USA > New York > Warren County > Warren county : a history and guide > Part 16
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Heavily wooded, the contour of Horicon resembles that of Hague. Its rounded summits, however, are not quite so high, none of them reaching the 2,000-foot mark. The valleys are wider, and they tend to conform more to the northeast to southwest trend of ridges and valleys in the County generally. Even so, some of the streams flow north or west for miles before they turn to empty into the Schroon River, while a few that rise close to the Hague and Bolton borders drain into Lake George. Hikers, hunters, and anglers are attracted to Horicon with its widespreading woods, trails that lead to summits from which may be glimpsed vistas of forest and lake, and remote ponds high up on mountainsides.
State 8 crosses the town from northeast to southwest, following little streams and paralleling for its entire length the east shore of Brant Lake. Along this highway and a tributary which circles Brant Lake are the hotels, summer camps, and cottages that make up most of Horicon's sum- mer resort development. On State 8, at the southern end of the lake, are the hamlets Brant Lake, formerly called Horicon, and, a little farther to the southwest, South Horicon. In and about these communities most of the permanent residents live. Adirondack, in the northwest corner, is a summer colony on Schroon Lake.
Formed from Bolton and Hague on March 29, 1838, Horicon was wild and ruggedly primitive. Pine grew in great abundance and lumbering
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early became the main business. From the Brant Lake region the first log drives from the North Country were floated down the Schroon and Hudson for the sawmills at Glens Falls. At the same time some logs went to the many little sawmills on the banks of small streams. Lumber- men stocked up with logs in winter, and in summer they sawed and drew lumber to Ticonderoga. Such mills were operated near Brant Lake by John H. Harris and Jonathan Griffen, and near South Horicon by Henry Hopkins and Moses Stickney.
By 1885 the early industries were beginning to disappear and summer visitors to increase. Hotels and cottages were built around Brant Lake; facilities for boating, bathing, and hiking were added, and Horicon turned to the development of the resort business, rather than farming, as its chief source of income. Showing a slight increase, the population of Hor- icon was listed as 850 in the census of 1940.
CHESTER lies between the Schroon River and the Hudson and extends from the north boundary of the town of Warrensburg to the Essex County line. Its terrain is a little less rugged and broken than its neighboring towns of Johnsburg and Horicon and it has the further advantage of lying in the valleys of the Hudson and the Schroon. The region is well cultivated, farms alternating with patches of woodland. Most of Chester's summer resort development centers around its lake region - Friends Lake, Loon Lake, and Mountain Spring Lake, situated amid the moun- tains in the central section - and along the five miles of Schroon Lake which bounds it at the northeastern corner.
Route US 9, a three-strip concrete highway that carries more traffic than any other Adirondack road, climbs with easy grades and sweeping curves across the town from south to north, while route State 8 winds across from east to west, joining US 9 for four miles between Chester- town, the largest village and center of the lake region, and Loon Lake. A few miles farther north on US 9, at the southern tip of Schroon Lake, is Pottersville, the only other sizable community. In these two centers of population live most of Chester's 1,825 permanent residents, and they also accommodate many of the summer visitors and most of those who come at other seasons.
Like Horicon, Chester is ideal hiking, hunting, and fishing country, for it, too, has miles of wooded peaks and ridges with more than a dozen little lakes and ponds in the upland valleys. Some of them are so secluded that you must follow up their outlets to find them unless you are fortu- nate enough to glimpse them from a nearby height.
Possessing only two log cabins in 1805, Chestertown, by 1820, had become a growing village in a region fast being cleared of its forests. In 1835 it boasted a sawmill, gristmill, clothing works, three stores, two
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taverns, a school, two churches, and 150 homes. With the passing of the virgin forest in the 1860's Chestertown's industries waned, its people turned to serving summer visitors and to the business of trading with local farmers, for a source of income.
Pottersville derives its name from Joel F. Potter, who opened its first store in 1839. The village grew with the expansion of the lumber trade but had only small sawmills, tanneries, and gristmills. There is still a little lumbering with a small sawmill supplying mostly local needs, but the business of providing accommodations for vacationists and supplying the requirements of guests at the numerous adult and children's camps on the shores of nearby Schroon Lake, furnishes the chief employment for the people of the village.
Chester dates its establishment as a town to its partition from Thurman on March 25, 1799, but records no settler earlier than Otis Collins, who moved his family to this wilderness region in 1805. Shortly thereafter arrived the numerous and enterprising Mead family, operators of the first sawmill and gristmill, Harvey Powers, who built a distillery in 1810, the Fox brothers, Norman and Alanson, originators, according to local tradi- tion, of the system of driving loose logs down mountain streams which has since been adopted in all parts of America.
The period from 1805 to 1835 was one of intensive exploitation of the wealth stored for centuries in the woodlands. Great stands of pine, spruce, hemlock, birch, maple, and oak disappeared before the ax of the logger, and across the land appeared sawmills, potash plants, and tanneries, attracting the settlers to build homes that soon multiplied into villages. After 1835 tanning gradually became the leading industry, and continued to provide employment for many years despite the decline of local log- ging, by using hemlock bark shipped from Essex County.
C. H. Faxon, Chester's leading industrialist, employed fifty workers at his Chestertown tannery which by 1885 was turning out from 24,000 to 30,000 sides of leather annually, while his gristmill ground 30,000 bushels of wheat. He also purchased and greatly extended the services of the Chester Water Works.
When lumbering and the industries it fostered failed about 1900 the town lost its industrial aspect and never regained it. Many turned to farming and this still remains an important occupation in the narrow valleys. For the rest, summer visitors, who began to come at an early date, provided employment. Hotels were built to replace the early taverns, and garages, filling stations, refreshment stands, roadhouses, additional stores, and a variety of accommodations have been added. Today, villages and lake resorts have inaugurated planned programs of sports and recreation to attract and hold their patrons.
The River Towns
LUZERNE, STONY CREEK, THURMAN, JOHNSBURG, WARRENSBURG
LUZERNE, first in the group of river towns, occupies the extreme southern projection of the County, bounded on the east by Queensbury and Caldwell, and on the west and south by the Hudson River which separates it from Saratoga County. Warrensburg adjoins to the north. A broad valley, an extension of the depression which holds Lake George, cuts across Luzerne from northeast to southwest and widens to a consid- erable flatland before reaching the Hudson. Several resort lakes, Luzerne, Vanare, Forest, and Allure, lie in this valley, and through it runs the only main highway, State 9K which crosses the Hudson just below the village of Luzerne, and continues south through Corinth to Saratoga Springs.
A second valley, somewhat narrower, is that of the Hudson. In both are a few farms, while others occupy little patches of arable land on the slopes or nestle in coves of the Luzerne and Kayaderosseras Mountains which overlook both valleys.
Lake Luzerne village slopes from the shores of Lake Luzerne to the east bank of the Hudson. From a bridge on the community's main street may be seen the confluence of the Hudson and Sacandaga, called by the Indians Tiosaronda (Wedding of the Waters). The village, summer trading center for the hotels, cottages, and tourist homes on Lake Luzerne and the dude ranches that occupy the woodland and mountain setting about Lakes Vanare, Forest, and Allure, also promotes facilities for summer and winter sports and recreation, and is the accommodation center for the region.
Set off from Queensbury on April 10, 1792, the town was known as Fairfield until April 6, 1808, when it was named Luzerne in honor of the Chevalier de la Luzerne, a French nobleman, sent by his government to aid the Americans after the Battle of Saratoga. Much of the story of the early settlers can be but vaguely perceived through the mists of time. After the French and Indian War the two Jessup brothers secured tre- mendous land grants and established themselves as land barons. They furnished their frontier homes lavishly and imitated the extravagant luxury of noblemen. During the American Revolution they joined the Loyalists, their homes were looted and burned, their settlements wiped out, and they fled to Canada. There they joined raiding parties that scourged the frontier. At the end of the war their lands were confiscated, and resettlement began on a new basis.
In those days when every community had to be sufficient unto itself, the pioneer was a man of parts. He was frequently a farmer, storekeeper,
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harnessmaker, and innkeeper, all at once. Perhaps he also engaged in lum- bering, the most important pioneer occupation. Leaders in this industry were P. H. Pulver, L. E. Wait, and George Rockwell, who owned 4,000 acres of timber on both sides of the river and drove their logs to the lumber marts at Glens Falls. As their activities brought a measure of civilization, roads, homes, and inns were built, and summer visitors began to arrive.
The crude taverns were replaced shortly after 1800 by the first of many hotels erected to foster the growing resort trade. In later years, with the industries gone, and winter sports rounding out the program, the resort development has become the most important part of Luzerne's economic set-up. The other major employment factors for its 1,251 inhabitants are farming, and commuting to the big mill of the Interna- tional Paper Company at nearby Corinth.
STONY CREEK, a narrow, irregular oblong, extends from the Hud- son westward to Hamilton County between Saratoga County on the south and Thurman in the north. A few houses border State 418, the town's only main highway, which parallels the Hudson and the tracks of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, but most of the dwellings are scattered along dirt roads that follow Stony Creek and its tributaries into the high hills or cut across divides from one valley to another.
The town is an almost undeveloped region of vast distances, rugged, mountainous, heavily wooded. Peaks and long ridges rise to over 2,000 feet above sea level, narrow valleys watered by tumbling streams cut through the mountains, small lakes and ponds lie at high altitudes. Bear, deer, and small game roam the mountainsides, and trout, bass, and perch lurk in the waters. The rarefied atmosphere, almost wholly free from rag- weed pollen, has an invigorating tang that makes it a boon to hay fever sufferers.
Farming and a surviving remnant of lumbering, until recent years the only occupation, are now being supplemented by a growing summer resort development of dude ranches, camps, and farms converted into tourist accommodations. The camps and farm guest houses are to be found mostly along State 418 which follows close to the Hudson, and at Stony Creek Village crosses the mountain stream that has given its name to the town. In the village is found a typical country inn.
Up Stony Creek for a few miles past the village runs a mountain road, which then crosses a divide to reach Harrisburg Lake and village. This beautiful lake, two miles long with an altitude of 1,494 feet, drains through East Stony Creek and the Sacandaga Reservoir, to make a 50- mile detour before its waters reach the Hudson at Luzerne, only a little below Stony Creek.
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The highway ends at Harrisburg, but private roads lead to dude ranches and camps, whence many miles of bridle path and trail lead over ideal hiking and riding country. There are secluded lakes and ponds in pleasant valleys, mountain ridges where sky line trails offer glorious vistas, and lofty summits, of which Baldhead, with an altitude of 2,920 feet, is the highest.
This town was set up by dividing the town of Athol into Thurman and Stony Creek on November 3, 1852. The most important pioneer industry was a tannery operated by J. P. Bowman, which employed twenty-five men and turned out 40,000 sides of sole leather a year. Alexander McDonald, Campbell and Taylor, Horace L. Hall, Lyman Kenyon, Theodorus Hall, John Walsh, and Gardner Adams, owned saw- mills. Columbus Gill ran a gristmill, and H. L. Hall a woodware factory. The early settlers also made potash and operated a broom factory.
Stripping the mountains of their forests to provide raw materials even- tually put an end to these industries, and without a means of livelihood the people drifted away. In 1900 Stony Creek had 1,019 inhabitants; in 1940, 457. It had become a country of small farms with little resort development until the urge in recent years for dude ranches and camps in areas having "wide open spaces." Paralleling this development came the conversion of farm homes into guest houses. Today this new turn is fast assuming an economic importance that gives a fresh hope of employ- ment for more people in Stony Creek.
THURMAN, just north of Stony Creek and south of Johnsburg, also stretches across the mountainous wooded region between the Hudson and the Hamilton County border. Like its neighbors it has heavily timbered peaks and ridges, which rise to heights of over 2,500 feet. There are valleys and level stretches with numerous streams and small bodies of water, including Round Pond, Garnet Lake, Bear Pond, Little Pond, and many others, all hidden away from busy highways, some accessible only by hiking trails or bridle paths. Hunting and fishing facilities abound.
A paved highway, State 418, cuts across the southeast corner of Thur- man before it crosses the Hudson River. It then follows the Schroon River to Warrensburg, three miles from the Thurman railway station at the confluence of the two rivers. The Adirondack Branch of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad follows the Hudson River's deep ravine, with its towering cliffs, northward. No highway parallels or crosses it for at least five miles above Thurman Station, though a network of county roads leads from there to the farms, small villages, and dude ranches located in the eastern end of the town. State 8, the main highway running east and west across the County, cuts across the northwest corner of Thurman.
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Just above Thurman Station is the village of Athol, and a few miles beyond is Thurman Post Office. In these two hamlets live most of the town's 535 permanent residents; they are the trade centers, and each has a post office. Dude ranches, conducted in real western style, center along the rural byways in the neighborhood of the village of Thurman. Here they give opportunities for play in the broad expanse of wild forest country with its ponds, brooks, and such lofty summits as Partridge Mountain (1,953 alt.), Cherry Ridge (2,578 alt.) and others still higher. In the valley along State 418, remodeled farm houses offer accommoda- tions for the less active vacationist and for tourists.
The original town of Thurman came into being on April 10, 1792. Named for John Thurman, early land owner and first settler, it included about all of Warren County outside of Queensbury and Luzerne. Bolton, Chester, Johnsburg, Caldwell, and Warrensburg were all formed from the old town of Thurman. In 1813 what remained of it was known as Athol; in 1852 Athol was divided into the present towns, Stony Creek and Thurman.
A large proportion of the early inhabitants were Scots, mostly from Athol in Scotland. Some of their descendants still live at Athol. In 1820, only one highway ran across what is now this town. This followed the west bank of the Hudson and was so primitive in construction that only foot and horseback travel was attempted. The few settlers who had erected their crude log huts high and dry on land west of this road, had to cut their own trails or bridlepaths down to the Hudson.
Potash factories were built about 1820 by David Cameron and John McEwan. In the same year Norman and Alanson Fox of Chester began running pine logs from Thurman down the Hudson to Glens Falls. There- after, the region was cut over two or three times by such lumber owners as Abraham Wing III, Walter Geer, Halsey R. Wing, Senus Van Dusen, James and Jeremiah Finch, James Morgan and his partners, and Henry Crandall, all of Glens Falls.
With the passing of the early industries came a drop in population from 809 in 1900 to 535 in 1940, and a change to farming as the chief occu- pation. In recent years the influx of summer visitors to dude ranches and farm tourist homes has brought a new means of livelihood and hope for the growth of a new resort development.
JOHNSBURG, occupying the northwest corner of the county, stretches west from the Hudson River over a forested mountain fastness to Hamilton County, and from Thurman north to Essex County. In area it is the largest town and its mountain peaks rise higher than any others in the County: Gore Mountain with an altitude of 3,595 feet; Puffer, 3,480; Bullhead, 3,455; Eleventh, 3,303; and Crane Mountain, 3,254.
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Dozens of lakes and ponds are the sources of several good sized brooks, most of which, including Mill Creek, drain directly into the Hudson. However, in the eastern highlands the East Branch Sacandaga River rises between Gore and Puffer Mountains to feed the mighty Sacandaga Reser- voir in Fulton and Saratoga Counties. Altogether the town is a rugged wooded highland, well suited for hunting, fishing, hiking, dude ranches, and summer camps, as well as ski trails, toboggan slides and other winter sports.
The largest body of water, Thirteenth Lake in the northwest corner of Johnsburg, is two miles long and lies between parallel ridges at an altitude of 1,674 feet. Above it, high on the slope of Gore Mountain, is the garnet mine that has made New York the leading state in garnet produc- tion. The stone, being very hard and brittle, breaks with sharp edges that make it an excellent abrasive. The supply of garnet rock is practically unlimited; there is a steady demand for the product, and the mines keep a large force of men regularly employed (see Tour 5).
Nevertheless, Thirteenth Lake is best known as a sports center. At the village of North River, on State 28, close to the Essex County line, the road to the lake branches off and there are accommodations for summer and winter sports fans. North Creek, terminal of the Adirondack branch of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, is the shipping point for the product of the Barton Garnet Corporation's great open pit mine on Gore Mountain. It is also the shopping and community center for farmers, summer campers, hunters, fishermen, and dude ranchers in the region in- cluding North River and Thirteenth Lake. It is perhaps best known though as a winter sports center; snow trains arrive crowded with enthu- siasts carrying skis to spend a week end on the Gore Mountain trails and runs or to visit Thirteenth Lake.
Two important highways traverse Johnsburg. State 8 crosses the Hudson from Chester at the twin hamlets, Riparius and Riverside, and continues southwest across Johnsburg along the East Branch Sacandaga River, cutting across the corner of Thurman before it enters Hamilton County. At Wevertown, four miles from the Hudson, it intersects State 28, which runs northwest from The Glen, a hamlet on the Hudson close to the Thurman line, to North River, at the Essex County line. The rail- way follows close to the Hudson in its wide bend, but State 28 makes a more direct line from The Glen to North Creek.
Riverside station of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad is a busy spot where cars and busses from nearby resorts in Johnsburg and Chester meet- the trains. Hamlets and settlements cluster along routes State 8 and 28 (see Tours 2 and 4) and dirt roads lead from them to scattered farms, hamlets, and resort lakes.
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Annually, in August, the Riverside Epworth League Institute holds its 7-day camp meeting, attended by upwards of 200 boys and girls and their pastors from Methodist Episcopal churches in northern and eastern New York. The program includes religious study, group singing, and outdoor sports and recreation.
Along State 8 in the valley of Mill Creek are Wevertown and Johns- burg, farm communities and centers of the town's dude ranch country. Farther west are Sodom and Baker's Mills, little rural villages that look up to tall peaks. For many years the Johnsburg Association has held, in August or September, a Home Day Celebration for present and past resi- dents of Johnsburg. Staged in one of the nearby pine groves, the event features speaking, group singing, sports, and a picnic lunch.
Johnsburg was partitioned from the old town of Thurman on April 6, 1805. It received its name from John Thurman, energetic pioneer and original owner of much of the land, who made the first clearing on Elm Hill, one mile southeast of the site of Johnsburg Corners, about 1790. The same year he began to clear land on Beaver Brook, nearly a mile west of Elm Hill, and soon he erected a sawmill and gristmill at the falls. Settlers began to move in from England, Scotland, Ireland, and New England.
In 1794 Thurman opened a store and put up a distillery to create a market for the large quantities of rye which the newly cleared lands pro- duced. In those days whisky was distilled in every town, and here a store, malt house, and kiln were built for distillation of grain. In 1795 Thurman operated a woolen factory which he soon changed into a cotton mill. As early as 1797 he established a calico printing works, one of the first in America.
In 1800 Thurman put into operation ash works and made large quan- tities of potash, which at that time and for thirty years after brought farmers most of their ready cash. They were paid one shilling a bushel for ashes, while potash brought from $2.00 to $3.50 per ton. In Septem- ber 1807, Thurman was killed by a bull at Bolton Landing. So much was the old pioneer the life of his business that at his death all the establish- ments, except the sawmill and gristmill, closed forever.
For many years the town of Johnsburg remained in a primitive state. Off the beaten path and in the midst of a widespread wilderness, no com- merce and very little travel passed. The inhabitants carried their grain and butter to Glens Falls and Waterford, a journey of several days down the Hudson, for sale or barter, and brought home family supplies, such as tea, tobacco, molasses, rum, sole leather, cotton, and woolen clothing.
In 1832-33 the Wevertown Tannery was opened by William and James Watson. This enterprise gave new life to the region, employing men and
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creating a market for bark and farm produce. Several stores were soon established. A little later a tannery, built at The Glen, was operated a few years and then abandoned. In 1852 Milton Sawyer and Wheeler Mead built a tannery at North Creek, and in 1875 a Boston company erected another on the Sacandaga River in the western part of the town.
In 1885 the lumber era was over and with it the tanneries closed for lack of hemlock bark. Population then fell off somewhat: 2,374 in 1900, it decreased to 1,887 in 1930. Farming, the Barton Garnet Mine, and the sawing of a little timber for shipping by train or truck to city lumber markets, developed as the principal occupations. Today, with winter sports and the expansion of summer activities, dude ranches, summer camps, and tourist accommodations, as an added source of income, the population shows an upward trend to 2,000 in 1940.
WARRENSBURG, shaped like an hour glass, lies east of the Hudson, below Chester and above Caldwell. The Schroon River separates it from Bolton, and turns across it at the narrowest point. South of the Schroon, Warrensburg is mountainous and heavily timbered with few clearings. The upper half has low-lying fertile fields along both rivers and in little valleys that extend back into the mountain ridges and among the hills.
US 9 spans the Schroon to enter the town at the village of Warrensburg, a shopping center, summer and winter resort, and the only industrial community in the County north of Glens Falls. Ample water power from the Schroon and smaller streams, the arrival of railroad freight facilities about 1875, and the great quantities of hemlock bark brought large sawmills and tanneries. A. C. Emerson and Company built sawmills which in 1885 produced about 3,000,000 feet of lumber annually. B. P. Burhans and Son established a tannery, producing about 3,500 sides of leather a year.
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