America Volume IV Part 2

From the northeastern bastion of Crown Point a covered way leads to the lake, and here a well was sunk ninety feet deep for a water supply. Tradition told of vast treasures concealed by the French, and so excited did the people become that a joint-stock company was formed to search for them, clearing out the well and making excavations, but nothing was found but some lead and iron. The ruins are in lonely magnificence to-day, the red-thorn bushes brilliantly adorning them, and the place is a popular picnic-ground. From the northern ramparts there is a magnificent view of the distant Green Mountains on the right hand, with their gentle fields and meadows stretching down to the lake, and the rugged Adirondack foothills on the left, the distant dark mountain ranges looming far away behind them, with the huge broad-capped "Giant of the Valley" standing up prominently. Gazing at their sombre contour, the reason can be readily divined why the Indians called this vast weird region Cony-a-craga, or the "Dismal Wilderness." The higher Adirondack summits, composed of the hardest granite, are said by the geologists to be the oldest land on the globe and the first showing itself above the universal waters. Some distance above Port Henry is Westport Landing, the village standing in the deep recesses of Northwest Bay, where the long ridge of Split Rock Mountain, stretching towards the northeast, makes a high border for the bay. This curious ridge is of historical interest. The outer extremity is a cliff thirty feet high, covering about a half-acre, and separated from the main ridge by a cleft twelve feet wide cut down beneath the water. This cliff was the ancient Rock Reggio, named from an Indian chief drowned there, and was for a long time the boundary between the New York Iroquois and the Canadian Algonquins, whose lands were held respectively by the English and the French. It is mentioned in various old Colonial treaties as fixing the boundary between New York and Canada, but during the Revolution the Americans pa.s.sed far beyond it, conquering and holding the land for seventy-seven miles northward to the present national boundary.

THE GREEN MOUNTAINS.

Above, the lake gradually broadens, and at the widest part are seen, on opposite sides, the village of Port Kent with its furnaces, and the flouris.h.i.+ng Vermont city of Burlington. The great Adirondack ridge of Trembleau runs abruptly into the water as a sort of guardian to Port Kent, and just above, Ausable River flows out through its sandy lowlands into the lake. Vermont, which makes the entire eastern sh.o.r.e of Champlain, is a region of rural pastoral joys with many herds and marble ledges, a land of fat cattle and rich b.u.t.ter-firkins, overlooked by mountains of gentle slope and softened outline.

Southward from Lake Champlain is Bennington, in a mountain-enclosed valley, near which was fought in August, 1777, the famous battle in which Colonel John Stark's Green Mountain boys cut off and signally defeated Baum's detachment of Burgoyne's army. It is now a flouris.h.i.+ng manufacturing town. East of the head of Lake Champlain is Rutland, the centre of the Vermont marble-quarrying industry and the site of the great Howe Scale Works, a city of twelve thousand people.

Three-fourths of the marble produced in the United States comes from this district of Vermont, and the Sutherland Falls Quarry at Proctor, near Rutland, is said to be probably the largest quarry in the world.

These quarries are in the flanks of the Green Mountains which stretch northward, making the watershed between the upper Connecticut River and Lake Champlain. The Killington Peak, forty-two hundred and forty feet high, is not far from Rutland.

Mansfield, the chief of the Green Mountains, is behind Burlington, and rises forty-three hundred and sixty-four feet. Seen from across the lake, it presents the upturned face of a rec.u.mbent giant, the southern peak being the "Forehead," the middle one the "Nose," and the northernmost and highest the "Chin." The latter, as seen against the horizon, protrudes upwards in most positive fas.h.i.+on, rising three hundred and forty feet higher than the "Nose," about a mile and a half distant. This decisive-looking Chin is thus upraised about eight hundred feet from the general contour of the mountain, while the Nose is thrust upward four hundred and sixty feet, its nostril being seen in an almost perpendicular wall of rock facing the north. Mansfield is heavily timbered until near the summit, and a hotel is perched up there at the base of the Nose, both Nose and Chin being composed of rock ledges, which have been deeply scratched by boulders dragged over them in the glacial period. These Green Mountains extend down from Canada, and terminate in the Taghkanic and Hoosac ranges of Berks.h.i.+re in Ma.s.sachusetts. They do not attain very high elevations, the Camel's Hump, south of Mansfield, rising forty-one hundred and eighty-eight feet. This was the "Leon Couchant" of the earliest French explorers, and it bears a much better resemblance to a rec.u.mbent lion than to a camel's back. The western slopes of these mountains are chiefly red sandstone, while their body and eastern declivities are granite, gneiss and similar rocks, and they are filled with valuable mineral products, marbles, slates and iron-ores. Their slopes have fine pastures of rich and nutritious gra.s.ses, and the green and rounded summits present a striking contrast to the lofty, bare and often jagged peaks of the White Mountains of New Hamps.h.i.+re beyond them.

There are cultivated lands on their slopes, at an elevation as high as twenty-five hundred feet, and in and about them are the forests producing the dear, delicious maple sugar:

"Down in the bush where the maple trees grow, There's a soft, moist fall of the first sugar snow; And the camp-fires gleam, And the big kettles steam, For the maple-sugar season has arrived, you know; And these are the days when you'll find on tap The sweetest of juices, which is pure maple sap."

BURLINGTON AND MONTPELIER.

Burlington, the chief Vermont city, is built on the sloping hillside of a grandly curving bay, making a resemblance to Naples and its bay, which has inspired a local poet to address the city as "Thou lovely Naples of our midland sea." It has fifteen thousand people, and its prosperity has been largely from the lumber trade, the logs coming chiefly from Canadian and Adirondack forests. It is attractive, with broad tree-embowered streets, the elm and maple growing in luxuriance, while the hills run up behind the town into high summits. One of these, the College Hill, rising nearly four hundred feet, has the fine buildings of the University of Vermont, attended by six hundred students, its tower giving a superb outlook over Lake Champlain, which at sunset is one of the most gorgeous scenes ever looked upon.

Lafayette laid the corner-stone of this college on his American visit in 1825, and his statue in st.u.r.dy bronze adorns the grounds. The finest college building is the Billings Library, presented by Frederick Billings, a projector, and once President of the Northern Pacific Railway. All about these hills there are attractive villas and estates, enjoying the view, of which President Dwight wrote, when wandering over New England in search of the historic and picturesque, that "splendor of landscape is the peculiar boast of Burlington." On the northern verge of College Hill is the city's burial-place of the olden time--Green Mount Cemetery. Here Ethan Allen is buried, a tall Tuscan monument surmounted by a statue marking the spot, which is enclosed by a curious fence made of cannon at the corners and muskets with fixed bayonets. Allen lived at Burlington during his later life, dying there in February, 1789.

College Hill falls off to the northward to a broad intervale, down which winds the romantic Winooski or Onion River, flowing into Lake Champlain a short distance above Burlington. It comes out of a gorge in the Green Mountains, where it falls down pretty cascades and rapids. This Winooski gorge was a dreaded defile in the early days of the New England frontier, for by this route the fierce Hurons came through those mountains from Champlain and Canada to make forays upon the Ma.s.sachusetts and New Hamps.h.i.+re border settlements. This gorge pa.s.ses between Mount Mansfield and the Camel's Hump. To the northward is the noted "Smuggler's Notch" beyond the Chin of Mansfield, between it and Mount Sterling beyond, the name having been given because in the olden time contraband goods were brought through its gloomy recesses from Canada into New England. An affluent of the Winooski, the Waterbury River, comes out of this notch, a rapid stream. Upon the upper Winooski is Montpelier, the Vermont State Capital, pleasantly situated among the mountains near the centre of the commonwealth. Its State House is a fine structure of light granite, surmounted by a lofty dome. Ma.s.sive Doric columns support its grand portico, under which stands the statue, in Vermont marble, of Ethan Allen, by Vermont's great sculptor, Larkin G. Mead. Here are also two old cannon which Stark captured from the Hessians at Bennington. They were afterwards used by the Americans with good effect throughout the Revolution, and subsequently were part of the army equipment taken to the western frontier. In the War of 1812 the British captured them in Hull's surrender at Detroit, but they were recaptured in a subsequent battle in Canada, and were sent as trophies to Was.h.i.+ngton. Congress ultimately gave them to Vermont, and they were placed in the State Capitol as relics of the battle of Bennington. Admiral George Dewey is a native of Montpelier, born there December 26, 1837. St. Albans, a great railroad centre and market for dairy products, is north of Burlington, near Lake Champlain, a picturesque New England town, with the elm-shaded central square. It is fourteen miles from the Canada border, and an important customs station. Of it, Henry Ward Beecher wrote that "St. Albans is a place in the midst of greater variety of scenic beauty than any other I remember in America."

AUSABLE CHASM.

One of the chief Adirondack rivers flowing into Lake Champlain is the Ausable. Its branches come out of the heart of the mountains, one through the beautiful Keene Valley and the other through the Wilmington Notch, and uniting at Ausable Forks, it flows along the northwestern side of the long ridge terminating in Trembleau Point at Port Kent, and enters the lake just above. The river escapes from the mountains through the wonderful gorge of Ausable Chasm. It is an active stream, bringing down vast amounts of sand, which wash through this gorge and are spread over the flats north of Trembleau, where the river flows out through two mouths. These prolific sand-bars, when first seen by the French, caused them to name the stream Ausable, the "river of sands." This renowned chasm, in its colossal magnificence and bold rending of the hard sandstone strata, is one of the wonders of America. A local poet has written on a little kiosk adjoining the river chasm this rhythmic explanation of its origin:

"Nature one day had a spasm With grand result--Ausable Chasm."

This splendid gorge, cut down in getting out of the highlands, is carved in the hardest Potsdam sandstones. It is a profound, and in most of its length a very narrow chasm, with almost vertical walls from seventy to one hundred and fifty feet high, the torrent pouring through the bottom being compressed within a width of eight to thirty feet, and rus.h.i.+ng with quick velocity. The chasm is about two miles long, having several sharp bends, the stratified walls being built up almost like artificial masonry. The sides are frequently cut by lateral fissures, making remarkable formations, and the tops of the enclosing crags are fringed with a dense growth of cedars. The river of dark amber-colored water first comes out of the forest past Keeseville, where mills avail of its water-power, and then pours over the ledges of the Alice Falls, the finest in the Adirondacks. This splendid cataract of forty feet descent is above the entrance to the gorge, much of it being an almost sheer fall, having magnificent foaming watery stairways down the ledges, bordering it with their delicate lacework on either hand. The dark waters tumble in large volume into an immense amphitheatre, which has been rounded out by the torrent during past ages. Then bending sharply to the right, the river goes down some rapids and over a mill-dam built just above the chasm. The opening of this extraordinary rent in the earth is startling. Suddenly the river pours over a short fall, and then down another deep one strangely constructed, the line of the cataract being almost in the line of the stream. These are the Birmingham Falls, down which the Ausable plunges into the deep abyss, while high above stands a picturesque stone mill whose wheels are turned by the waters, and just below a light iron bridge carries a railway over the gorge.

It is difficult to describe the profound chasm opening below the Birmingham Falls. It is a prodigious rent in the earth's crust, making sudden right-angled turns. The visitor at first goes down a long stairway and walks on the rocky floor adjoining the torrent, enormous walls rising high above. There are various formations made by the boiling waters, ovens, anvils, chairs, pulpits, punch-bowls and the like, and, judging by their names, the Devil seems to be the owner of most of them. The chasm turns sharply around the "Elbow," and the waters rush through the narrow pa.s.sage of "h.e.l.l Gate." There are many caves and lateral fissures, all the masonry being hewn square, as in fact the whole gorge is, such being the regularity of the stratification and the accuracy of the angles and joints,--the ponderous walls, reared on high, sometimes almost close together, making the deep pa.s.s narrow and gloomy. The gorge finally contracts so much there is no further room for walking, and a boat is taken for the remainder of the journey down the "Grand Flume." The torrent carries the boat along swiftly, guided by strong oarsmen both at bow and stern, swinging quickly around the bends, shooting the rapids and whirling through the eddies. After rus.h.i.+ng along the "Flume,"

embracing the narrowest portions of the profound chasm, the boat finally floats out into the "Pool," where the waters at length settle into rest as they pa.s.s from the broken-down sandstone strata to the flat land beyond, where the river flows through its two mouths into the lake.

PLATTSBURG AND ITS NAVAL BATTLE.

Northward from Ausable River, Lake Champlain contains a number of large islands. Valeur Island is near the New York sh.o.r.e, and in the narrow channel separating them, in 1776, a desperate naval contest was fought between Arnold and Carleton, resulting in the defeat of the Americans. Beyond are the large islands of Grand Isle, South Hero and North Hero. Standing in an admirable position on Bluff Point, a high promontory on the western sh.o.r.e, is the great Hotel Champlain, elevated two hundred feet above the lake. To the north the Saranac River, coming from the southwest, flows out of the Adirondacks through its red sandstone gorge into c.u.mberland Bay, and at its mouth is the pleasant town of Plattsburg, having a population of seven thousand.

The broad peninsula of c.u.mberland Head, projecting far to the southward into the lake, encloses the bay in front of the town.

Plattsburg's greatest fame comes from its battle and Commodore McDonough's victory in 1814. The earliest settler was a British army officer, one Count de Fredenburgh, who built a sawmill at a fall near the mouth of the Saranac; but he was made way with early in the Revolution, and many have been the startling tales since told of his ghostly figure, in red coat and knee-breeches, stalking about the ruins of the old mill at Fredenburgh Falls. After the war, New York State confiscated the property and gave it to Zephaniah Platt and his a.s.sociates, who established the town, and in 1785 rebuilt the mill.

Plattsburg had become a place of so much importance that in the War of 1812-15 the English sent a large force from Canada for its capture.

They attacked it on a Sunday morning in September, 1814, Sir George Prevost commanding the land forces and Commodore Downie a fleet of sixteen vessels. General Macomb had a small American detachment entrenched on the southern bank of the Saranac in hastily constructed earthworks, some remains being yet visible. The naval contest, however, decided the day, the superior British fleet being overcome by the better American tactics. McDonough had but fourteen vessels, anch.o.r.ed in a double line across the mouth of c.u.mberland Bay. As the British fleet rounded c.u.mberland Head to make the attack, a c.o.c.k that was aboard McDonough's flag-s.h.i.+p, the "Saratoga," suddenly flew upon a gun and crowed l.u.s.tily. This was esteemed a good omen, and giving three cheers, the Americans went to work with a will. After two hours'

conflict the British fleet was defeated and captured. Downie was killed early in the action, and with fifteen other officers sleeps in Plattsburg Cemetery. McDonough was crushed by a falling boom, and afterwards was stunned by being struck with the flying head of one of his officers, knocked off by a cannon-shot, but he was undaunted to the end. Honors were heaped upon him, Congress giving him a gold medal, and he was also presented with an estate upon c.u.mberland Head overlooking the scene of his victory.

Plattsburg has the chief United States military post on the Canadian border, there being usually a large force stationed at the extensive barracks. It is also the terminus of railways coming from the Adirondacks, originally built to fetch out the iron-ores, of which it is an active market. One of these railways comes from Ausable Forks.

Another is the Chateaugay Railroad, which has a circuitous route around the northern and eastern verges of the wilderness, from the Chateaugay and Chazy Lakes, where are the ore beds in a dismal region.

Lyon Mountain, one of the chief ore producers, has its mines at two thousand feet elevation above the lake. Stretching far away to the northward is the immense Chateaugay forest and wilderness, extending into Canada. This railroad pa.s.ses Dannemora, where is located the Clinton Prison, a New York State inst.i.tution, at which it is said "they always have a number of people of leisure, who pa.s.s their time in meditation, making nails, cracking ore, and in other congenial pursuits." The railroad route cuts into the red sandstone gorge of the Saranac, and follows its valley out to Plattsburg. Some distance north of Plattsburg, and at the Canadian boundary, is Rouse's Point, a border customs station. This is the northern end of Lake Champlain, which discharges through the Richelieu or Sorel River into the St.

Lawrence, the waters descending about one hundred feet, and mostly by the Chambly Rapids. The Chambly Ca.n.a.l, which locks down this descent, provides navigation facilities from Champlain to the St. Lawrence waters.

ENTERING THE ADIRONDACKS.

From Westport on Lake Champlain is one of the favorite routes into the Adirondacks. The name of this dark region originally came from the Mohawks, who applied it in derision to the less fortunate savages that inhabited the forbidding forests. The luxurious Mohawk, living in fertile valleys growing plenty of corn, could see nothing for his dusky enemy in this dismal wilderness to eat, excepting the dark trees growing on its mountain sides, and therefore the Mohawk called these people the Adirondacks, or "the bark and wood eaters." The actual derivation of the word is thought to come from the Iroquois root "atiron," meaning "to stretch along," referring to the mountain chains. Starting from Westport, we penetrate the region by a steep road into the Raven Pa.s.s, known as the "Gate of the Adirondacks,"

going through one of the ridges, among juniper bushes and aspen poplars, and thus get to the pleasant valley beyond, where flows the lovely Bouquet River. Here are a bunch of red-roofed cottages surrounded by elms contrasting prettily with the green fields, with boarding-houses and hotels interspersed, making up the village of Elizabethtown, the county-seat of Ess.e.x, which is hereabout called E-Town, for short. It spreads over the flat bottom of a fertile valley, encompa.s.sed around by high mountains. Circling all over the valley and yet concealed in deep gorges is the Bouquet River, which flows out to Lake Champlain, near the Split Rock. To the westward rises the sharp bare granite top of Mount Hurricane, nearly thirty-eight hundred feet, and to the southwest the towering Giant of the Valley, over forty-five hundred feet. Cobble Hill, rising two thousand feet, closes up the western end of the main village street, its ball-like top being a complete reproduction of a huge cobble-stone. Out to the northward goes a wild mountain road, through the Poke o' Moons.h.i.+ne Pa.s.s, leading to Ausable Chasm, twenty-three miles away.

Travelling westward from E-Town, we mount the enclosing slope of the Pleasant Valley, and through the gorge alongside Mount Hurricane, up the canyon of the western branch of Bouquet River. Crossing the summit among the granite rocks and forests, we then descend into another long, trough-like valley, stretching as a broad intervale far away both north and south, through which flows Ausable River. This intervale includes the charming "Flats of Keene," the sparkling Ausable waters meandering quietly over them beneath overhanging maples and alders, quivering aspens and gracefully swaying elms, occasionally dancing among the stones and s.h.i.+ngle in some gentle rapid. Here are farmhouses, with many villas, the great mountain ridges protecting the valley from the wintry blasts. This intervale has in the eastern ridge the Giant of the Valley, with Mount Dix alongside, rising nearly five thousand feet, and to the southward, reared thirty-five hundred feet, exactly at the meridian, is the graceful Noon Mark Mountain, which casts the sun's noon shadow northward over the centre of the "Flats of Keene." The river, coming from the south, flows out of the lower Ausable Lake or the Long Pond, and dashes swiftly down its boulder-covered bed. Its waters are gathered largely from the eastern flanks of Mount Tahawus, and also from the galaxy of attendant peaks--Dix, Noon Mark, Colvin, Boreas, the Gothics, and others--grandly encircling the southern head of the attractive Keene Valley. The Ausable River rises under the brow of Tahawus, and flowing through the two long and narrow Ausable Lakes at two thousand feet elevation, traverses the whole length of the Keene Valley northward, to unite with its western branch at Ausable Forks, and thence goes through the great chasm to Lake Champlain. The head of the Keene Valley with the adjacent mountain slopes, extending through parts of three counties and covering a tract of forty square miles, is the "Adirondack Mountain Reserve." This reservation gives complete protection to the fish and game, and also preserves the forests and sources of the water supply. The Lower Ausable Lake is about two miles long and the Upper Ausable Lake nearly the same length, there being over a mile's distance between them. Some of the highest and most romantic of the Adirondack peaks environ these lakes. The sharply-cut summit of Mount Colvin rises forty-one hundred and fifty feet alongside them. The Ausable Lakes are in the bottom of a deep cleft between these great mountains, their sides rising almost sheer, two thousand feet and more above them. The lake sh.o.r.es are steep and rocky walls, reared apparently to the sky, the deep and contracted cleft making the lakes look more like rivers, surmounted high up the rocks by overhanging foliage, the trees diminutive in the distance. Of the Upper Ausable Lake, Warner writes that "In the sweep of its wooded sh.o.r.es, and the lovely contour of the lofty mountains that guard it, this lake is probably the most charming in America."

ADIRONDACK ATTRACTIONS.

The western guardian peaks of the Keene Valley are the main range of the Adirondacks, including Mount Marcy or Tahawus. Mount Colvin, alongside the Ausable Lakes, was named in honor of Verplanck Colvin, the New York surveyor and geologist, who devoted years of energy to the survey of this wilderness, and perhaps knew it better than anyone else. He was always in love with it, and thought that few really understood it. He described it as "a peculiar region, for though the geographical centre of the wilderness may be readily reached, in the light canoe-like boats of the guides, by lakes and rivers which form a labyrinth of pa.s.sages for boats, the core, or rather cores, of this wilderness extend on either hand from these broad avenues of water, and in their interior spots remain to-day as untrodden by men and as unknown and wild as when the Indian paddled his birchen boat upon those streams and lakes. Amid these mountain solitudes are places where, in all probability, the foot of man never trod; and here the panther has his den among the rocks, and rears his savage kittens undisturbed, save by the growl of bear and screech of lynx, or the hoa.r.s.e croak of the raven taking its share of the carca.s.s of slain deer." The tangled Adirondack forest may to some seem monotonous and even dreary, but Mr. Street, the poet-writer of the region, thus enthusiastically refers to it: "Select a spot; let the eye become a little accustomed to the scene, and how the picturesque beauties, the delicate minute charms, the small overlooked things, steal out like lurking tints in an old picture. See that wreath of fern, graceful as the garland of a Greek victor at the games; how it hides the dark, crooked root, writhing snake-like from yon beech! Look at the beech's instep steeped in moss, green as emerald, with other moss twining round the silver-spotted trunk in garlands or in broad, thick, velvety spots! Behold yonder stump, charred with the hunter's camp-fire, and glistening black and satin-like in its cracked ebony! Mark yon ma.s.s of creeping pine, mantling the black mould with furzy softness! View those polished cohosh-berries, white as drops of pearl! See the purple barberries and crimson cl.u.s.ters of the hopple, contrasting their vivid hues!--and the ma.s.sive logs peeled by decay--what gray, downy smoothness! and the gra.s.ses in which they are weltering--how full of beautiful motions and outlines!"

From the Keene Valley we climb up the gorge of a brisk little brook to the westward, and pa.s.sing through the notch between Long Pond Mountain and the precipitous sides of the well-named Pitch-Off Mountain, come to the pair of elongated deep and narrow ponds between them,--the Cascade Lakes,--stretching nearly two miles. Huge boulders line their banks with a wall of rough and ponderous masonry, entwined with the roots of trees, and like the Ausable Lakes, they are another Alpine formation, their surfaces being at twenty-one hundred feet elevation, yet resting in the bottom of a tremendous chasm. An unique cascade, falling in successive leaps for seven hundred and fifty feet down the southern enclosing mountain wall, has given them the name--a delicate white lace ribbon of foaming water, finally pa.s.sing into the lower lake. The grand dome of Mount McIntyre, in the main Adirondack range, rises in majesty to an elevation of fifty-two hundred feet, a sentinel beyond the western entrance to this remarkable pa.s.s. Formerly iron-ores were found here, but iron-making has been abandoned for the more profitable occupation of caring for the summer tourist. Beyond these lakes the summit of the pa.s.s is crossed, and there is a farm or two upon a broad plateau, at twenty-five hundred feet elevation, the highest cultivated land in New York State. Comparatively little but hay, however, can be raised, the seasons are so short and fickle. Deer haunt this remote region, and their runways can be seen. Emerging from the pa.s.s, with the little streams all running westward to the Ausable's western branch, there is got a fine view of the main Adirondack range, with the ma.s.sive Mount McIntyre and the almost perpendicular side of Wallface rising beyond, the deep notch of the famous Indian Pa.s.s, cut down between them, showing plainly. Both peaks tower grandly above a surrounding galaxy of bleak, dark mountains.

OLD JOHN BROWN OF OSAWATOMIE.

This broad flat valley of the Western Ausable, the stream winding through it in a deeply-cut gorge, and surrounded on the south and west by an amphitheatre of the highest Adirondack peaks, is the towns.h.i.+p of North Elba in Ess.e.x county; and the valley and its fertile borders are the "Plains of Abraham." It is a farming district, so well enclosed by the mountains that the soil is fairly tillable. These plains gradually slope northwestward to the banks of two of the most noted of the Adirondack waters, Lake Placid and the Mirror Lake, with old Whiteface Mountain for their guardian, "heaving high his forehead bare." Here are the scattered buildings of the village of North Elba on the plains, and the more modern and fas.h.i.+onable settlement beyond at the lakes. To the southward is the great rounded top of Tahawus, the highest Adirondack peak, displayed through an opening vista, and at the northern border grandly stands Whiteface, the black sides abruptly changing to white, where an avalanche years ago denuded the granite cliffs near the top and swept down all the trees. Here at North Elba was the home and farm of "Old John Brown of Osawatomie." He had been given this homestead by Gerrit Smith, the great New York Abolitionist, in 1849, and there had also been founded here a colony of refuge for the negro slaves. It was then a remote and almost unknown place in the wilderness. Brown settled in the colony and built his little log house and barn near a huge boulder which stood a short distance from the front door. Here he formed his plan for liberating the slaves, and from here went to engage in the Kansas border wars of 1856. Returning, for three years he brooded on plans to liberate the negroes, and after further conflicts in Kansas projected the expedition into Virginia for the capture of Harper's Ferry in October, 1859. He declared his object to be to free all the slaves, and that he acted "by the authority of G.o.d Almighty." After his capture and conviction he discouraged efforts at liberation, saying, "I am of more use to the cause dead than living." After his death his body was brought up here to his home in the wilderness, for he had said, "When I die, bury me by the big rock, where I love to sit and read the word of G.o.d." Here he was buried on a bitterly cold day in December, 1859, a few sorrowing friends conducting the services and covering up his body in the frozen ground.

The old gravestone of his grandfather was brought from New England and put at the head of the grave, but it was soon so chipped off and broken by relic-hunters, it had to be enclosed in a case for preservation. Behind the grave rises the huge boulder on which has been carved, in large letters, "John Brown, 1859." The old gravestone is full of names both front and back, containing the record of his own death, and that of three sons, two losing their lives at Harper's Ferry and one in Kansas. The record of his life, graven on the stone, is: "John Brown, born May 9, 1800, was executed at Charleston, Va., Dec. 2, 1859." It is here that

"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, And his soul goes marching on."

Forty years afterwards, in 1899, the remains of seven of his companions in the Harper's Ferry raid were removed here and interred beside him. This region no longer knows Brown's kindred, for all have disappeared. Yet in the world's mutations, nothing could be more strange than that this remote wilderness, originally selected as a refuge and hiding-place for runaway slaves, should have become one of the most fas.h.i.+onable and popular health resorts in America. The farm and graves are now kept by New York State as a public park.

LAKE PLACID TO PAUL SMITH'S.

Lake Placid, nestling at the base of old Whiteface and elevated eighteen hundred and sixty feet above the sea, is often called the "Eye of the Adirondacks." Its mountain environment has made it almost a rectangle, four miles long and two miles wide. Down its centre, arranged in a row, are three beautiful islands, named respectively the Hawk, Moose and Buck, two being large and high and the third smaller.

These divide it into alternating s.p.a.ces of land and water much like a chess-board. To the eastward is the pretty Mirror Lake, about three miles in circuit. Both lakes have high wooded sh.o.r.es, and around them are gathered the hotels, cottages and camps of a large summer settlement. Surrounded by a grander galaxy of finer and higher mountains than any other lakes of this region, here is truly the "Eye"

that views these dark Adirondacks in all their glory. These mountains are all sombre, and some almost inky black; many are hazy in the distance. To the northeast the Wilmington Pa.s.s, alongside Whiteface, lets out the western branch of Ausable; to the southward, the Indian Pa.s.s opening between McIntyre and Wallface is a source of the Hudson; to the westward, on the spurs of lower ranges, are the forests separating these lakes from the Saranacs. There are more than a hundred peaks around, of varying heights and features, among them the greatest of the Adirondacks. Embosomed within this wonderful amphitheatre is the gla.s.sy-surfaced lake, protected from the winds and storms, which is so attractive and so peaceful that it fully deserves its name, Lake Placid.

Crossing again to the westward through the forests and over the ridges, we come into the valley of the Saranac, with its lakes, and the ancient village of Harrietstown under the long ridge of Ampersand Mountain. Here on the Lower Saranac Lake is another summer settlement of villas, hotels and camps. Behind the mountain there is a little lake out of which flows a stream so crooked and twisted into and out of itself, turning around sweeping circles without accomplis.h.i.+ng much progress, that its discoverers could not liken it to anything more appropriate than to the eccentric supernumerary of the alphabet, the "&." Thus the name of the "Ampersand" of the old spelling-books was applied first to the stream, and then to the lake and mountain, the latter being the guardian of the many lakes of this region. The Lower Saranac Lake is at fifteen hundred and forty feet elevation, and the Ampersand Mountain rises a thousand feet above it. A pretty church in the village is appropriately named for St. Luke the Physician, and here is located the Adirondack Sanitarium, this district being a favorite refuge for consumptives. The Chateaugay railroad comes in here, but the district beyond to the south and west has neither railroads nor wagon roads. It is such a labyrinth of lakes and water courses it can only be traversed in boats.

The whole western part of the Adirondacks is an elevated tableland, containing many hills and peaks, but saturated by water ways.

Therefore "canoeing and carrying" is the method of transportation.

The Lower Saranac Lake is five miles long, and beyond it is Round Lake, over two miles in diameter, beyond that being the Upper Saranac Lake, nearly eight miles long and dotted with islands. There are portages between them where the canoes have to be carried. The outlet of the Upper Saranac is a magnificent cataract and rapid, descending thirty-five feet in a distance of about one hundred yards. From the Upper Saranac Lake other portages, or "carrys," as they are called, lead over to the Blue Mountain region, the Raquette River and the Tupper Lakes to the westward. The Adirondack ranges here are lower, and the forests get denser, but all about are dotted the summer settlements, some of them displaying most elaborate construction.

Every place has its boat-house and canoe-rack, and boats are moving in all directions. At the head of the Upper Saranac is St. Regis Mountain, and a long "carry" of about four miles through the forest goes over to the Big Clear Pond, the head of the Saranac system of waters. Crossing this lake, yet another "carry" takes us over the watershed. This is a famous portage in the liquid district, the "St.

Germain carry" of over a mile between the Saranac headwaters and the sources of St. Regis River, flowing out westward and then northward to the St. Lawrence. It leads to the series of St. Regis Lakes, and finally on the bank of the Lower St. Regis to the great hotel of the woods--Paul Smith's--with many camps surrounding the sh.o.r.es of the lake. Apollus Smith, a shrewd Yankee, came here many years ago, when the locality was an unbroken wilderness, and built a small log house in the forest as an abiding-place for the hunter and angler. It was repeatedly enlarged, and with it the domain, now covering several thousand acres, until the hostelrie has become an unique mixture of the backwoods with modern fas.h.i.+on, and is everywhere known as the typical house of the Adirondack region. Upon the hill behind the hotel is the attractive little church of "St. John in the Wilderness,"

appropriately built of logs hewn in the surrounding forest.

ADIRONDACK LAKES.

To the westward is the water system of the Raquette River, leading to the St. Lawrence; this stream, the chief one in the district, flowing out of Raquette Lake. This lake is irregularly shaped, about ten miles long, and surrounded by low hills, its elevation being nearly eighteen hundred feet. The dense forests that are adjacent teem with game, and its hotels and private camps are among the best in the region, "Camp Pine Knot" being especially famous as the most elaborate and attractive of its kind in America. Blue Mountain rises to the eastward nearly thirty-eight hundred feet, and at its southwestern base is the Blue Mountain Lake, having on its southern edge the small Eagle Lake, where lived in a solitary house called the Eagle's Nest the noted "Ned Buntline," the author. To the southwest of Raquette are the chain of eight Fulton Lakes. North of Raquette are the Forked Lakes, and northeast of it, following down the Raquette River, Long Lake, which is fourteen miles long and barely a mile wide in the broadest part, having Mount Seward rising at its northern end. To the northwest, still following down the Raquette, are the Tupper Lakes. These are a few of the larger lakes in this labyrinth of water courses, there being hundreds of smaller ones; and, as the forest and water ways extend northwest, the land gradually falls away towards the great plain adjoining the St. Lawrence. These regions, however, are remote from ordinary travel, and the western Adirondack forests are rarely penetrated by visitors excepting in search of sport.

This wonderful region has only during recent years attracted general public attention as a great sanitarium and summer resort, but its popularity constantly increases. Its dark and forbidding mountains have become additionally attractive as they are better known, probably for the reason, as John Ruskin tells us, that "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery." Its universal woods and waters have a resistless charm. As one wanders through the devious pathways, or glides over the gla.s.sy surface of one of its myriad lakes, the vivid coloring and richness of the plant life recall Thomson, in the _Seasons_:

"Who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast Amid its gay creation hues like her's?