USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 16
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After the sawmill ceased to be operated C. H. Elliott, now at Faust, conducted a plant at Derrick for two years for the manufacture of wood mangle rolls, turning out a product of three carloads a week - all of which was shipped abroad. The A. Sherman Lumber Company has recently maintained logging camps in the vicinity. When the Oval Wood Dish Company gets into full swing with its plant at Tupper Lake and with its logging camps, Derrick is expected to recover some of its former life and activity.
Moody is the only point in Altamont other than Derrick, Tupper Lake and Tupper Lake Junction that even approaches the character of a hamlet. It lies near the foot of Big Tupper Lake, on the Raquette river, three miles up from Tupper Lake village, is accessible by small steamers that ply the river and lake, and comprises a settlement of a dozen or fifteen families, a school, a church, a number of summer camps, and two hotels. One of the latter was an early sportsmen's resort, and, as previously noted, Mart. Moody, its proprietor, had an unique reputation as a raconteur of fanciful imaginary experiences with game, capable of qualifying under competitive tests with any of the older guides as a picturesque and entertaining liar. The church here, if not built by Colonel William H. Barbour of New York city, famed as the thread manufacturer and as an apostle of the benefits of the policy of a protective tariff, is at least supported by him. He has a summer camp on the western shore of the lake, in St. Lawrence county .* The church has a regular pastor, but has no denominational affiliations or connections - notwithstanding which, however, it must not be classed with the church officer who, as told by Booker Washington, when seeking to quiet the emotional manifestations of a negro auntie
* Colonel Barbour died suddenly in New York in March, 1917, leaving a fortune of many millions. His camp and park on Tupper Lake embraced about twenty thousand acres, and the buildings cost probably close to two hundred thousand dollars. In April, 1918, the State purchased thirteen thousand one hundred and ninety acres of the Barbour park, or practically all of it except the buildings and the farm. The price paid was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is considerably less than it cost Colonel Barbour.
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during a service, retorted to her explanation or excuse that she was " under the power," " Madame, this is no place to get religion." The key to the life at Moody is of course its location as a good sporting center and the business and employment based upon its neighboring summer camps of wealthy visitors.
Altamont includes a number of summer camps and private parks owned by wealthy nonresidents, among which are those of H. M. Levy, the Kildare Club, J. V. Sheppey, Martin Sheppey, Wm. L. Ketcham, William A. Read, Charles Wheeler, B. L. Amerman and Edward H. Litchfield. The Kildare Club is composed of eminent and wealthy Jews, has a fine club house and owns seventeen or eighteen thousand acres of forest in the western part of the town.
The Litchfield park, established in 1893, lies in the southwest corner of Franklin county, and comprised originally nine thousand acres laid out in rectangular form -to which six thousand acres, including Mount Morris, have since been added. It contains three lakes and two ponds. Mr. Litchfield, the owner, formerly a lawyer, but now retired from active pursuits, has been devoted all of his life to nature and the wilderness. His Adirondack attachment dates from 1866, when he began camping out and hunting in the region - continuing the practice for about ten years, when with the disappearance of the wolves and catamounts the woods here seemed to him no longer really wild, and he transferred his activities as a sportsman to the Rocky Mountains, though he had visited Europe even earlier for shooting. In subsequent years he has hunted in Asia and Africa, where he secured many trophies, as the contents of the great hall of the chateau in Litchfield park bear abundant witness. In establishing his park Mr. Litchfield intended to breed wild game under natural conditions, and, after erect- ing a wire fence eight feet high to inclose the entire tract, stocked it with large numbers of moose, elk, deer, wild bear, beaver, hares, etc., besides pheasants, black-game, capercailzie and other varieties of birds. But unfortunately breaks in the fence caused by falling trees, the severity of the climate and depredations by poachers combined to defeat his plan in considerable degree, and now the moose have entirely disappeared, and the elk and deer largely so. The beaver remain, how- ever, and are doing well. Mr. Litchfield's efforts in this regard deserve commendation, and should be employed by park owners generally in the hope of better success, now that the game laws are more thoroughly enforced and a more salutary sentiment prevails against poaching. The
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general practice in the past has been simply to kill, and those who frequent the wilds and love them owe it to the future to do something toward repairing the depletion that destructive energies have wrought. Alluring in itself, the great wilderness has added charm where wild life is abundant.
Besides the features already noted, the work by Mr. Litchfield includes the construction of roads and the erection of buildings on a scale that has not been duplicated, so far as I know, on any property in the Adirondacks. In addition to having built a road to his park gates from Moody (now taken over as a public highway), and joining with his neighbor, Wm. A. Read, in tying the latter's park with his own by a drive three miles in length, he has constructed over fifteen miles of drives through his own grounds. His residential property consists of a chateau, finished in 1903, and built of stone, steel and concrete, on the shore of Lake Madeleine (formerly known as Jenkins Pond. but renamed for Mrs. Litchfield). This water is irregular in shape, and its winding shores and islands, all densely wooded and unscarred by fire, make it one of the handsomest lakes in the Adirondacks. The floors of the chateau are of tile and marble, and the entire structure, including the roof, is as nearly fireproof as it was practicable to make it. Wherever wood trim had to be used it is merely a sheathing over steel beams or massive masonry, the least thickness of wall being three feet, and the greatest nearly six feet. The finish is in mahogany except in two or three rooms, and the furniture the same, much of it being inlaid or beautifully carved. The living rooms are many, and both in winter and summer are occupied frequently by guests. The chateau is of the French medieval type of architecture, and is as imposing as an old-world castle. It has two great towers, each three stories in height, and the land front is 146 feet long, with an arcade extending along about one-half of the building, which is two stories in height. On the lake side there are three terraces stepping down to the water edge. Besides the living rooms, there are a library two stories high in one of the towers, containing 4,000 volumes of English, French and Italian literature ; a great hall 30 feet wide by 30 feet high and 65 feet long, hung along the walls with the heads of 160 wild animals, all of them sporting trophies of Mr. Litchfield or his son, from all quarters of the world. They include lions, rhinoceros, a giraffe, and, indeed, almost every species of game or predacious animal except leopards, tigers, elephants and buffalo. A number of grizzly bear skins
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serve as rugs. Two suits of ancient armor stand at the entrance. At one end of this hall is a great fireplace with an antique black-marble mantel of the time of Henry II fifteen feet high with a six-feet opening, which was brought from France, and over which is superb filigree work in gilt. There are in other rooms a large number of antique fireplaces, all brought from old chateaux or castles in England or France, and the collection of which extended over a period of several years preceding the erection of the building. All of the corridors are decorated with deer or stag horns, mostly foreign. There is also an art gallery con- taining many fine paintings, some of which are by old masters. The chateau is lighted throughout by electricity and heated by steam, and has every convenience to make it not merely a comfortable but a luxuri- ous home, either for summer or winter occupancy. There are a boat- house, garage and stable, each of stone, corresponding in type of archi- tecture to that of the chateau. Three quarries were developed within the park in order to obtain the necessary varieties and colorings of stone to give harmonious and impressive effect to the chateau walls.
Tupper Lake village is divided into two parts, viz., Tupper Lake and Faust, which is the post-office designation, or Tupper Lake Junction in the railroad nomenclature. The corporation's boundaries extend more than two miles from north to south, and, of course, include a good deal of vacant land between the two sections of the village. Though the census of 1915 shows a population of 3,910 in the village, a critical examination of the enumerators' original returns discloses that one of them includes as residents within the corporation several hundred per- sons whose homes are in fact outside of the village boundaries. Thus the figures overstate the actual population by nearly a half. It is esti- mated that perhaps a third of the village inhabitants are at the point called Faust, and the remainder in the section known as Tupper Lake. The altitude here is 1,540 feet above sea level, but, as is the habit in most Adirondack villages, the residents are wont to call it more. The village derived its name from the lake, which is three miles distant, and which was named in compliment to Tupper, the surveyor, who, with Mr. Mitchell, established the outlines of the Macomb pur- chase a little earlier than 1800, and who almost perished of starvation in making his exit from the wilderness.
Tupper Lake is distinctively a business and manufacturing point, and has expended little or no effort to attract visitors or residents in search of health, though its natural advantages as a sanatorium would
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appear not to differ appreciably from those of Saranae Lake. But sentiment is rather averse to investing the place with the character of a center for tuberculous people, though in 1910 Rebecca LaFountain, Lena S. McLane and Dr. Chas. Ryttenberg incorporated the Tupper Lake Sanatorium, capitalized at $25,000, erected a building for the care of patients, and for a time had a business that indicated that with due effort and attention an institution of considerable proportions might have been developed. Two physicians were employed, but upon the death of one of them and the removal of the other from the town the enterprise was abandoned.
As indicated earlier in this chapter, the settlement of Tupper Lake upon the extension of the railroad there in 1889 and in the years immediately following consisted in larger part of rude and ignorant classes ; common laborers who were attracted by assurance of steady employment at good wages, and an attendant sprinkling of men who saw in the then prevailing conditions opportunity for profitable mer- chandising and other commercial undertakings. The buildings origi- nally erected corresponded with the general character of the population, and the place was a typical frontier hamlet, little restrained by law and caring less for the comforts, luxuries and refinements of maturer com- munities - all of which has changed vastly within fifteen or eighteen years. Still, the people are more mixed than in any other village in the county, and include many differing elements and many racial extrac- tions - the native American, the Irish and the French predominating, with perhaps a five per cent. representation of Jews.
The real modernization of Tupper Lake began with, or, rather, fol- lowed closely, the great fire of July 30, 1899, when property estimated to have a value of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more was destroyed, and practically the entire business section of the upper vil- lage left in ruins. One hundred and sixty-nine buildings, two-thirds of which were dwellings, were wiped out; and so severe was the loss that momentarily there was talk of abandoning the site utterly, and concentrating all that it had been at Faust. But that counsel of paralysis and despair commanded no serious consideration after recovery from the first shock of the calamity, and almost at once a spirit of pluck and enterprise asserted itself, which in due course made the place far more substantial, more attractive and larger and thriftier than could have been thought possible in its younger life - winning for it on the part of its people the proud characterization of
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the " Tiptop town of the Adirondacks," which signifies their confident belief that it is destined to become the most prosperous and the most populous municipality in Franklin county. While some of the con- ditions may be taken as warranting that expectation, those who hold it and hope to see it realized must yet not overlook the fact that dis- appointment is certain to be experienced if those who are exploiting the natural resources of the region continue to disregard the necessity for reforestation. Unless this policy be instituted and practiced, the place can not fail eventually to go to decay and practical abandonment.
The installation of a gravity water-works system was undertaken in 1899 as an individual enterprise, a company for the work having been incorporated by home business men, who afterward sold to the late Colonel Barbour. The source of supply is a spring pond up on the hills three or four miles distant, at an elevation of over two hundred feet -thus affording a pressure adequate for fire protection. Its present capital is $50,000, and of an authorized issue of $150,000 trust mortgage bonds $87,500 are outstanding. The mains of the system radiate through all parts of the upper village, as well as through the streets of Faust, and leave no occasion for maintaining fire apparatus other than hose and carts. The fire department, therefore, consists of three hose companies of thirty members each, and local opinion deems these organizations admirable and efficient.
A municipal electric lighting plant, with steam power, was built in 1903 at a cost of $16,500, to which extensions and further equipment have added about $9,000. It gives a twenty-four hours' service at rates which are claimed to be as low as those of any other place in the State, and considerably lower than most. (They are less than two-thirds of those prevalent in Malone.) All payments for the retirement of bonds and for interest charges have been made thus far from the proceeds of a direct village tax instead of from earnings, but, on the other hand, there has been no tax for street lighting. When the plant was run with waste from the mills for fuel it is said that the revenue was sufficient to cover current expenses, but when coal had to be used almost exclu- sively there was an annual deficit. The annual cost of operation and upkeep is about $14,500.
The village employs one uniformed paid policeman, and spends altogether for police service about $3,000 a year.
Other village expenses include about $6,000 for street work and an equal amount for bond and interest payments. The total expenses run to about $35,500 per annum.
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Always excepting William McLaughlin's residence, at which he was long accustomed to entertain the sportsmen who occasionally found their way in early times to the locality, the first hotel at Tupper Lake, in 1890, was the Altamont, built by J. H. and Thomas L. Weir, unless possibly John Hurd's American House, with Nelson Parks as manager, may have preceded it, and unless also the boarding house of Joseph Demars, erected in 1889 near the Hurd mill, be classed as an inn. The latter was in fact the first place opened in the locality for the accom- modation of the public, though mostly it served workmen employed on the railroad, in the lumber camps and in the mills. Kenneth Kinnear also had an early hotel. Since these pioneer days hotels, so-called, have multiplied surprisingly, and the liquor tax records of the county treasurer make their number in 1917 no less than eighteen, though not more than three or four of them do a genuinely commercial business. The others are in fact boarding houses, claiming to be hotels only in order that they may as such exercise the privilege of selling liquor. There were in 1917 eleven other places in the town - saloons, stores, etc .- which held liquor tax receipts, making the whole number one to every one hundred and thirty-odd of the population.
The village has three school houses, one of which is in the section called Faust. The high school building cost, including furnishings, not far from $40,000, and six teachers arc employed in it. Work of an academic grade is done here. In the entire town, which is all combined in a single school district, there are seven public school buildings, with twenty-nine teachers.
Tupper Lake has also a parochial school, supported by the Church of St. Alphonsus, at which between four hundred and five hundred pupils are enrolled. The teachers in it number nine, and are Sisters of the order of the Holy Ghost, exiled a few years ago from France. The building is a substantial two-story brick structure, adjacent to the church, and was erected in 1903 under the pastorate of Rev. Father Constantineau.
The banking facilities have been adequate and satisfactory for over ten years past, but prior to the organization of the present insti- tution gave trouble and caused hardship. The firm of A. C. Wilcox & Co., private bankers of New York city, had one of their numerous branch offices at Tupper Lake when they suspended in May, 1905. They were under no governmental supervision, and had no reliability or responsibility beyond that afforded by their personal resources -
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which proved not to be large. The amount of deposits held by this branch when the break came was about twelve thousand dollars, a con- siderable proportion of which represented the savings of poor and hard- working men and women, and in some cases the little all of depositors who were carrying their small accumulations in the branch for safe keeping until they should be large enough to make a payment on a home. Six months later men of the village who commanded public confidence took steps to organize a real bank, paid in $25,000 of actual money as capital, obtained a charter under the national banking act, and in June, 1906, opened for business an institution which has been of substantial benefit and helpfulness to the business interests of the town and of profit to the stockholders. The first board of directors was composed of the following: Ira B. Hosley, Dr. J. A. Thissell, James L. Jacobs, Wm. J. Dievendorf, P. H. McCarthy, U. S. Scott, Barnett Propp, B. Seigel and Henry H. Day. The bank began business with Mr. Scott as president and Frank D. Barry of Malone as cashier - the latter giving place after a few months to Charles E. Knox, who has held the position continuously. to the present time, and to whose serv- iees the bank is indebted in no small measure for its pronounced sue- cess. Mr. Jacobs is the present president, and until his entrance into the army Clarence S. Potvin was the assistant cashier. The capital has not been increased, but a surplus of nearly $25,000 has been built up, deposits have grown to a total of nearly a half million, and total assets exceed $600,000. In 1913 one of the handsomest small banking houses in Northern New York was erected at a central point, and is carried in resources at a value of $18,174. New names in the directorate, due to the death or retirement for other causes of Messrs. Hosley, Dieven- dorf, Scott, Thissell, Propp and Day are Albert S. Hosley, Mr. Knox, D. J. Hayes, R. J. Hosley, L. C. Maid, Ralph Hastings, J. Howard Brown and Leon P. Demars.
The Church of St. Alphonsus (Roman Catholic), incorporated in 1890, was the first to be formed in Altamont. The parish originally included Faust. Rev. D. J. Halde was the first pastor, himself building a log cabin for a parsonage, but occupied that relation for only a short time, as he died from exposure and arduous work. He was succeeded by Rev. Michael W. Holland, who served for ten years, and under whose ministration the church edifice was erected in 1891. It was enlarged in 1903, and is capacious and attractive. It represents a cost of about thirty-five thousand dollars. The society is by far the
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strongest and largest religious body in Altamont, and counts nearly five hundred families in its membership.
In 1904 Rev. Father Constantineau, the then rector, ceded the terri- tory known as Faust in favor of a new and separate parish, and Rev. Father Alexander A. Klauder founded under such cession the Church of the Holy Name, drew the plans and began the erection of a church edifice, which was seven years in reaching completion, and, including the furnishings, stands for an expenditure of about thirty thousand dollars. Before the building of the church was undertaken services were held in Firemen's Hall. The society has a membership of two hundred families. Father Klauder remained pastor for five years, when differences between him and some of the members led to his dis- placement. It is not my province to enter at all into the particulars or even to touch upon the merits of this local quarrel, or the breach to which it led between Father Klauder and the higher dignitaries of the Church, and it must suffice to state that the feeling became exceedingly bitter, that Father Klauder was forcibly prevented by his former parishioners from even entering the church to attend a service con- ducted by his successor, that during his absence his household effects were thrown from the rectory into the street, and that subsequently the trouble broadened and was intensified by other factors until Father Klauder was committed to a hospital as insane, and has since been unfrocked. In turn he has sued the bishop and vicar-general for per- sonal damages, and in a publication issued by him at irregular intervals the bitterest of attacks are directed against these dignitaries and a number of priests in the diocese. Father Klauder has had no minis- terial assignment for several years past, and now resides in Malone.
Services in accordance with the ritual of the Protestant Episcopal Church as first held at Tupper Lake consisted of lay readings by John Hurd in a room over the office of the Northern Adirondack Railroad. Mr. Hurd ran Sunday excursion trains from Santa Clara to Tupper Lake during this formative period. A few years later a missionary was stationed at Tupper Lake for a time. The church edifice was erected in 1899 through the efforts of Rev. John N. Marvin, diocesan missionary, and cost about a thousand dollars. The society has thirty- five members. A few years ago a fine rectory was given by a gentleman as a memorial to his son, who had died at Tupper Lake .*
* In the winter of 1917 the rectory with all of its contents was burned. The vector, Mr. Boyd, was alone in it at the time, and escaped, though severely burned.
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Grace Methodist Episcopal Church of Altamont was incorporated January 20, 1896, though divine worship by members of this denomina- tion had been maintained from 1891. A church building was erected a little later, and was destroyed in the big fire in 1899. It was replaced almost at once at a cost of about five thousand dollars, the new structure being of brick and architecturally attractive. The church has seventy- five members.
The Presbyterian Church of Tupper Lake, N. Y., had its beginning in the summer of 1900, when services were held in the school house at Faust by a Mr. Ferguson, then by Rev. Joseph McNeil of Piercefield, and next by John Nevin, a Princeton theological student. The church building is the same that was formerly at Brandon, and was brought from there to Faust in 1901 and re-erected at a cost of about four hun- dred dollars. It was not until December 10, 1905, that incorporation was effected, the Adirondack Mission contributing meantime to the support of the undertaking. Rev. Aaron W. Maddox, since famed as the lumberjack missionary, served the society as stated supply from November, 1901, to April, 1911, and then as pastor for two years and a half.
The only synagogue in the county is at Tupper Lake. It was built in 1906 by Congregation Anshey Beth Joseph, and was afterward con- veyed to Congregation Beth Joseph. Prior to the date stated services according to the Jewish ritual had been held at private residences. The Congregation Beth Joseph is served by B. Brennglass, rabbi, who acts also as teacher of the school which the organization supports, and whose sessions are held in the basement of the synagogue. There are twenty-eight families and a few single men attached to Congregation Beth Joseph.
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