74 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. §8, 1892. 



IN THOSE DAYS. 



""VTO," said Gilrnan, "the' wa'n't no railroads then, an' 

 _LM 't seems 's ef the' wa'n't much of anything else. 

 The boys nowadays do' know anything about what the'r 

 daddies hed ter git along with when they was young. I 

 c'n remember when matches fust come 'round. The' 

 was a young feller 't went over to Chatham, 'bout twenty 

 miles f'm where we hVed then, an 'he bought a little box 

 'bout ' big 'a that, 'n' he paid a York shillin' for 'em. 

 Well, every boy he come to on the road hum hed ter see 

 one o' them matches lit, an' b' the time he got ter our 

 place they was nigh about burnt up. "We use ter cover 

 up the coals keerful o' nights, but niany's the time I've 

 been round ter the neighbors to borry some coals. "When 

 we couldn't git 'em we'd put some loose tow in the old 

 shotgun an' fire it out. Sometimes we'd use a flint and 

 steel, but mos' gin'lly the gun. Then old flintlocks wa'n't 

 much to brag on, but they was better *n nothin'. 



"It's jest about fifty year ago. I was about nine year 

 old, 1 know, an' one night about 1 o'clock my mother 

 ahook father an' told him the bears was after Uncle 

 John's hogs. We could hear 'em a squealin' awful. So 

 father he got up 'n' lit the candle in the old tin lantern — 

 you've seen them, I s'pose, full o' holes ter let out the 

 light. He loaded up his old shotgun with shot — he hed- 

 n't no ball— an' primed her up, an' away he goes ter 

 Uncle John's. It was jest about such a night as this — 

 a rainin' hard an' dark as all git out. 



"Well, he routed out Uncle John, an' an old one-armed 

 sailor they hed there, name, o' Simmons, an' he would 

 swear awful. They loaded up another oF flint-lock an' 

 started for the hogs, an 5 , sure enough, there was the 

 biggest kind o' bear, with his arm right round one o ! the 

 hogs, and a-eatin' away at the back of his neck. He 

 looked up an' growled, an' then went on a-eatin\ I was 

 a shiverin' at the winder, and I could hear the hull racket. 

 Then they opened the door of the old tin lantern, so's ter 

 git a good sight, an' both on' em pulled, an" snap! went 

 the old locks — they were both wet. Then they went ter 

 work an 1 primed 'em up agin; the bear a-growlin', an' the 



V A R iPISE FALLS— ADIRONDACKS. 



hog a-squealin' all the time, an' the ol" sailor a-cussin fer 

 all 'at'a out. Seems ter me, I never did hear sich a-growlin', 

 an" a-squealin', an' a-cussin' in all my born days, but I 

 was a little feller then, an' wa'n't use' to it, an' I was 

 feared the bear 'd eat up Father 'n Uncle, 'n all the hogs 

 in the pen, 'fore he got through: an' fer all I knowed the' 

 was forty bears — 't sounded 'a ef there might a' ben— a- 

 clawin' at them hogs. 



"Then they opened the lantern agin, an' drawed 

 another bead, an' that time Father's gun went off. He 

 made a lucky shot, too — lucky fer him, I guess, fer 'f he 

 hedn't, an' the bear 'd a' got a clip at the lantern, an' put 

 that out, they couldn't a' see nothin', an' might a' run right 

 into his arms, 



"But he run off, up hill a piece, an' they follered on. 

 an' there they see him, a-lyin' down. Then father 

 wanted Uncle John ter gwup 'n hit him with the axe, 

 an' be wouldn't, fer fear the bear warn't dead. So father 

 he went up 'n hit him a clip, 'n he was dead, sure 'nuf. 

 Four hundred pounds that bear dressed, an' they sold the 

 skin for $ L2 — a big price them times, but 'twas late in the 

 fall. Yes, we use' ter see some tough times them days, 

 but we ruther enjoyed it, a'ter all." Kelpie. 



THE ADIRONDACKS.-J. 



Recollections and Sketches of the Great Forest. 

 BY. GEN. D. H. BRUCE. 



WERE you ever nearly sixty years of age, and were 

 fifty of those years embellished with a love of 

 natural history, and at intervals spiced by tramps with 

 rod and gun? Do you not vividly recall the pleasures 

 of your childhood while upon the winding stream, saun- 

 tering in the wood or beating the thicket? Where now is 

 that gun with its percussion lock, and that "fish-pole," 

 long and slender, which you cut in some sequestered 

 place where the growth was tallest and thickest? Where 

 the powder horn and shot pouch, the quill which held the 

 "pills"? Where that full-blooded mongrel dog which did 

 such good service? Those equipments were long since 

 laid aside, supplanted by those of newer and better de- 

 sign, but no dearer to you than were those of your youth. 

 However, we are quite willing to make the exchange, 

 even if we retain fond recollections of the paraphernalia 

 of those halcyon days. And who among us is there who 

 would not now prefer to spend an hour in the old wood 

 or follow the banks of the old brooks, to a day in any 

 other place? 



How in tnose days we tired of our too familiar resorts 

 and longed for other and broader fields. What our joy 

 when visions of the Adirondacks first broke upon us; 

 how gladly we embraced the first opportunity to visit 

 chat ', grand forest, its mountains, lakes and streams, 

 sublime in all their virgin purity. We lost ourselves in 

 the contemplation of our surroundings, Nature opened 



up to us her most enchanting pleasure. The waters were 

 filled with trout, the valleys and the mountains were 

 covered with game; fur- bearing animals wei*e seen every- 

 where. It was the sportsman's elysium. 



I have applied the name "Adirondacks" to all of that 

 northern region embraced in twelve counties, and com- 

 prising some fifteen thousand square miles of territory — 

 St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton, Essex, Warren, Hamil- 

 ton, Jefferson, Oneida, Herkimer, Lewis, Oswego and 

 Saratoga. Former sub-divisions which bore the names of 

 "John Brown's Tract," the "Reserve," etc., should cease 

 to exist and the entire forest allowed to come under its 

 original Indian name. Few aud imperfect were the sur- 



ENCH. 



veys which had been made for any purpose when an ex- 

 ploration was begun by the State in 1836 in furtherance 

 of the volumes on natural history which were to be writ- 

 ten pursuant to authorization of the Legistature. Ver- 

 plank Colvin knows better than any other man how in- 

 differently land surveys had been made where they were 

 made at all: and to him the State owes more than it will 

 ever pay for brineina: order out of chaos and nearly com- 

 pleting an accurate survey. 



it was a venturesome man who even half a century 

 ago would attempt to penetrate some of the wild recesses 

 of the wilderness, to which no trail led, much le?s a road. 

 Here and there, a Sabbath day's journey apart, lived 

 trappers, with indifferent shelter and no comforts: yet a 

 stranger was always welcome to such poor hospitalities 

 as they were able to extend. If they were poor in purse 

 they were generally rich in heart. Few were the hostel- 

 ties to be found anywhere, and such as existed were ex 

 tremely crude in every respect. The food was coarse but 

 wholesome, and now and then one, like "Mother John- 

 son's," won some reputation because of special cuisine 

 appointments. Scientific explorers were occasionally 

 met with, always under the escort of some courpetent 

 guide, and now and then visitors for pleasure or sport 

 would travel some well-known route. "Nature nestled 

 in ber wildness" indeed. But each year was witness to 

 the Yankee instinct for exploration until well-worn trails 

 took the place of blind trails, and now and then a road 

 was pushed further into the forest. For many years the 

 old "Albany road" and the "Ogdensburg and Lake 

 Champlain road" were important avenues from which 

 some important trails diverged. The line of both of 

 these roads can still be followed, lut tbey are mainly 

 filled with "second growth," having been long since 

 abandoned for public purposes. Year by year explora- 

 tions were extended for scientific as well as for hunting 



IK'lVr DUTY ALONE. 



and pleasure purposes, and with the steady increase of 

 visitors came comfortable hotels in many places. They 

 were not plenteous, and as a rule their proprietors were 

 woodsmen whose instincts taught them in some degree 

 that which would be pleasing to their guests. The vet- 

 eran hotel proprietor of the Adirondacks is Appollo A. 

 ("Paul") Smith. While yet under age and a guide he 

 laid the foundation of his present "St. James of the 

 Wilderness." adding to its dimensions and attractions 

 according to the public demand. He was keen of fore- 

 sight in his early years, and often averred that he was to 

 win a fortune on St. Regis Lake, and he has done it. 

 Several other prosperous hotels are now owned by him 

 and are under his management. 



It was reserved for "Adirondack"' Murray to draw such 

 attention to the forest as Headly and Sweet had failed in 

 doing, His facile pen and wonderfully vivid imagination 

 gave him superior advantages. His writings opened the 

 various gateways to floods of people and attracted thither 

 vast numbers of invalids in the last stage of pulmonary 

 disease, v/ho entered these gateways with strong hope of 

 recovery, but really to meet the great destroyer, Mur- 

 ray's tour was an extended one, and his descriptions of it 



were overcrowded with romance. The principal hotels 

 of to-day are palaces of comfort and pleasure, fitted with 

 every modern convenience and appliance, even to that 

 for drawing strongly upon the guest's purse. Many of 

 them occupy the former sites of trappers' shanties, with 

 iron rails leading almost to their very doors over those old 

 blind trails. Such are those at "Paul" Smith's, Loon Lake, 

 Raquette Lake, .Lake Placid, the upper and lower Sara- 

 nacs, Childwold Park, Long Lake, Blue Mountain, Cha- 

 teaugay, Keene "Valley and along the eastern side, Others 

 less pretentious, but full of comforts, are scattered every- 

 where, not only at Meacham Lake, State Dam, theTuppers, 

 Old Forge, Number Four,Schroon Lake, but also at many 

 of the places where the larger hotels are found. There 

 are now in the forest and its vicinity fully three hundred 

 hotels of all grades, not to speak of many comfortable 

 "camps" for spending a vacation away from fashion and 

 people. A vast sum of money is invested in these hos- 

 telries, and, generally speaking, it is profitably invested. 

 With many of these hotels business opens with fishing in 

 the spring and continues until the killing of deer is pro- 

 hibi'ed in the fall. The "cream of the season" is from the 

 middle of July until the same time in September. During 

 these months the influx of tourists is really wonderful. 

 In the month of August the forest literally swarms with 

 people on pleasure bent, and the highways and byways 

 lose all appearance of desolation. All is action, motion: 

 yet all is quiet, restful. The maiden and the youth can 

 tell you of the shaded nooks, the middle-aged of a variety 

 of pleasures, while they whose silvery hair tells of the 

 wisdom of age, find enjoyment in the shade and mountain 

 breezes of ample piazzas. The lakes and rivers float gaily 

 bedecked boats, and the "day camp" gathers its relics and 

 curiosities, with enough birch bark to afford a supply 

 until another season. Many are the pleasant pastimes 

 easily invented to make the season fly like the wind. 



Who can picture the transformation which time has 

 wrought since the days when the St. Regis Indians 

 were driven from Canada to the wilderness to starve. 

 The masses of the people enjoy it, for new and never- 

 tiresome scenes and experiences are opened up to them. 

 The sportsman selfishly regrets it, for his days of en- 

 joyment are ended, except as he may snatch out a little 

 long-time sport in the spring and fall. The dude has 

 come, the sportsman must go. 



What charm there used to be in that camp by the river 

 or lake, far from neighbors and civilization. Upon that 

 little knoll, in that little clearing on the shore and near 

 the clearest and coolest of spring water, you built your 

 camp of bark. Perhaps you wholly inclosed it, or if 

 only for summer occupancy you built a sloping roof 

 from a pole above your head to the ground, leaving the 

 front open, with a skillfully- built fire for cooking and 

 spirit-cheering in front. Your kitchen was in your 

 pack, your bed chamber your parlor, and in wet weather 

 also your dining-room. Your mattress was made of bal- 

 sam boughs, your bedding of blankets. Around and 

 about you were your guns, rods and various parapher- 

 nalia, and your furniture made of nature's crooks and 

 odd growths of wood. Everything was in it place and 

 in order, though the inventory might not be lengthy. 

 Tben your first morning in camp, and the day which 

 followed, preparing you for such a supper as no 

 hostelry could serve. After the supper your pipe and 

 chit-chat by the roaring fire, if the evening was chilly, 

 till weariness bade you at an early hour lie down 

 to refreshing rest and pleasant dreams. All was 

 still: the solitude lulled you, and yet the woods did not 

 seem silent. Headley declares "that a nice and practiced 

 ear can hear at night, in the full vigor of spring, the low 

 sound of gtowing, bursting vegetation, and in the winter 

 the shooting of crystals, 'like moonbeams splintering 

 along the ground.' So in the forest there is a faint and 

 indistinct hum about you, as if the spreading and burst- 

 ing of the buds and barks of trees, the stretching out of 

 the roots into the earth, and the slow and affectionate 

 interlacing of branches and kiss of leaves, were all per- 

 ceptible to the ear. The passage of the scarcely moving 

 air over the unseen treetops, the motion it gives to the 

 trunks — too slight to be detected by the eye — the drop- 

 ping of an imperfect leaf; all combine to produce a 

 monotonous sound which lulls you into a feeling half 

 melancholy and half pleasing." But morning comes, 

 with its clear, tonic atmosphere, the sun rising over 

 mountain tops, the strange notes of a few birds bidding 

 it welcome in tones full of flats and sharps; the bath, the 

 breakfast, and you feel superior to any guest of the 

 grandest hotel, full of zest for the enjoyment of the day. 

 Where now can you locate such a camp away from the 

 approach of idle tourists? Indeed, where can you find a 

 place in which you can keep your larder fuil? Here *md 

 there such camps are occasionally found: but the home of 

 the sportman has been invaded and he has become a 

 wanderer in the land. 



Among my earliest experiences in the wilderness was a 

 trip to Meacham Lake, with a friend who could not 

 speak English, because of trouble with his vocal cords,- 

 which needed and received the stimulus and tonic of the 

 evergreens. Few knew of or visited that lake in those 

 years, a beautiful sheet of water which was filled with 



