. Dougie knew the way, He'd walked
it many times so far. He even passed his brother
and his cousin along the way. But Dougie never made
it to the lodge. In fact, he was never seen again.
(02:16):
The Great Camp Santinoni had been built in the eighteen nineties.
It was a retreat for wealthy industrialists, complete with rustic lodges, barns,
and nearly thirteen thousand acres of Christine Adirondack wilderness. By
nineteen seventy one, the Melvin family who owned the estate,
they were preparing to sell it and that summer gathering
(02:37):
would be one of their last. Dougie himself was just
shy of his ninth birthday. He was four foot six
seventy six pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes, and
on that day he wore a striped polo shirt, blue shorts,
and black sneakers. He was described as adventurous but slightly shy,
with a slight speech impediment, and when his uncle sent
(02:59):
him back to the lodge, the distance was short, only
about one hundred and fifty yards through some very familiar woods.
But in that short walk Dougie vanished. At first, the
family thought he was playing hide and seek, just messing around,
but when they couldn't find him, panic set in. By nightfall,
(03:22):
he still hadn't returned and they hadn't found him, so
the New York State Police were on the scene, and
in the days that followed, the search became one of
the largest ever held in the Adirondacks. According to an
article in The New York Times published July thirteenth, nineteen
seventy one, it stayed that hundreds of volunteers, state police,
(03:42):
and forest rangers scoured a ten square mile area around Santinoni,
with helicopters, bloodhounds, and divers enlisted in the search. Adirondack
Life magazine later reported that as many as a thousand
people were involved. At the peak of the search, crawling
through bogs, cutting through dense spruce forests, even draining ponds,
(04:06):
and dragging the bottoms of lakes. They'd even brought in
an elite mountain rescue team from California. The rescuers described
the Adirondack brush as impenetrable. Gary Carter, a young rescue
squad leader from Newcombe who worked the case for forty
straight days, later recalled, we were crawling through swamps on
(04:27):
our hands and knees looking for a sign, anything, but
we never found a thing. Despite the massive search effort,
no clothing, no footprints, no remains whatsoever were ever recovered.
If you've hiked in the Adirondacks, you know how unforgiving
the terrain really is. It's thick spruce and balsam groves,
(04:52):
waiste high blowdown wetlands that pull at your boots. One
searcher told reporters at the time that it was so
dark in the brush that you needed a flashlight in
broad daylight, and the weather didn't help. Rain washed out
scent trails. The bloodhounds track dougies sent to the edge
of a pond, but when the pond was drained, nothing
(05:13):
was found. By the time the official search ended in
August of that year. More than eighty square miles had
been covered, but still no trace of the eight year
old boy. Over the years, the case has attracted theories, rumors,
and false leads, like these things tend to do. In
(05:34):
nineteen ninety three, a woman came forward claiming that a
relative had abducted and murdered Dougie, dumping his body in
a lake in Lewis County. The police drained that lake, too,
but nothing was found. Investigators later determined that the woman
was suffering from psychiatric issues, and that same year, a
Montana man admitted that while hunting near Newcomb Lake twenty
(05:58):
years earlier, he stumbled across what he believed was a
child's skull, but he hadn't reported it at the time.
When police searched the site decades later, they didn't find anything.
Even as recently as twenty twenty, divers with the New
York State Police Underwater Recovery Team found what they thought
might be a skull fragment in Newcomb Lake, but forensic
(06:20):
testing revealed it was non human. Adirondack Life magazine summed
it up best again and again the case hits a
dead end, so what happened to Douglas leg Well. The
most common theory is the simplest, that he wandered off
(06:43):
the path, got lost in the dense forest, and succumbed
to the elements. After all, the Adirondack terrain is unforgiving.
But the hike back was only one hundred and fifty yards,
even a short distance for a young child. How could
that become fatal? How could he get lost? But many
(07:05):
people find that explanation that he simply wandered off to
be too hard to accept. Dougie wasn't miles into the
back country. He was a mere steps from camp. He
was seen by family all along the way, and yet
no trace. Ever, That's why some have speculated about abduction.
(07:27):
But as The New York Times noted at the time,
police found no evidence of foul play, no suspects, and
no witnesses to suggest such a kidnapping. Others, of course,
point to the chaotic nature of the search. Adirondack Life
reported that too many untrained volunteers may have trampled evidence
and contaminated search zones, making it nearly impossible to track signs.
(07:51):
What is certain is that the case highlighted flaws and
wilderness search and rescue at the time, and in its aftermath,
New York State improved ranger training protocols and coordination for
future searches. More than fifty years have passed since that
day in July nineteen seventy one, Dougie leg would be
(08:13):
in his sixties now. His name is still listed on
the New York State Police Missing Persons database and his
case remains open to this day. But the question remains,
how could an eight year old boy vanish within sight
of camp and never be found? Not one trace? A
(08:34):
heartbreaking story in every way, and if you have any
information about the disappearance of Douglas John Legg, you're asked
to contact New York State Police Troop B in Raybrooke
at five eight eight nine seven two thousand. The Adirondacks
are filled with stories both triumph and tragedy and mystery,
(09:01):
and some like this one may never be solved. Next
time on the forty six to forty six podcasts October sessions,
we'll head into the high Peaks for the chilling disappearance
of a teenager near Mount Marcy. Until then, be safe
out there, be prepared, and always respect the mountains. You're
(09:22):
climbing in Hey everyone, it's James. Thanks for listening to
this year's October sessions. Speaking of October, the next Great
Range Athlete team kicks off this month October nineteenth. So
if you've ever felt exhausted halfway through your hike and
run down for days to follow, no matter how much
(09:44):
cardio you do to prepare, it probably means you're training
isn't building the strength and endurance that your body really
needs for the mountains. I've been there, and we're going
to help you fix that. Join the Next Great Range
Athlete program, where we will help you train smarter, get stronger,
and build real trail fitness that lasts. That translates to
your ability to climb mountains, and you'll do it amongst
(10:06):
a group of like minded people. Head over to Great
Range Athlete dot com so you never have to burn
out on your hikes again. Instead, you'll start hiking stronger, longer,
and with way more confidence. The next team kicks off
October nineteenth. Join at Great Range Athlete dot com and
I will see you on the team.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Hey everybody, my name is Andrea and I'm from Sullivan County,
just outside the Catskills area in New York State. I
just finished Great Range Athlete as a member of the
Cascade team. I joined because I had seen some of
James's content on Instagram and I was curious about the program.
I have a background with high school and college athletics.
I continued my fitness journey afterwards, and I discovered I
(10:46):
really loved hiking, so when I saw this program posted,
I want to try it out of curiosity and get
a new experience and try something fresh and new. Overall,
I really enjoyed the experience. I work out in my
garage solo, so it gave me an access to some
different program thing that I hadn't seen before. I thought
the program went well. The workouts and time commitments were reasonable.
(11:08):
You can work at your own ability and comfort level
and pace and adjust it as necessary. On that note,
I pushed myself really hard on the workouts and I
found I was working out harder than I had been
before because of the accountability through the Marco Polo app.
The program focuses a lot on like strength and endurance,
and I've seen improvement in my squat related exercises, so
(11:29):
hopefully that's going to mean some better times on the trails.
Aside from physical gains, I also gained connections and friendships
with other members of my team. We still communicate daily
a Marco Polo to encourage each other towards our workout
goals and our hiking goals and other goals that we
have set for ourselves. My favorite takeaway from this experience
(11:51):
was connecting with like minded hiking friends and having our
daily discussion and interaction regarding working out and hiking. I
completely recommend this program to anyone, whether you're looking for
something fresh and new to try like I did, or
if you're looking for a place to start and connect
with people who also love the outdoors and hiking and
working out. So if you're thinking of giving great Range
(12:12):
athlete to try, definitely go for it.
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