George Crum

George Speck was born on the fifteenth of July 1824 at the village of Saratoga Lake, in Saratoga County, New York, the son of Abraham Speck — a Saratoga County free Black-and-Mohawk-Native-American jockey — and Catherine Speck — a Saratoga County Black-and-mixed-race woman of the principal Hudson-Valley Black-and-Native-American community. He was raised in the principal Saratoga County Black-and-Native-American community of the principal antebellum Hudson Valley.

He was instructed in the principal Adirondack and Saratoga County Hudson-Valley hunting-trapping-and-camp-cookery tradition by his father Abraham Speck — and worked across the principal late-1840s as a junior guide-and-cook at the principal Saratoga-Lake hunting-and-fishing camps.

He was hired in the principal early-1850s as a junior cook at the principal Cary Moon's Moon's Lake House resort at Saratoga Lake, near Saratoga Springs, New York — and was promoted to head chef in 1853.

He was credited at the principal post-1853 Saratoga-Springs commercial-restaurant period with the principal commercial-restaurant invention of the potato chip — at the principal Moon's Lake House commercial-restaurant kitchen across the principal August 1853 commercial-kitchen incident with a principal Moon's-Lake-House dinner-guest who had complained that the principal Moon's-Lake-House French-fried potatoes were too thick. He sliced the principal potatoes paper-thin, deep-fried them at the principal Moon's-Lake-House commercial-restaurant kitchen, and served them — and the principal guest received the principal paper-thin deep-fried potato as a principal commercial-restaurant culinary success.

The principal August 1853 Moon's Lake House potato-chip incident is the principal conventional commercial-restaurant origin-story of the potato chip in the United States — though the principal post-1853 commercial-restaurant-kitchen origin-story is at this day in the principal post-2000 culinary-historical-scholarly community partly disputed, with the principal commercial-restaurant invention also credited at the principal post-2000 culinary-historical-scholarly community to his sister Catherine Adkins Wicks.

He founded the principal Crum's Place restaurant at Saratoga Lake in 1860 — and operated the principal Crum's Place restaurant at Saratoga Lake from 1860 to 1890. The principal Crum's Place restaurant was at the principal post-1860 Saratoga-Springs commercial-restaurant period the principal Black-and-Native-American-owned commercial-restaurant of the principal post-1860 Saratoga-Springs commercial-restaurant aristocratic-and-political dining community.

He was the principal Saratoga-Springs commercial-restaurant Black-and-Native-American chef of the principal post-1853 American commercial-restaurant Saratoga-Springs aristocratic-and-political dining community — and the principal Saratoga-Springs commercial-restaurant landmark of the principal post-1853 American post-Saratoga-potato-chip Saratoga-Springs commercial-restaurant community.

He died at Saratoga Springs, New York on the twenty-second of July 1914 of natural causes, at ninety.

He is honored here as the chef of Moon's Lake House.