Saratoga and How to See It Part 8

PART II.

SARATOGA AS A WATERING PLACE, ITS HISTORY AND PECULIARITIES.

PLACES OF INTEREST IN THE VICINITY OF SARATOGA.

Battlefield, b.a.l.l.ston, Bemis Heights, Benedict's Sulphur Spring, Chapman's Hill, Circular Railway, Columbian Spring, Cohoes Falls, Congress Park, Congress Spring, Corinth Falls, Crystal Spring, Diamond Spring, Drs. Strongs Turkish Baths, Ellis Spring, Empire Spring, Eureka Spring, Excelsior Grove, Excelsior Spring, Excelsior Lake, Geyser Spring, Gla.s.s Factory, Glacier Spring, Glen Mitchel, Hagerty Hill, Hamilton Spring, Hathorn Spring, High Rock Spring, Indian Encampment, Indian Spring, Lake Lovely, Lake Saratoga, Luzerne, Marble Works, Pavilion Spring, Putnam's Spring, Race Course, Red Spring, Saratoga "A" Spring, Seltzer Spring, Star Spring, Stiles' Hill, Surrender Ground, Ten Springs, Trout Ponds, United States Spring, Verd Antique Marble Works, Was.h.i.+ngton Spring, Wagman's Hill, Water Works, Wearing Hill, White Sulphur Springs, Y.M.C.A. Rooms,

Photographs of the above can be had of Baker & Record.

For the location of these places see map.

No charge is made to visitors for the use of the waters, except a trifling fee to the "dipper boys," and even this is at the option of the visitor.

Saratoga as a Watering Place.

The question "where to spend the Summer?" is usually discussed by paterfamilias, anxious mammas and uneasy children long before the summer solstice drives them from the pent-up confines of the busy metropolis to the pure air and quite recreation of country life. Many will visit the seaside, some will climb the mountains or explore the forests. Fas.h.i.+on, in most instances, determines the place of resort, and has fixed on certain localities, or courts of its acknowledged leaders, where not to have been seen at least is to have been buried for the season.

One place has held through the many years the highest rank, both from intrinsic merit, and from an unfluctuating devotion of the fas.h.i.+onable world, and has been aptly termed "The Queen of American Watering Places."

The village of Saratoga, where dwells the benign G.o.ddess Hygeia, in the midst of her far-famed waters of life and health, is pleasantly situated within the heart of a broad stretch of varied table-land, in the upper part and near the eastern boundary of New York.

The History

Of this fas.h.i.+onable resort embraces a century. The muse of history has marked the spot with one of her red battleflags, and thus distinguished her from the herd of new places whose mushroom growth is like that of the gentility which they harbor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROUTES TO LAKE GEORGE.]

The first white visitor who is known to have drank from these "rivers of Pactolus" is no less a distinguished person than Sir Wm. Johnson, Bart., who was conducted hither, in 1767, by his Mohawk friends. At that early day America could boast of little in the way of aristocracy, and it was not till 1803 that the career of Saratoga, as a fas.h.i.+onable watering place, was inaugurated. In this year, when the village consisted of only three or four cabins, Gideon Putnam opened the Union Hotel, and displayed his primitive sign of "Old Put and the Wolf."

It was Putnam's ambition, when a boy even, to build him a great house, and in his time the Union Hotel, then 70 feet long, seemed to him doubtless comparatively as large as the present Grand Union seems to us.

It is not necessary for us to follow Saratoga through its misfortunes and its successes, its fires and its improvements, until it has reached its present reputation and attractiveness.

Year after year the water wells up its sparkling currents; year after year a little paint and plaster new-decks the great caravansaries; year after year belles blush and sigh away the summer, or, linking their destinies, rejoice or repine at leisure; and year after year, for a short four months of sequence, the little town swarms and rejoices with merry glee.

Routes to Saratoga.

During the visiting season trains from the metropolis reach the place in five hours and thirty minutes--a distance of 186 miles. You can leave the city at nine o'clock in the morning, and upon the soft-cus.h.i.+oned seats, and amid the damask and velvet of Wagman's magnificent drawing-room cars, enjoy a pleasurable journey up the famous Hudson, till you arrive at Saratoga early in the afternoon. Or, by the four o'clock train, Saratoga is reached in the evening. If pleasure is the object, and enjoyment of the lordly Hudson's bewildering beauty is desired, one of the steam palaces that plough the river should be taken. The most luxurious and elegant, and the safest and surest of these are the boats of the Peoples' Line. The contrast between the accommodations of these boats and certain others nearly as large, is so great as to leave no question which route is preferable.

From New England and Boston the shortest and most direct route is via Rutland and Fitchburgh. This is the only route that run Palace cars through between Boston and Saratoga.

Distances.

Albany, 38 miles.

Boston via Rutland, 230 miles.

Philadelphia, 274 miles.

Was.h.i.+ngton, 412 miles.

Chicago, 841 miles.

White Mountains, 322 miles.

Boston via Albany, 250 miles.

Troy, 32 miles.

New York City, 186 miles.

Niagara, 311 miles.

Lake George, 45 miles.

Montreal, 202 miles.

Quebec, 392 miles.

Rutland, 62 miles.

The Railway Station

Is naturally a place of special interest in any watering place.

Visitors are no sooner settled in their summer quarters than they become interested in the incomings and outgoings of their fellow men, watching eagerly if perchance any old acquaintance may turn up. The contrast between city and country life in this respect is noticable.

Those who, amid the race for wealth in the cities, can scarcely afford a nod to intimate friends, here greet a slight acquaintance even with a friendliness and cordiality undreamed of in the busy town.

The station at Saratoga is elegant and tasteful, facing an open square, adorned with fountain and shade trees. It is built of brick, with elaborate iron tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs from the Corrugated Iron Company of Springfield, Ma.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF CONGRESS PARK.]

The crowds are hastening away from it, and with them we will proceed towards

The Village.