USA > New York > Franklin County > Historical sketches of Franklin county and its several towns > Part 40
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The Algonquin, on the lower lake, near Martin's, was built in 1884 by Jabez D. Alexander, and originally was known as "Alexander's." John A. Harding, a Paul Smith protegé, bought it in 1890, renamed it the Algonquin, and managed it for several years. Its location is sightly, and it has always been deservedly popular.
The Berkley, in the village, was built in 1877 by Charles F. Gray for the accommodation of the city tuberculosis patients who were then beginning to seek the locality as a health resort, but for whose care there were neither suitable cottages nor hotels. Though having a capacity for only fifteen or twenty guests, it was of ample size for all of the demands then made upon it. Eugene Woodruff succeeded Gray as proprietor, and then Streeter & Dennison took it over, enlarged it, and ran it successfully for a number of years. Latterly it has changed ownership or management a number of times.
The Ampersand was built by Agnew & Eaton, New York city parties, in 1888 for a distinctively winter resort for invalids, and though not par- ticularly expensive in construction carried an atmosphere of elegance and exclusiveness. It could accommodate about three hundred guests, and was soon changed into a summer hotel for tourists generally. It burned in 1907 under circumstances which gave rise to suspicions of
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incendiarism, but suits at law for the recovery of a hundred thousand dollars of insurance moneys were thought to establish the fact that, however anxious the owners may have been to be rid of the property, the fire was of accidental origin. Recently there has been effort to organize and enlist capital for rebuilding on a splendid scale, at a pos- sible cost of a million dollars or more, and though the movement has not been successful as yet it is said not to have been abandoned.
The town has never had any important industries with the exception of that of Branch & Callahan, which is located in the village, and covers an area of three acres. The plant consists of mills for the manufacture of building material, and employs a considerable number of men. The firm's particular line of work is the construction of summer camps and fine dwelling houses in the village. The earliest saw mill was that of Captain Miller, situate at the point where the electric power plant now is. It was owned later by the Bloods, and finally by Stephen Merchant. The only other mills of the kind that the town ever had, I think, were one built by Charles Greenough on the outlet of Colby pond in 1885, a steam mill at the head of Lake Flower, owned by Joe Baker, which burned in 1896, and one erected perhaps twenty years ago in the lower part of the village by Twombley & Carrier as a part of their sash, door and trim establishment, which was destroyed by fire.
The only grist mill used to stand below the Miller saw mill, and was built by Ensign Miller, and afterward owned by the Bloods and then by T. N. Spaulding. It was a small affair, and was torn down with the saw mill.
Explanation of the non-existence of considerable mills here, where the supply of timber was abundant, and the power excellent, would seem to be the remoteness of the place from market, the almost entire lack of local demand for lumber, and the horrible condition of the roads in early times. Logs could be floated down the river to Plattsburgh, but the manufactured product could not be similarly transported, and thus, while lumbering in the vicinity was prosecuted in a large way from as early as 1857 and down to recent years, the only benefit that the locality derived from the operations was confined to the wages paid in winter and early spring. The lumbermen became marvelously pro- ficient in riding logs in the water, and were given to displaying the skill they had acquired in balancing, and often took daredevil chances. One of these experts (Henry Martin) is said to have rode a single log across the East river at New York.
With the exception of Saranac Lake, there is no village in the town,
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and but one hamlet, viz., Lake Clear, which has a population of per- haps a couple of hundred, and which sprang up with the building of the Adirondack and St. Lawrence Railway. It includes Lake Clear Junction and Otisville, which are about a mile apart, six miles west by north from Saranac Lake village. Together they include two or three stores, a post-office, a railway station, two hotels, a Roman Catholic church and a Presbyterian mission chapel besides scattered dwelling houses. There are, however, two or three other localities which are rather more closely settled than the average of farming districts, each of which has its own distinctive name and a post-office. Peck's Corners, now more generally called Lake Colby, is a mile or two west from Saranac Lake, and consists of eight or ten houses, a store, a blacksmith shop, a saloon and a post-office. Harrietstown lies in the best agricultural section of the town, and notwithstanding it is in almost the extreme northeastern corner, was known for a long time as West Harrietstown, probably to distinguish it from Saranac Lake, which was originally called Harrietstown. Leonard Nokes, J. H. Farrington and A. S. Whitman were comparatively early settlers at this point. Mr. Farring- ton kept a store, which is now abandoned. Isaiah Vosburgh bought in the vicinity in 1875, and erected and for several years conducted a boarding house - which business afforded the nucleus of the fortune that he has acquired. He sold to Frank G. Tremble, now of Nichol- ville, who enlarged the buildings to a capacity of fifty people, but closed the place four or five years ago. James J. Fitzgerald bought the Nokes place in 1891, and has operated it successfully as a boarding house. It accommodates forty or fifty people, at rates ranging from nine dollars to fifteen dollars per week. A Presbyterian mission church was erected here in 1907, and is served in the summer season by theological students desirous of spending their vacations in the Adirondacks, and in winter from the mission at Keese's Mill.
Two dates and two men loom large in the life of Saranac Lake, and between them account for much of the growth and spirit that have made it perhaps the most enterprising and progressive village in the State, as well as peculiarly attractive in some respects. Rev. W. H. H. Murray's first sketch of Adirondack life and pleasures, published in 1868 - fanci- ful, exaggerated and inaccurate in many particulars though it was- nevertheless so touched public curiosity and interest in an alluring way that the next season saw a rush of visitors to the wilderness unexampled in number and so fruitful in consequences that its importance to the region can hardly be overestimated. True, many of the first throng
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found only disappointment, hurried home, and never returned - counting themselves as of the legion of " Murray's fools;" but many others, captivated by the charm of scenery, the thrill that the true angler or huntsman senses when his own cunning and skill prevail over the wariness of game in the wilds, and conscious of benefits resulting from life in the open, from healthful exercise or the restfulness which the region induces, continued their pilgrimages year after year, and, impart- ing something of their enthusiasm to others, brought friends with them, until hotels multiplied and became almost palatial, and the entire Adiron- dack country was made world famous as a pleasure and rest resort, a vast natural sanatorium. One of the immediate effects of the Murray rush was an enlargement generally of the summer hotels, with installation of modern conveniences and the establishment of a standard of table fare which the few earlier sportsmen had never thought of demanding, or even especially desired. Another was its benefit to those who served as guides - theretofore a class careless in appearance, in expression and in conduct except faithfully to give their employers a rough attendance looking to their safety and also to their success in taking game and fish. The changed conditions brought surer and more prolonged employ- ment, with higher pay, stimulated to more painstaking and gentler serv- ice, induced more correct habits, greater care in dress, manners and conversation, broadened intelligence, and proved beneficial in every way, for, however it may or may not affect character, attrition never fails to go far in marking the outward appearance of men and in sharp- ening their wits. Of course all this necessarily brought something of material welfare to other classes also - to the merchant, artisan and farmer. It did not, however, add very much at once to the permanent residential population, which showed no appreciable increase until after 1880. But it was in large measure preparatory to what has since fol- lowed, and which could never have been realized except through the continually increasing number of wealthy men and women of generous and benevolent impulses who find enjoyment summer after summer in the Adirondacks, and become warmly interested in the various move- ments there of a philanthropic sort. The resources of the home people alone could never have accomplished even a small part of what has been wrought for humanity in Saranac Lake and other places through the contributions and efforts of visitors who, directly or indirectly, were started to the woods by Murray.
It is questionable if any one resident of the county ever accomplished as much for it and for mankind generally as Edward Livingston Tru-
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deau, M. D., who, a native of New York city, was driven by tuberculosis to the Adirondacks in 1873 - not, however, with the slightest hope of cure, or even of any considerable prolongation of life. The gospel of hope of recovery for even incipient cases of pulmonary consumption, or of appreciable benefit if the disease were well advanced, had not only never then been preached, but the teaching in vogue proscribed fresh air in the sick room, especially at night, though it did counsel life in the open under favorable conditions. Thus Doctor Trudeau, as stated by himself, " was influenced in my choice of the Adirondacks only by my love for the great forest and the wild life, and not at all because I thought the climate would be beneficial in any way. * * *
If I had but a short time to live, I yearned for surroundings that appealed to me." At that time he was so ill and weak that he had to make the drive from Ausable Forks to Paul Smiths reclining on pillows and a mattress, and upon arrival had to be carried to his room in the arms of a guide. Yet he lived for more than forty years, doing work during the greater part of the time that would have taxed the powers and endurance even of a well man ; and achieving results of momentous value to the world. The story of it all has been told by himself in a fasci- natingly interesting autobiography, of which even a detailed summary is impracticable here. though its outlines must be drawn if this sketch is to carry any adequate understanding of the growth and progress that Saranac Lake has made, and of how it was accomplished.
For three years Doctor Trudeau passed most of his time at Paul Smiths in great feebleness, but by reason of the removal of the Smith family to Plattsburgh for the winter of 1876-7, and inability to find suitable accommodations elsewhere, he was compelled to locate at Sara- nac Lake if he were to continue his stay in the Adirondacks. He says that at that time " Saranac Lake village consisted of a saw mill, a small hotel for guides and lumbermen, a school house and perhaps a dozen guides' houses scattered over an area of an eighth of a mile." The hotel was what is now the enlarged Riverside Inn, and the population of the entire town was barely four hundred. There was only one other tuberculous person there for health considerations, but in the winter of 1877-78 Doctor Loomis of New York sent a number of such patients to be under Doctor Trudeau's observation and care, and in this small and almost accidental way Saranac Lake had its beginning as a health resort. Benefits realized spread the fame of the place, larger numbers of the afflicted began to seek it, and in the course of a few years people of the type in question had come to comprise no inconsiderable pro-
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portion of the population. Doctor Trudeau continued to spend his summers at Paul Smiths, but visiting Saranac Lake on two afternoons each week to examine and advise those who came to consult him. It was not long before upon these occasions the number would often be so large that they thronged his office, porch and yard. The village had no suitable or adequate accommodations for them for a time, but with the building of the Berkley and the enlargement or erection of houses and cottages expressly to care for invalids, provision was eventually made for all. By 1882 visitors had become so numerous, including many who could pay only a very moderate charge for care and treatment, that Doctor Trudeau determined, if funds could be raised, to establish a sanatorium for incipient cases at which charges should be less than actual cost. From that year almost to the day of his death in November, 1915, he was a persistent beggar not alone from his wealthy friends, but also from utter strangers, for money with which to extend his work. His presentation of his case must have been wonderfully persuasive, for it is quite within bounds to say that the sum of individual contributions and of receipts at fairs and entertainments at Paul Smiths, Saranac Inn and other resorts can not have been less than a million dollars, and probably considerably in excess of that amount. The initial subscrip- tion was five hundred dollars, which was followed by a number of petty pledges, and the next was for two thousand five hundred dollars. Many gifts since then have been for ten, twenty and even twenty-five thousand dollars each ; and the doctor tells that one appeal by letter to a stranger which he had hoped might yield a possible two hundred dollars did in fact bring a check for one hundred times as much.
A site for the institution was bought and donated by the guides of the vicinity in 1883, and comprised sixteen acres of rough, boulder- strewn land, which cost four hundred dollars. Additions have since been made -in one instance at the price of a thousand dollars per acre. The location is a sheltered hillside in that section of the village which is in Essex county, and is specifically known as Trudeau. Work on the first cottage, so small that it could house only two patients, was begun in 1884, and the original staff, exclusive of Doctor Trudeau him- self, consisted of a farmer, wife and two daughters, none of whom had had any training in administering to the sick; and for a few years immediately following practically the only nurses (?) were lumbermen and guides and any old woman who could be hired. The charge origi- nally for board and care was five dollars per patient per week, or two dollars under actual cost, and has since been increased to eight dollars,
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which latter rate leaves a deficit of more than seven dollars. A few particularly pitiful necessitous cases receive care free of charge. The excess of cost over payments by patients has usually run from twelve to thirty thousand dollars a year, which has been made up by receipts at fairs and by individual contributions, and all of the time until he became prostrated in 1915 Doctor Trudeau gave his services without any charge whatever. The shortage in receipts for running expenses in 1917 was $42,448. Until an occasional medical student became a patient, and a few practitioners (notably Doctor Edwin R. Baldwin and Doctor J. Woods Price) came to Saranac Lake because they themselves had contracted tuberculosis, all of this vast work devolved upon Doctor Trudeau alone. To the students and to the gentlemen named as co-workers with him Doctor Trudeau pays appre- ciative tribute for their intelligent and tireless participation in his labors.
From the single little cottage which was its beginning, the institu- tion, known for thirty years as the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, and since its founder's death as the Trudeau Sanatorium, has grown until, amid grounds greatly beautified, it now comprises some forty buildings of a substantial character and attractive appearance, containing all modern conveniences - such as running water, approved drainage and sewerage, electric lighting and hot-water heating - and is not only free from debt, but has an endowment fund of more than six hundred thou- sand dollars! The corps of nurses numbers ten, and five skilled physi- cians are in constant attendance. Nearly every structure and improve- ment has been the gift of some friend or beneficiary as a memorial. They include an administration building, a fireproof laundry, a nurses' home and training school, an infirmary for the bed-ridden, a post-office, a reception building with offices, laboratory and X-ray department for scientific work and research, a pavilion for amusements and entertain- ments, a stone chapel, a workshop for the patients where, both to divert them from brooding over their ills and for utility purposes, fancy leather work, bookbinding, brass work, basketry, photography and frame- making are taught, and, of course, a number of cottages of varying capacity each, but aggregating over one hundred. Between three and four hundred patients are treated every year, and the running expenses alone in 1917 were $109,918. The essence of the treament is "rest, fresh air and a daily regulation by the physician of the patient's life and habits." The cures are estimated at one in six or seven of those treated, while the percentage in which the disease is held to have been arrested or improved is placed at about sixty.
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Additional to the distinctively sanatorium work and achievements, Doctor Trudeau gave close study and careful experiment for years in a private laboratory at his home to the problem of the nature, cause and how best to treat tuberculosis, as well as to effort to discover a cure. The original laboratory, crude in construction and insufficient both in size and equipment, has been replaced by one of fine and elaborate outfit, quartered in a fireproof building erected expressly for it, and in which a band of enthusiastic specialists are continuing investigation with encouragingly productive results. It has been made an adjunct of the Trudeau Sanatorium, and effort is now making to secure an endow- ment for it sufficient in amount to yield an annual income of twenty- five thousand dollars.
An imperfect conception may be had from the foregoing of the immeasurable value of Doctor Trudeau's work to the world, and it is pertinent to consider what its bearing, coupled with the indirect influence of the Murray publication, has been upon Harrietstown and Saranac Lake. The population of the former had increased in thirty years from 1845 by less than four hundred, and not only had growth not proceeded in larger ratio during the next ensuing half decade, but there was nothing in existing conditions when Doctor Trudeau came to suggest probability of greater progress in the future. But his service and his gospel of hope for the afflicted imparted an almost immediate impetus, and in the ten years following 1880 the number of the town's inhabitants had multiplied threefold, with half or more residing in the hamlet. In the twenty years from 1890 there was a further increase of over three hundred per cent. in the town. Village comparisons are more complicated, and must stand separately, because Saranac Lake includes parts of the towns of St. Armand and North Elba in Essex county, and of Harrietstown, Franklin county. According to the census of 1890 the hamlet, all in Franklin county, contained 768 inhabitants, and the enumeration of 1892 at incorporation fixed the number at 1,014, when the Essex county proportion could not have been much more than ten or fifteen per cent. It is now about 22 per cent. The census of 1910 credits St. Armand with contributing 67 inhabitants, North Elba 1,019, and Harrietstown 3,897 - a total of 4,983.
But beyond anything that a census shows, it must be taken into con- sideration that there are in the village, practically at all times, as many as twelve to fifteen hundred health scekers, inclusive of accompanying relatives or friends and attendants - a floating population because con- tinually changing in personnel, but not varying greatly in numbers.
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Contrasts other than that of numbers are not less striking. In the place of one small, rough hotel there are now a dozen or fifteen, most of them well kept and some really high class. The one or two boarding houses of simple furnishing and plain fare when Doctor Trudeau came forty years ago have increased to sixty or more, many of them well appointed and well managed and built expressly for occupancy by the sick. The weekly charges by these range from eight to forty dollars, with a few of the best going as high as fifty dollars. As against the single physician of the earlier day there are now no less than twenty, not a few of whom are specialists who would stand high in the pro- fession anywhere. The one little store, scantily stocked with coarse wares, has seen many pretentious establishments, including fine markets, spring up, filled with choice and high-priced goods attractively dis- played. Where there was not a single house of worship, and where even the itinerant preacher came not oftener than once a fortnight, there are four handsome church edifices, ably ministered and generously sup- ported. The conditions when water for the household had to be carted from the river or drawn from cisterns or wells in danger of pollution have been remedied by the construction of a gravity system of water- works, with a mountain spring pond the source of supply, and affording an abundant quantity for all uses, with a good pressure for fire pro- tection. The streets, formerly clouds of dust in drouth or beds of mud after heavy rains, are brick paved or macadamized. The tallow dip or kerosene lamp at the best has given place to the electric light, or to gas for those who prefer it. The unattractive home, usually barren of con- veniences, has been succeeded in many cases by residences and grounds which, reflecting a heavy expenditure, are remarkably fine. Park avenue in particular is as a whole the handsomest street that I know of anywhere in a place of this size. It has been built up in the main by those who have located here either in pursuit of health for themselves or for some member of the family. Land along it which sold a few years ago at a hundred dollars an acre now commands from three thou- sand dollars to ten thousand dollars per building lot, some of which have only a hundred feet frontage; and realty valuations generally of two generations ago were less than the charge now often made and willingly paid for a single quarter's rental of a large and well fur- nished cottage. One such property was recently taken from a reluctant lessor at four hundred dollars per month, and rentals for property smaller in size or less desirably located at one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars are not uncommon. But further comparisons
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or contrasts need not be particularized, though it is worth while to list some of the advantages, attractions and institutions of the village, together with certain of its corporate acts :
Accessibility .- Two railway lines, one a link in the New York Cen- tral system and the other in that of the Delaware and Hudson, reach Saranac Lake, with frequent, rapid and luxurious train service. The distance in time from New York city is little more than it was a genera- tion ago from Ausable Forks, thirty-odd miles away. The station is a union one, and is said to have cost fifty thousand dollars.
Water Supply .- The first water-works system, instituted in 1893 as a municipal project, was based upon a supply from Saranae river in the heart of the village, but with the intake subsequently extended three- quarters of a mile up the stream. The water was forced by pumping to a reservoir, whence there was a gravity distribution under a hundred pounds pressure. Apprehensive of possible contamination of the river water by camps and hotels, Mckenzie pond, three miles distant, was tapped in 1901-2 with a fourteen-inch main, and the river supply alto- gether cut out. The pressure remains unchanged. The watershed of the pond is amply protected, and the water itself is of unusual purity. The issues of bonds for these undertakings have aggregated $198.000, of which $167,400 were still outstanding in 1915. The revenue from rentals is about $22,000 a year, which covers interest charges and retire- ment of bonds as they mature. No tax is levied for fire hydrants, which seems to be a faulty practice.
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