Guess what? This year, 2002, marks a time period of 100 years – a full century since our great little village was given its official status and incorporated. It is a wonderful and major milestone.
Remember, we are one of the youngest in the family of north-country villages. Malone became incorporated in 1863 and Saranac Lake became the first village to be incorporated in the Adirondacks in 1892.
So Happy Birthday, youngster! You are a little spoiled, a little headstrong and often too independent and temperamental. No matter! You can celebrate your birthday with well-earned pride. We love you!
With the editor’s blessing, this column in the coming months will draw on the Free Press files and other sources to present some reminiscences from this village’s history. A modest, anecdotal look at some interesting personalities, some events and other happenings that contributed to sustaining our development and continued settlement and our extraordinary heritage.
In today’s column, we print in its entirety the Old Timer’s Column from the January 1933 edition of this paper. The column was written by “Rufus” (the late Almon Taylor Clark, Jr.), one-time local postmaster and reporter. It was a popular feature of the Free Press during the 1930s. His column follows:
“Do you remember, one year ago, 1932, when they played golf on the Big Wolf links on January 14-15-16? (Note: The nine hole Big Wolf Golf Course was located between the Pitchfork Pond Road and the north shore of Little Wolf Pond, largely the Haymeadow Development today. The Tupper course was not completed until August of 1933.)
“At that time there was no frost in the ground and the grass was bright and fresh on the greens. The players were in their shirtsleeves and said they were too warm for comfort, after they had gone over the 9 hole course once or twice.
“Ice harvesters in this section were frightened over the outlook for a crop, and it was not until late in February and early March, 1932, that ice formed of sufficient thickness to warrant activities by the ‘Ice Man,’ and the old jokes about that personage became so pointed that they began to hurt.
“But the crop developed just the same – late, of course – and the ice was of the finest quality in many years.”
Note: Harvesting and selling ice was a huge business here before the introduction of electric and gas refrigerators to preserve perishables. Two operations that come to mind among others were the Trudeau Bros. on Vachereau Street and the Forkey Bros. concern on downtown’s Cedar Street. Normally the ice was cut when it was 12 to 14 inches thick, and each block would weigh about 300 pounds. It would take two men with ice tongs to lift and load these blocks onto the sleigh or, later, the truck bed. The blocks were stored in icehouses – large double-walled frame buildings – and insulated with sawdust. Softwood sawdust was preferred over hardwood because it has air cells, which is why it floats and hardwood does not.
One icehouse I distinctly remember was the former Alamont Milk Co. Icehouse, located to the rear of what is today Dick Rule’s Marina storage on High Street. It could hold up to 400 or more such blocks. The ice would keep all summer and was a great play spot for the kids of my day.
Another icehouse, but of smaller capacity, was located to the rear of what was the Robert Brown, Sr. home next to the fire station. Both of these icehouses utilized the Tallman Hill rock ledges that parallel High Street as their back wall. Whether this was by design or necessity or both, I don’t know. Most of the large lake “camps” had their own icehouses, usually holding 30 cakes or so and partitioned so that the front section could act as a cooler – meats on one side, vegetables on the other. Filling these icehouses each winter is one more chore present-day caretakers don’t miss.
Residential homes had their own miniature icehouses in the form of a cabinet or box. You can still hear older people refer to the modern refrigerator as the “ice box.” A “flip top” insulated lid opened to a tin-lined compartment with a drain that held a block of ice. A lock-lid insulated door below the ice container opened to a compartment where perishables were stored and kept cool from the ice above. A card placed in the homes’ windows reading “ICE” would indicate to the iceman on his daily rounds that ice was needed. Using an ice pick, the vendor would chip a suitable piece of ice, depending on the size of the ice box, weigh it (you paid by the pound) on a set of spring scales hung from the rear of his truck or wagon and, using ice tongs, would carry the ice and place it in the ice box. We continue Old Timer’s Column:
“And then came the reaction and the famous old slogan was fully verified, ‘What you lose on the banan’ you make up on the peanut.’
“To accentuate that fact, it is recorded that during the first week in June 1932, after the Big Wolf links were in full swing, that players on a certain day were compelled to don their sweaters and Mackinaws and then shivered in a snowstorm that lasted for over a half hour.
“The winter of 1933, insofar as January is concerned, is similar to that of a year ago.
“With the month nearly gone we have no snow to speak of and what few lumbermen are struggling to ‘get in’ moderate sized jobs are sweating ‘drops of blood’ for fear they will not be able to complete their jobs.
“In December of this present winter (1933), unusually low mercury records were made. There were several days when the marks of 25 to 30 degrees below zero were registered in the Tupper Lake sector, while at Sabatis, Upper Saranac Lake, Piercefield and surrounding points, 31 to 41 degrees below zero were recorded.
“The intense cold broke late in December, however, and the Adirondacks saw a ‘Green Christmas’ with plenty of rain and bad weather and much illness due to flu and pneumonia.
“Luckily the flu did not attain alarming propensities and few deaths occurred, unlike the flu scourge of 1918, when more than 60 deaths were recorded in the town and all in a few weeks.
“On January 14, 1932, the mercury stood at 56 degrees above zero and the air was real balmy and summer-like.
“On January 14 of this year (1933) 47 degrees above zero was recorded, the ground was bare and the only great difference from that of last year was the fact that the extreme cold in December had frozen over all the lakes and ponds in this section of the mountains and the ice is apparently here to stay – a joyous outlook for ice harvesters as the crop is clear as crystal, free from snow and of best quality.
“John D’Avignon, hardwood lumberman for the O.W.D Corp., and William Smith, who has a 2,000 cord pulp contract, both on the Meacham Lake area, are suffering from the lack of snow. The O.W.D. plant has been obliged to curb operations to some extent although a fairly good supply of hardwood logs is being brought to the mills by powerful motor trucks over the Malone-Tupper Lake highway from Meacham Lake.
“’There is no great loss without some gain,’ is an old and trite saying and the mild weather is materially aiding the large force of laborers now employed in clearing old stumps, sunken logs and other debris from Racket Pond. This work was made possible through the activities of Supervisor John H. Black and Franklin County Relief Committeeman Frank R. Seigel.
“It has proved a boon to scores of unemployed and will eventually create one of the largest inland bodies of water for navigation for large motor craft, when Big Tupper Lake, Big Simon Pond and Racket Pond are united in one continuous body of water with over 50 miles of shore line.”