Tag Archives: Alvah Dunning

Alvah Dunning: The Hermit Who Could Not Escape Civilization

Posted on by

stoddard photo

Alvah Dunning was perhaps the most famous of Raquette Lake guides, alleged to have helped lead the first excursion of sportsmen to Raquette Lake at age eleven. Born in Lake Piseco in 1816, he lived there until 1860 when his neighbors’ rightful condemnation of his abuse of his wife forced him to flee.  1  From that moment, he chose to remove himself from society in favor of the freedom of the wilderness. Yet civilization’s constant barrage upon him eventually brought him to a tragic end.

Reverend Thomas Wall described the man from his 1856 excursion to the region:

Dunning…is a very close imitation of some of [Fenimore] Cooper’s models [of the Leatherstocking Tales]– silent, stealthy in movement, full of resources; he could almost speak the language of the animals. I have seen him, by a peculiar chipper, call a mink from its hiding place in the rocks and shoot it, and have known him to bring a deer back into the water by bleating and making the noise of wading. Dunning was a true sportsman, never allowing more fish or game to be taken than was needed…Indeed, his excellence, when in his prime, was so generally known that it excited much of the enmity with which he was regarded by some, for if he could be had he was always first choice.  2

Dunning’s woodsman skills were learned from his father, “Scout” Dunning, who had served under General William Johnston and perfected his woodcraft during the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution. These skills served Alvah well as he fled civilization for Lake Lewey and later settled in Blue Mountain Lake.  3

According to Dr. Arpad Gerster, the growing attraction of wealthy sports to Blue Mountain Lake soured the tranquility that Dunning sought.  4  My great-great-grandfather George Hornell Thacher began visiting Blue in 1862 seeking his own solitude and yet he represents the first wave that drove Alvah further west.   Ironically, GHT followed Alvah’s footsteps to the same spot 15 years later driven by the growth of tourist hotels on Blue.

Several sources state that Dunning lived at Indian Point on Raquette Lake between 1865 and 1868. My research indicates that he likely squatted in the first of two cabins built by William Wood, the one nearest the very tip of the southern fork of the peninsula. During this time, ownership of the cabin and a small parcel of land surrounding it changed between Albert Eldred and John Plumley, both of whom lived elsewhere. Plumley lived in Long Lake and being well acquainted with Alvah, it is conceivable that he allowed this use of his land by Dunning.  5

map 1865-1868

Of his many clients, we know that one visitor of note in the summer of 1865 was Fred Mather, who later became the fisheries editor of Forest and Stream magazine. For two weeks, he stayed with Dunning on Indian Point and fished for trout in Raquette and Brown’s Tract Inlet.  6

Mather later described him in his book My Angling Friends;

Only men who possess strongly marked personalities are capable of making strong friends and as equally strong enemies…it seems that Alvah is well liked by sportsmen whom he has served…Others dislike him, and among Adirondack guides he is, for some reason, the most unpopular man in the woods.

The enmity of other guides was also stoked by Dunning’s fierce belief in his right to unfettered use of the land and to kill game any time of year. Mather writes of visiting Dunning again in 1882 when Alvah complained;

Times is different now, an’ wus. In them days nobody said a word if a poor man wanted a little meat an’ killed it, but now they’re a-savin’ it until the dudes get time to come up here an’ kill it, an’ some of ’em leave a deer to rot in the woods, an’ on’y take the horns ef it’s a buck, or the tail ef it’s a doe, just so’s they can brag about it when they go home, an’ they’d put me in jail ef I killed a deer when I needed meat. I dunno what we’re a-comin’ to in this free country.  7

Although praised and sought after by the wealthy for his guiding skills, Dunning did not return the appreciation, complaining to Mather,

These woods is a-gittin’ too full o’ people fer comfort—that is, in summer time ; fer they don’t bother the trappin’ in the winter; but they’re a-runnin’ all over here in summer a-shootin’ an’a-fishin’, but they don’t kill much, nor catch many fish ; but they git in the way, an’ they ain’t got no business here disturbin’ the woods.  8

There is no small irony in the fact that the writings of Mather, in Forest and Stream, brought an even greater number of adventurers into the Adirondacks. Forest and Stream became a prominent voice championing the forest conservation and game regulations that infringed upon Dunning’s freedom.

Dunning continuously moved around the area. He allegedly purchased Osprey Island on Raquette Lake from John Plumley in 1868, sharing the island with Reverend Adirondack Murray to the early 1870s.  9

alvah osprey camp

He then built a cabin at Brown’s Tract Inlet and later the one shown below on an island on Eighth Lake.

Alvah Dunning with dog

Mather attempted to remain in contact with Alvah as late as 1896 according to this classified placed in Forest and Stream.

Mather search Dunning

While Mather and other writers in the popular press always expounded on Dunning’s expertise, they also often portrayed the man as a simpleton, condescendingly alluding to his lack of understanding that the earth is round, the reasons for tides, and giving Alvah’s voice a foolish dialect.

A popular fable about Dunning claims that he sold his vote for President Grover Cleveland in the fall of 1892 in exchange for two boxes of Cleveland Baking Powder. The true story is more complex but equally amusing. Dunning had guided for Cleveland in the summer of 1892. Prior to Cleveland’s second inauguration in March of 1893, the Fort Orange Club of Albany, NY, hosted a celebratory dinner for the president-elect. James Ten Eyck, President of the Club and owner of a rustic lodge at North Point on Raquette Lake, contacted Ike Kenwell to procure the freshest trout for the dinner. Kenwell, who had previously owned the Raquette Lake House at Tioga Point on Raquette Lake, contracted Alvah Dunning for the task.   Dunning caught 35 pounds of brook trout through the frozen ice of Shallow Lake. Rather than be paid for the trout, Alvah decided to make a trade. Erroneously believing the newly inaugurated President was associated with the Cleveland Baking Powder company, he wrote:

 Mr. Cleveland:

Dear Sir: Some time ago Ike Kenwell asked me to get you twenty-five pounds of brook trout. I done so. He offered to pay me, but I did not take any pay. Just now I am out of baking powder and would be very much obliged if you would send me some.

Yours truly,

A. DUNNING

President Cleveland graciously sent two cases of one pound boxes to Alvah.  10

News of his exploits often made the press.   In the winter of 1894 came a report of his unfortunate death.   Forest and Stream magazine reported that Alvah had fallen on the ice of Raquette Lake and cracked his skull. He was brought to William S. Durant’s Camp Pine Knot where a doctor attending him said he would not recover. The magazine lamented “That such a man should, after long years of peril by field and flood, come to his death by a fall on the ice such as one might get on Broadway, is one of the ironical phases of fate.”  11  Fortunately for Alvah, the news of his demise was premature and he recovered to live another eight years.

His actual death was equally ironic. On the night of June 13, 1902, the 86 year old Alvah Dunning spent the night in a hotel in Utica, NY. Continuing their condescending tone, the press reported that Dunning died because he “blew out the light” on the gas lamp in his room and was asphyxiated by the gas.   A more accurate account is given in Forest and Stream magazine, which noted that the cock on the gas lamp was left one quarter open. It appears that Alvah had closed it enough so that the flame of the lamp died but that he did not seal the valve shut.  12

Modern civilization, which he had sought to escape all his life, tragically ended that life.

 

Adirondack Bear Tales

Posted on by

Screen Shot 2015-02-02 at 4.58.05 PM

We have had our share of bear stories at the little red cabin on the tip of Birch Point.  As a young boy I remember the night my brother, my father and I were sleeping in the lean-to, solely enclosed behind window screens and a screen door.  In the middle of the night, I was awakened by the rustling of my father going out to fertilize the tree roots around the left side of the lean-to (I guess he just didn’t feel like making the trek to the outhouse down the path away from camp).  Just as he disappeared around the corner of the lean-to, I noticed a big dark shadow off the right side of the lean-to, halfway between the little red cabin and our lean-to.  As my eyes adjusted I could clearly see the slow lumbering movement of a black bear.  I called for my father and he rushed back and made for the door of the lean-to just before the bear reached the same spot.  As we sat inside, we thought ourselves fortunate that this bear had no interest in us because the screens would have slowed him little if he wished to enter the lean-to.

Sometime in the 1990s was the last time we know bears visited the end of Birch Point.  A mother and two cubs broke through the front door of the red cabin, tipped over the refrigerator and knocked the stove pipe off the cast iron pot belly wood stove, spraying soot and ash over everything.  To make things worse, they somehow blocked their own escape and were forced to exit the cabin through the back window and in the process pulled the window, jam and all, right out of the wall.  Fortunately, no one was home at the time but my cousins found the cabin in such a state when they arrived.

Obviously such interactions between humans and black bears have been happening for centuries and here is such a story published in The Sun newspaper of New York City.

ADK bear tales title

ADK bear tales 1

ADK bear tales 2

ADK bear tales 3

ADK bear tales 4

ADK bear tales 5

ADK bear tales 6

ADK bear tales 7

ADK bear tales 8

ADK bear tales 9

Adirondack Murray’s Guide Honest John

Posted on by

John Plumley Photo

Honest John Plumbley [sic], the prince of guides, patient as a hound, and as faithful, – a man who knows the wilderness as a farmer knows his fields, whose instinct is never at fault, whose temper is never ruffled, whose paddle is silent as falling snow, whose eye is true along the sights, whose pancakes are the wonder of the woods…

Reverend William H. H. Murray in Adventures in the Wilderness 1869.

Murray is widely credited with bringing the masses to the Adirondacks.   The historian Warder Cadbury said, “Murray quite literally popularized both wilderness and the Adirondacks.” “Murray’s Rush”, the onslaught of tourists who rushed to the mountains in response to his book, gave rise to the claim that the Adirondacks are the birthplace of the American vacation.

John Plumley* is the man who brought the Adirondacks to Murray, serving as his guide through his adventures.

Following the similar Adirondack migration of fellow Vermonters Matthew Beach and William Wood, Plumley’s father moved his family from Shrewsbury, Vermont, to Long Lake in the 1830s. John was younger than ten when he arrived and quickly befriended an older boy, Mitchell Sabattis. Like Sabattis, John became an active guide at the age of twenty-one.

Plumley was the first guide to introduce Beach’s Lake to Dr. Benjamin Brandreth. In 1851, Brandreth purchased 24,000 acres surrounding Beach’s Lake (now called Brandreth Lake) to form the first private preserve in the region. Plumley served several years as caretaker for Brandreth Park and constructed many of the cabins within the park. The last photo taken of Plumley in 1899 shows him seated at the feet of what was believed to be the last wolf killed in the Adirondacks.

Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 3.13.46 PM

There are two strings that tie Plumley to the fifty acres of Beach and Wood. As a young man, Plumley married Zobeda Hough, the daughter of Amos Hough. In 1856, Matthew Beach deeded his 25 acres on Indian Point to Amos Hough on condition that Hough would care for Beach until his death. Although Hough sold the land the same year to a land speculator named Marshall Shedd, from 1856 to1859, Hough and Beach still lived in his cabin on Indian Point. However in the 1860 census, Beach is found living in the Long Lake home of John Plumley, who had assumed his father-in-law’s obligation. Plumley also purchased William Wood’s 25 acres on Indian Point, owning the land from 1859 to 1864.

Hough and Plumley’s intimate familiarity with Indian Point led to a most remarkable rendezvous that occurred on these shores in the summer of 1873. Using Adirondack Murray’s book as a guide, a group of 25 women traversed the Adirondacks from four directions to meet at Indian Point. They were a group of teachers and students from a women’s academy in New York City founded by Amanda Benedict, the wife of Farrand Benedict’s younger brother Joel.

While not the first group of women to explore the Adirondacks, this expedition was clearly the most ambitious. The 16 Adirondack guides employed by the expedition included several of the most prominent guides of Adirondack history: Mitchell Sabattis and his son Charlie, John Cheney, William Higby, James Sturgess, Alvah Dunning, and Plumley.

One group travelled from Lake Champlain along the Saranac River and Raquette River to Raquette Lake in the company of Amos Hough. Another entered the region from the west, following the Moose River into the Fulton Chain of Lakes where Plumley guided them through to Raquette. A third group followed a path similar to Sir John Johnson’s escape north from Lake Pleasant, approaching Raquette Lake from the south. The forth group departed Ticonderoga and followed the Schroon River, and then hiked west to meet the rest.

The expedition’s final destination was Blue Mountain Lake, or as the women called it the “Lake of the Skies” (also the title of Barbara McMartin’s wonderful book detailing the expedition). All four groups rendezvoused at Raquette Lake’s South Inlet Falls on June 11th, then spent four days camped near the site of Beach’s cabin on Indian Point prior to continuing to Blue Mountain Lake on June 15th.

A number of places could have served for their base camp, perhaps Big Island or Woods Point, which both lie between South Inlet and the mouth of the Marion River that leads to Blue Mountain Lake. Indian Point was out of their way and double the distance from South Inlet. Hough and Plumley must have proposed the use of their former property for the base camp.

Screen Shot 2014-12-20 at 1.59.16 PM

When John Plumley died in 1900, the Rev. William H. H. Murray wrote in the journal Woods and Waters:

He taught me a faultless knowledge of the woods, the name and nature of plant and herb and tree, the languages of the night, and the occultism of silent places and soundless shores…He had a most gentle and mannerly reticence and that sweetest of all habits in man or woman – the habit of silence. He could look and see, listen and hear, and say nothing… His knowledge of woodcraft was intuitive. He knew the points of the compass sensationally. He was an atom whose nature mysteriously held it in reciprocal connection with the magnetic currents of the world. In the densest woods, on the darkest nights, he was never bewildered, never at fault… He was the only guide I ever knew…that could not in any circumstance lose himself or his way.

They tell me he is dead. It is a foolish fashion of speech and not true. Not until the woods are destroyed to the last tree, the mountains crumbled to their bases, the lakes and streams dried up to their beds, and the woods and wood life are forgotten, will the saying become fact. For John Plumbley [sic] was so much of the woods, the mountains and the streams that he personified them. He was a type that is deathless. Memory, affection, imagination, literature – until these die, the great guide of the woods will live with ever enlarging life as the years are added to the years, and the lovers of nature and sport multiply.

And so here I do my part to breathe life into the memory of Honest John Plumley.

 

* John’s last name appears with and without the “b” in various written histories. However, the legal deeds to his property on Indian Point spell his name without the “b” and thus I have adopted that standard.

Searching for the 1878 Thacher Cabin on Indian Point

Posted on by

In my last piece regarding when the mysterious Thacher Cabin was built, I cited numerous newspaper articles and books that referenced the cabin’s existence.   However, none of them clarified where the cabin was built. Previously reviewed maps of Raquette Lake gave no indication and no photos or drawings of the cabin have been found.

I chose to begin my search by focusing on the one visitor to the cabin for whom historical records might exist.   In Aber and King’s History of Hamilton County, it is written that the priest Rev. Henry Gabriels performed Catholic Mass at the Thacher Camp from July 11th to the 14th in 1878. Gabriels later became the Bishop of Ogdensburg. In the hope that this early mass in the Adirondacks might be of historical significance, I contacted the archivist of the Diocese of Ogdensburg looking for any original documents or photos of Gabriels’ visit.

Imagine my surprise when the archivist sent me the following photocopy from notes that he found:

Gabriels North Point Inn

“North Point Inn”? Could I be wrong in my assumption that the 1878 cabin was built on our family’s land on Indian Point? The North Point Inn was located across North Bay from Indian Point. My mind raced as I retraced my steps looking at all of the newspaper articles and books.

One New York Times article had said “There’s ex-Mayor Thatcher of Albany’s place,’ said the Captain of the little steamer, pointing to a fine lodge on the north shore.”   Did he mean the north shore of Raquette Lake and not the north side of Indian Point?

I then realized that when Nessmuk wrote of visiting the cabin, he simply wrote “a gentleman by the name of Thatcher (sic) who has a fine residence on Raquette Lake.” No mention of Indian Point whatsoever, just my assumption.

Fortunately, my heart rate eventually was calmed, after a day of frantic research turned up this from Seneca Ray Stoddard’s 1880 edition of The Adirondacks Illustrated:

Screen Shot 2014-08-04 at 5.09.25 PM

Once again confident of the cabin’s existence on Indian Point, I now tried to discover where on the land it was situated. I began by reviewing the property deeds. In 1876, John Boyd Thacher purchased two parcels on the tips of Indian Point. He paid nine dollars an acre to Marshal Shedd for roughly 25 acres. This first parcel is all the land to the east of the yellow line shown below, except for the area to the east of the blue lines.   JBT paid twenty-two dollars per acre to a William W. Hill for this second parcel of only 4.5 acres.

William H Hill Parcel arial

Eureka! Why would JBT pay more than twice per acre for the second parcel? Could it be that it contained an existing cabin? Was this the location of what became known as the Thacher Camp?

Alas, let me just say that there exists another explanation as to why JBT paid a high price for the second parcel. As the deed indicated that William W. Hill was from Albany, I thought it best to see if there was any connection between Hill and the Thacher family. Perhaps a higher price was paid as a favor to a friend.

Indeed, I found that William W. Hill and John Boyd Thacher were 33 degree Freemasons and both members of the Albany Chapter of the Rose Croix.   William W. Hill was an amateur entomologist whose collection of over 10,000 specimens of butterflies and moths was donated to the New York State Museum. Hill was also an officer of the Albany Institute. JBT had much in common with Hill’s scientific and preservationist inclinations and I have no doubt in claiming them to be more than mere acquaintances.

This explanation does not completely eliminate the possibility that there was an existing cabin within Hill’s parcel.   However, an epiphany came to me that argues against George Hornell Thacher establishing his camp on the southern shore of Indian Point.

No fewer than five newspaper articles and Nessmuk’s book speak of George Hornell Thacher’s love of lake trout fishing. Anyone who knows Raquette Lake understands that in summer, one fishes for lake trout exclusively in North Bay, where the depth provides the cold water desired by the trout. It is logical that GHT would have built his cabin along the north shore of Indian Point.

Indeed, a fish tale would prove to be the conclusive clue. On July 10, 1879, the Weekly Saratogian published:

Alvah fish

So clearly the Thacher Cabin was somewhere along the north side of Indian Point, but where?

Early in my research, the Adirondack Museum Librarian Jerry Pepper had shown me a hand-drawn map of Raquette Lake.  The museum did not know who created the map or when it was created.

Raquette 1881-1882 map cropped

The map has an X marked next to the word “Camp”, written in cursive, on the end of Birch Point.

Raquette 1881-1882 map close up

 

As this is the location of our family’s little, red one room cabin built in 1910, I assumed at first that this map was from the early nineteen teens.   However, further analysis revealed a different conclusion.

In addition to the geographic locations marked in ink, the map has the names of various camps written in pencil along the shore. There are two distinct sets of handwritten notations, one in cursive and one in block letters.   Based on the time period in which each of the named landmarks existed, the cursive notations predate those in block letters. The comparison of the dates reveals that the notation for the “Camp” on Birch Point reflects the year 1881 or 1882.

It would appear that the first Thacher Cabin was built in 1878 very near if not actually on the same ground where our little red cabin still stands today. What I would give for any photos that show the tip of Birch Point, even in the background, taken between 1878 and 1885.

 

Timeline

Posted on by

Events on these Fifty Acres of Beach and Wood

These points in time reveal some of the stories, of import and of good sport, that are yet to unfold in this blog.

1650-1794

Indian Point is used as a Winter hunting encampment by the Mohawk tribe.

1776  

The tory Sir John Johnson camps at Indian Point during his harrowing 19 day escape to Canada.

1837

At a pond northwest of Indian Point (Lone Pond or Cranberry Pond?), William Wood traps the last beaver seen alive in the Adirondacks until they were reintroduced in the beginning of the 20th century.

1837-40

Matthew Beach and William Wood became the first permanent settlers of Raquette Lake with their cabin built on Indian Point.  Exact date undetermined.

1840-43

Professor Ebenezer Emmons, first surveyor and the person to give the region the name “Adirondacks”, repeatedly stays with Beach and Wood while surveying the area.

1844-46

Joel Tyler Headley writes in his 1849 book The Adirondac – Life in the Woods of visits with Beach and Wood during his earlier explorations with guide Mitchell Sabattis.

1845

J.H. Young publishes the first map of New York State that shows a body of water in the location of Raquette Lake.  Only Long Lake to the north is named on the map and the drawing of Raquette Lake is almost completely inaccurate except for the detailed, near accurate depiction of Indian Point.

1849

Beach and Wood purchase from Farrand Benedict legal land titles giving them each an equal share of the 50 acres they have occupied on Indian Point.

1854

Beach deeds his 25 acres to Amos Hough of Long Lake contingent on Hough taking care of Beach until his death.

1856

Hough sells the 25 acres to land speculator Marshall Shedd Jr. allowing Beach to still reside there.

1859

John Plumley, -“Honest John” – famed guide of Adirondack Murray purchases William Wood’s 25 acres.

1860

Matthew Beach goes to live in Long Lake in the home of John Plumley, who as Amos Hough’s son-in-law has taken over the family obligation to care for Beach.

1861

In July at the South Inlet of Raquette Lake, William Wood shoots and kills the last moose seen alive in the Adirondacks until they were reintroduced by W. Seward Webb on his private preserve at the end of the 19th century.

1862

Mitchell Sabattis guides George Hornell Thacher on his first exploration of Blue Mt. Lake and Raquette Lake at the suggestion of Joel Tyler Headley, Thacher’s old friend from Union College days.

1865-1868

Alvah Dunning – one of the most notable of Adirondack Guides – squats on the south side of the southern fork of Indian Point.

1867 

John Boyd Thacher purchases an island in Blue Mt. Lake to build a lodge for the use of his father George Hornell Thacher.

1868

Verplanck Colvin, Superintendent of the Adirondack Land Survey from 1872-1900, as a 21 year old seeks the advice of his old childhood friend John Boyd Thacher as he plans his early explorations of the Adirondacks.

1869

Renowned landscape artist Arthur Tait spends the summer in Matthew Beach’s old cabin. He sketches here the paintings he named “The Adirondacks” and “Deer in the Woods”.

1873

Amanda Benedict, the sister-in-law of Farrand Benedict, organizes the first major all female expedition of the Adirondacks.   Four groups of women botany students traverse different routes starting from Schroon River, Saranac, Lake Pleasant and Moose River to converge at Indian Point.  The women and 16 of the most famous Adirondack Guides are brought together at one time on these acres.

1876

John Boyd Thacher purchases Matthew Beach’s 25 acres from Marshall Shedd Jr.

1876

Verplanck Colvin establishes an observation station for the Adirondack Land Survey on Thacher Island in Blue Mt. Lake.  He uses it to test a new technique for synchronization of time among survey field teams separated by great distance within the Adirondacks.

1877

First written description appears of George Hornell Thacher Jr., age 26, camping on Birch Point with a large group of young friends.

1877

Levi Wells Prentice, famed landscape artist, sketches from a vantage point within these acres the scene later depicted in his painting “Raquette Lake from Wood’s Clearing”.

1878

Reverend Henry Gabriels conducts Catholic Mass at the “Thacher Camp” on July 11, 12, 13, 14.  This is one of the earliest Catholic missions within the central interior of the Adirondacks.  At the time, Rev. Gabriels is the President of the St. Joseph Seminary in Troy, NY.  He later became the Bishop of Ogdensburg – the Diocese covering all of the Adirondack region.

1879

The Map of the New York Wilderness by Colton-Ely in the 1879 edition superimposes the name “Thatcher” written across the whole of Indian Point.  Earlier editions of the same map lack this detail.

1880

George Hornell Thacher Sr. begins his annual summer visits to the Thacher Camp staying in a “fine lodge” that pre-exists the current little red, one room cabin that is there today.  The location of the original cabin and its subsequent disappearance by 1886 is a mystery that drives my on-going research.

1883

George Washington Sears – a famous outdoorsman and author who penned articles and books under the name Nessmuck – visits with George Hornell Thacher at Thacher Camp during his Cruise of the Sairy Gamp.  This exchange is included in Nessmuck’s book titled Woodcraft.

1883

John Boyd Thacher, as New York State Senator representing Albany, fights for funding to expand Verplanck Colvin’s role to oversee an expanded New York State Land Survey.

1885

John Boyd Thacher in his role as Senator joins a unanimous vote to pass the Forest Preserve Act which is the first step toward the eventual creation of today’s Adirondack Park.

1887

George Hornell Thacher Sr. dies.

1893

John Boyd Thacher invites the Spanish Duke of Veragua, a direct lineal descendant of Christopher Columbus, to attend the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and arranges for him to travel through the Raquette Lake and Blue Mt. Lake region on a trip hosted by Verplanck Colvin.

1909 

John Boyd Thacher dies.

1910

George Hornell Thacher Jr. inherits the Thacher lands on Indian Point and builds the little red, one room cabin.

1915

George Hornell Thacher Jr. donates the use of the land for the month of August to the first annual State Forestry Camp of the State College of Forestry at Syracuse.

1939 

Two young boys of British Aristocracy are hosted at Thacher Camp and their guide is later paid with a barrel full of fine English china which legend says now lies at the bottom of the Needles Channel.