I received a letter this week from my former neighbor and good friend Dave LaVoie. Readers will remember Dave as a long-time, popular manager of the A&P grocery store here before he took a career change to become an auditor for a large grocery store chain in the Syracuse area. He presently lives in that area in blissful retirement with his wife, Laura (Snooky Tarbox).
Dave grew up on the shore of Racquette Pond and raised his own family in the house where he was born, a stones-throw from the pond’s waters. Few people knew the surrounding waters as well as Dave. I remember that each spring the DEC would enlist his help in placing the buoys to mark the perplexing route of the “channel” where the river entered the Racquette Pond. A mention of high water annually flooding Demars Blvd. in this column prompted Dave to write that almost every year, high water accompanied by west winds would wipe out the municipal dock located at the end of Wawbeek Ave. next to his house. When the waters finally receded, the town would simply rebuild the dock, which they did for many years. In later years, the Setting Pole Dam level was mandated, according to Dave, at 1,544 feet, and they no longer had to rebuild the dock every spring.
Dave noted in his letter that “veterans (with their sputum cups) from the VA hospital liked to sit on the dock in the summertime. There were wonderful sunsets and a good view of the Pond; many local people would visit the dock also, and I especially remember that the nuns from Holy Ghost Academy’s convent (now Smith’s apartment building) would walk most evenings and sit there for a short time as a break in their disciplined lives.”
Dave remembered “that the dock was lighted at night by exquisite
hurricane-type lamps at each corner, and had an opening where there
was no railing in the middle for getting in and out of the boats. It
also had a slip on the side, where camp owners could tie up while they
did their grocery shopping in the village.”
Dave concluded his letter by suggesting that the dock and the boat traffic
that utilized it might be of historical interest. He is right about that
because even before Dave’s childhood memories of the dock, which was
known as the Owen Dock in the earliest writings about this area, was
a busy place. Roads were few and unimproved in those days, and people
traveled largely by boat to an extent that must be incomprehensible in
today’s fast-paced transportation mode.
Large stream yachts capable of holding as many as 30 passengers made daily trips from Owen’s to Bog River Falls and to Sweeney’s Carry (Oliver Trombley’s Landing) on the Racquette River.
One of the most active steamship operators was a gent named Pliny Robbins. For many years before, it was owned by William Whitney and lumberman Patrick C. Moynehan (1896 - 1898) and, later after the first lumbering was completed, owned solely by Whitney (1914). Pliny and his wife, Anne, ran the Hamilton House on Little Tupper Lake. Patrons entering Little Tupper from Round Pond would row a mile or more up the lake to Pliny’s – nearby today’s private inholding called Camp Francis (a parcel excerpted from the state’s acquisition of Little Tupper).
We are told that Pliny was a nickname, his real name being Prince Albert. In 1889, he purchased Mart Moody’s Mount Morris House at the foot of Big Tupper Lake (Peter Day property), enlarged it to accommodate 50 guests and renamed it the Prince Albert Hotel.
Those passenger launches must have been “the best thing since sliced bread” to the many travelers visiting this region. Not only did they provide cushioned comfort to bodies wracked by stagecoach rides over unforgiving pock-filled carriage roads and hours cramped in the unforgiving seats of a guide boat, but also they would have drastically cut the time necessary to reach various destinations. Certainly to local guides like John Hinkson, one of whose assignment while employed by Uncle Mart Moody was to carry the outgoing mail to Saranac Lake and bring back the incoming mail – a 54-mile row in his guide boat, the introduction of those beautiful steamers must have been providential.
Indeed, in later years Mr. Hinkson himself operated the 42-ft “Little Forester,” which “Lish” McCure ran on schedule to carry guests from Trombley’s landing to his hotel at the head of Big Tupper Lake. (Tupper Lake House, where the former women’s infirmary at the American Legion Camp now stands.)
It should be pointed out that not all of the guides were pleased with the passenger launches.
Rowing patrons between the various carrys and to the hotel on the lakes represented a large part of their livelihood, and they were threatened by the success of the fast and comfortable steam boats. The guides at Long Lake were especially vexed (they didn’t call that community Kickerville and Gougeville without good reason) the steamer named Buttercup working in connection with steamers like the “Killoquah” from Racquette and another on Forked Lakes, and stagecoaches from Blue Mountain Lake, was heavily impacting their businesses. The Buttercup’s scheduled run was from Deerland all the way to Racquette Falls. A dam had been built just before the falls on the river to allow navigation, and this was another source on consternation because the dam not only allowed the Buttercup access to the river, but it also flooded the shoreline and the beaches along the lake.
Anyway, one night in 1882 in a series of moves that would make today’s eco-terrorists proud, the Buttercup disappeared, and despite being guarded day and night, the dam was blown up (a bullet drilled into the guard’s campfire as he sat on watch gave fair warning). As that worthy guard headed for the clearing where the DEC interior station is now located at the end of the carry, the surroundings were rocked by a tremendous explosion and the dam disappeared into history.
It would be 10 years before another passenger launch would appear on Long Lake’s waters.
Note: Many years later, the New York State Water Supply Commission, while studying the Racquette River at the outlet of Long Lake for power development, noted “the ruins of an old dam, with crest of elevation at 1,630 feet, are still in evidence, but the lake is not controlled in any way.”
It proposed a dam not far from the old dam, which would include the entire basin at Cold River (120 square miles) in the watershed tributary. It further noted that the villages of Long Lake and Grove (?), being mostly situated 50 to 60 feet above present (1,630 feet) lake level, would be beyond possibility of damage by any reasonable reservoir proposition. The dam would have raised the water level five feet, and the land to be flooded “is largely controlled by private owners and houses and camps, singly and in small groups, are of frequent occurrence on the shores of the lake.” Apparently the project was a little ahead of its time and “died a borning.”
Mrs. Howard Seaman, former Long Lake historian, has written a wonderful account of the Buttercup episode, including its eventual recovery in 18 feet of water with a hole in its superstructure (found by scuba divers George Boudreau and Franklin McIntyre in September of 1959) 77 years after it was sabotaged.