Evers was born in the Bronx neighborhood of Williamsbridge and lived there till the age of nine, when his parents moved to a farm near Tillson.
He developed a passion for history from the many stories of the farmhands, the work of British naturalist Gilbert White and collecting Native American arrowheads with one of his high school teachers in New Paltz.
He attended Hamilton College and, after graduation, returned to the city and the Art Students League, where he met his wife, illustrator Helen Baker.
Extensive research went into covering every aspect of a long and tangled story, with special attention paid to the folklore that Evers had first heard from inhabitants of the region as a boy.
His home in Shady, New York, which served as a Catskills museum, library, and archive, has been listed on the State Registry of Historic Places.