In the previous Transition column, we wrote of the waterway route via the Saranac’s and the Racquette River that was followed by early travelers to access Tupper Lake. It will be recalled that due to only very primitive wood roads, most traffic in and out of this region moved by boat during the wilderness years.
In the winter months, with the waterway’s ice locked and often treacherous — particularly in the early spring and late fall, the few settlers here were isolated for weeks at a time. In a 1941 interview with the Ausable Forks Record Post, Tom Peacock, who was at the time, an 89-year-old Saranac Lake guide, told how as a youngster he would accompany his father, who had a contract to supply food and supplies to lumber camps at Big and Little Wolf Ponds. These camps were probably run by a Maine lumberman named Pomeroy, whose company was the first on record (1850) to begin logging the virgin pine in this area. Pomeroy had a small sawmill located on the outlet of Big Wolf Lake, then known as Lake Kitteridge. (Little Wolf was then known as Lake Pomeroy.) The mill was of an ancient English upright pattern, and it was not far from the present Bob Tebo house at the dead end of South Little Wolf Rd.
Excerpts from that interview follow: “They would load hay onto lumber sleds in the evening. Next morning, rising hours before daybreak in the dead of winter, they would put 25 to 30 bushels of potatoes and two or three quarts of beef on the hay. The start was made about half past two or three, but Tom can remember driving through Saranac Lake as early as 3 a.m. They planned to get onto the Lower Lake by daylight. Here were two sleds so the teams could double up if they struck heavy going.
“The route was through the Lower Lake with the turn off to right up the side of the river and then out onto Middle Saranac or Round Lake, as it was called locally. Crossing the ice on this lake, they took to the woods to the left of the river. Crossing the bridge at Bartlett’s, they came out on the upper lake above the dam, where, according to Tom, the ice was sometimes poor. Out on Upper Saranac, they went straight across past Deer Island and into the woods at Johnson’s Clearing. The country was now level, and for a stretch the crude winter road was in sight of Racquette River. The sleds would usually arrive in camp about 9 a.m. to be greeted by lumberjacks with great enthusiasm. They not only carried food for man and beast, but also brought the mail. Mr. Peacock remarked that in those days, mail was carried through the woods by Tom, Dick and Harry.”
Accompanying this week’s article is a rare map that shows some of the route Tom Peacock’s father no doubt followed. The map was drawn by Edwin Merritt, well known in the Potsdam area at that time as a surveyor and civil engineer.
“These maps,” Merritt wrote in a foreword, dated May 1, 1860, East Pierpont, St. Lawrence County, N.Y., “have been constructed from materials obtained from the most reliable sources. I have visited personally nearly every portion of the territory they cover and made actual surveys of most of the country in the vicinity of Racket River, north of Tupper Lake.”
Merritt laid out his map in an unusual basis. North, instead of being at the top, as is customary, is toward the left-hand corner, as the cartographer’s arrow near the word “MAP” indicates. This was apparently done to get as much of the river as possible onto the map. Part of the terrain mapped at lower left now lies beneath the water of Carry Lake. Homes of the pioneers along the river are indicated on the map at McEwen's, Hawes' and John Ferry. (Jane Anabella Hawes married this writer’s great grandfather, Ezra Frenette, in 1859. Funding for a snowmobile bridge has been confirmed, which will cross the “Racket” near the former Hawes property. Ferry and McEwen family members still live prominently not far from their ancestors’ original settlements.)
Landmarks for the boaters were Jamestown Falls, Moosehead still water near Seveys and Downey’s Landing, where a road spanned the river in later years, extending from the vicinity of Pitchfork Pond to the old Childwold Park Hotel (Massaweppi).
Try to trace “Cranes Road,” the faint dotted line, that skirted the Racquette River, crossed at Downey’s Landing, went east to the outlet of Little Wolf Lake and swung south past “Pomeroy’s Farm.” The lone building marked on the shore of Racquette Pond was the only structure within what is now the village limits of Tupper Lake when Merritt mapped the area in 1860. Crane’s Road apparently ended at Stetson’s on the Racquette River. Notice that just before the road ends at Stetson’s, an interesting road near Pomeroy’s Farm leads east to Saranac Lake along the river. Doesn’t it seem likely that this would have been part of the route that Peacock used in supplying the lumber camps?
This road apparently led to Wawbeek and followed along the river. Signs of an old road still lie above the boat launch on Route 30 (Crusher) where Cross Clearing Brooks enters the river. Since Mr. Peacock said that they intersected the woods past Deer Island, it is possible many skiers and hikers use that same route that starts at Bull Point, Route 30, and intersects the Deer Pond trail, coming out at Cross Clearing brook, Route 30, below the Y.
Notice on the map that the Colton Long Lake road runs between Black Pond and north of Horseshoe Pond. Route 421 now parallels this old road but lies south of Horseshoe Pond. As part of the Adopt a Resource Program, this writer maintains the trail to Black Pond from Route 421, but no trace of the old Colton Long Lake road as been discovered.
The road crossed Dead Creek to about where Tony Gensel’s Center Pond Camp is located on No-Miss Club lands (headwaters Grasse River). It crossed the Grasse River and thence to the Racquette, which it paralleled Colton.