"Be it known to all people that Sunday Rock is a glacial boulder of towering form… . And it is called Sunday Rock because in days of old when Northern New York was a frontier with Frontier as a name for hotels and banks, when everybody had wild nature for a neighbor and there was no law for deer nor any for trout and all of the woods were one grand hunting ground, in those good old times it was said that beyond this rock there was no Sunday… . It was all one glorious holiday when Tuesday night [could] just as well have been Saturday and Thursday and Wednesday could change places and Friday might begin the week for all anybody knew."

The story behind how Sunday Rock got its name isn’t completely clear. This version, colorfully recounted by Dr. Charles H. Leete, appeared in the September 11, 1925 edition of the Potsdam Herald-Recorder and was reprinted in Sunday Rock: Its History and the Story of Its Preservation, which is viewable in the archives.