There is little doubt the year 2006 will go down in the annals of this community as the year of the Wild Center.
As thousands of visitors arrived here to visit the Natural History Museum (over 52,000 at this writing), a frequent question directed to museum staff and volunteers is in reference to the large, sprawling complex of white buildings off Routes 3 and 30 we call Sunmount. It may be worthwhile to provide some historical background to those questions in today’s column. After all, it has been 82 years since the formal opening of that institution.
At a cost of $4 million (1920), the facility was built as a federal hospital for ailing WWI veterans, may of them suffering from tuberculosis or mustard gas poisoning. In government-speak, it was referred to as U.S. Veterans Bureau No. 96, and in my youth, simply the Federal Hospital.
It has been 41 years since that hospital became a victim of governmental phase-out as new drugs reduced the need for institutionalized care for tuberculosis – an announcement that sent shockwaves throughout the community – resulting in a valiant effort for “Save Sunmount,” and an eventual transfer to New York State to be operated as the Sunmount Development Center. The point is, many younger and/or recent residents may not realize some of the history of this very important place.
The background can begin with the knowledge that there wasn’t always a clearing there. Until 1850, it was a primitive forest of stately virgin white pine – monarchs of the wild, towering over 200 feet or more, certainly one of the more noble sights to greet our early settlers as they came down the Racquette River.
The first lumbering of those pines was done in 1870 by Sisson and Greenbar. Sisson later became associated with the A. Sherman Lumber Company of Potsdam and the Racquette River Paper Company, a prominent firm with many logging and sawmill projects here. Many of the homes and cottages along Lake Simond today are on land originally purchased from A. Sherman Company, whose holdings at one time encompassed 90,000 acres – all of it adjacent to the Racquette River.
After the land now occupied by Sunmount was partially cleared, Simeon Moody, an early pioneer, lived there for a short time before he moved to the land on Stetson Road, later to become gentleman farmer Mark Barry’s Pioneer Place – today the Richer farm.
The next tenant was Samuel Moriarity and his sons, William and George, who occupied the tract for several years. Sam Moriarity drowned in 1883 at Bartlett’s Carry near Upper Saranac Lake.
Many years ago, his name was immortalized by the naming of a small glacial pond, known as Murati, a corruption of Moriarity. It is located just off the Deer Pond Trail one mile from that trail’s beginning, which starts from Old Wawbeek Road below Sunmount near the John Mann property. Unfortunately, a recent guide to Adirondack Trails (Northern Edition) incorrectly called that pond Mosquito, confusing it with another pond nearby which correctly bears that name. As town historian, I have requested that it be corrected in deference to one of our early and notable pioneers, whose name deserves historical permanence.
Clearing of the property continued under Luke Usher and John Snell, who had a headquarters on what later became the LeBoeuf Farm on Stetson Road. Around 1892, Daniel Hayes purchased the land, and for many years, the property was referred to as the “Hayes Farm.” At this time, a portion of the land was cleared of stumps and boulders. Large quantities of hay, grain and vegetables were raised and many horses and cows grazed the fertile fields. It became a wonderful farm. After the fall harvest, Lacrosse matches, often with noted teams from Canada, were held. Wild West shows and circuses sought the level acreage fronting Wawbeek Road as an ideal location.
Mr. Hayes sold his farm to the Norwood Manufacturing Company, which was operating the “Big Mill” on Racquette Pond and doing extensive lumbering in the area. It provided an ideal place in the summer off-season for grazing the many horses used in their lumbering operations. The barns were used to shelter the horses and store the hay that would later be distributed to the many lumbering camps once wintering operations were resumed. Norwood Manufacturing sold out its local interests to the Santa Clara Lumbering Company in 1913, and Albert Hosley, a member of the Norwood firm, purchased the farm. For years, Mr. Hosley operated one of the finest dairy farms in this section.
On July 4, 1919, a large celebration to welcome the returning veterans of WWI was held at the Hosley Farm. The big event of the day was the first landing by a plane in the Tupper area. The U.S. Army cooperated in the welcome-home celebration by sending a Handley Paige plane, which Lt. Melville flew up from Hazelhurst field on Long Island.
Mr. Hosley became a moving force in the organization of the Altamont Milk Company, a venture by local farmers to market their milk production. This company became a highly successful business with milk and ice cream plants at Dickinson Center, Carthage (which supplied Camp Drum), Potsdam and Plattsburgh. Mr. Hosley called his farm OSSCO, an Indian name meaning “beautiful view.”
In the next Transitions, we will follow how that 160-acre farm became the site of Hospital No. 96 and was the biggest single construction project in Franklin County history.