We continue in this week’s Transitions the second part of a three-part series on Mt. Morris. As was previously noted, that mountain lies in Township 25 (originally called Morris) of Macomb’s Great Tract One, which is one of the three townships that comprise the newly named Town of Tupper Lake (formerly Altamont).
That township remains today almost entirely in the private sector (no public lands). The southern third of some 9,000 acres was acquired in 1893 by E.M. Litchfield, and some aspects of that ownership were outlined in the first part of this series.
In 1899, six years after Mr. Litchfield established his private park, William Read and his cousin, Albert B. Strange, purchased 7,365 acres that represented another third of Township 25, north of the Litchfield property. They also established a private preserve. It should be noted that eventually Mr. Strange’s interests gravitated toward the West (he had a lodge near Jackson Hole, Wyo., which later became the well-known Jenny Lake Ranch, familiar to readers who ski, boat or hike in that area of the Tetons). In 1924, Mr. Read acquired his cousin’s half interest in their park. Interestingly, despite the fact that members of the Read family have been the single proprietors for 80 years, the preserve is still referred to here as the Read and Strange Park.
It wasn’t an easy task to get to the Read Park in 1899. Dr. Webb’s Adirondack and St. Lawrence Railroad had arrived seven years earlier, but it was still a long day’s travel from New York. By the time the Reads would have traveled on the railroad in 1988, it had become known as the New York Central and Hudson Railroad.
Arriving at the Tupper Lake station, they would probably have hired a buckboard or carriage from D.J. Hayes. Mr. Hayes, who became mayor and a bank board member, also kept boat wagons (for the various canoe carries or portages) and saddle horses, and he “provided private conveyances” to and from Tupper Lake and Wawbeek Lodge, where he also kept a livery and boarding stable. The Wawbeek, at that time, was owned by J. Ben Hart. D.J.’s local stable and livery was located at the corner of High Street and Wawbeek Avenue, where the K&C building is today undergoing a handsome “facelift.” His home, the second one to have been built here, was across the street. It was razed in 1941 to make room for the St. Alphonsus Church.
From the railroad station, the Read family would cross the carriage road across Moody Flow, most often under water to the height of the plank seats. They would then cross the Racquette River to Moody hamlet on the new steel bridge erected in 1894 to replace the older log bridge. Their route would follow along the lake’s east shore for five rough wagon miles to the Litchfield Park entrance, located off what is today Rte. 3. Under agreement with their neighbor, Mr. Litchfield, their trip would continue across that preserve and around the base of Mt. Morris to Little Simond Pond and to their camp, many times a longer trip than the train ride from New York.
In 1922-1923, Mr. Read resolved his access problem by constructing a six-mile road that enters Rte. 3 across from McDonald’s boat livery and follows the east flank of Mt. Morris to Little Simond Pond and his camp.
In later years, after 1901, the Reads could have been met at the station with their own “conveyance.” One of the best-known early guides here, Fred Moody, had become the overseer of the Read Park and stables, which were a part of the camp’s complex.
Fred was the son of Simeon Moody, pioneer settler who first cleared the site for a farm around 1857 on Stetson Road, later called the Pioneer Place (Barry Farm). Simeon also opened the very first store in this area, catering to guides and travelers coming down the river and to the few residents living mostly along the river below today’s LeBoeuf’s Bridge, which was close to the farm. Fred Moody was without peer as a woodsman and hunter (he had to be to survive). Certainly Mr. Read, a New York City investment banker and wilderness lover, must have been thrilled to hunt and fish and learn woodcraft from this pioneer who came down the river from the Saranacs as an infant in 1857 in the bottom of a guide boat that served as his bassinet.
In 1905, Mr. Read commissioned a New York architectural firm to build a camp on his Township 25 land. That camp still remains today as the Three Star Camp and is considered by current architectural experts as a masterpiece. The camp has been featured in early architectural magazines and in several books on Great Camps. A second camp, somewhat more modest but equally handsome, is known as The Birchery.
Mr. Read was a careful and conscientious steward of his land. An article in the House and Garden Magazine, dated December 1907, related his desire not to disturb the natural setting and how he required that:
The logs for the various buildings (10-inch-diameter spruce) were cut from the surrounding forests, each one selected with great care as to size, and more particularly to location, not more than one tree being taken from any one spot so that its loss would not be noticed from the lake. The stone for the foundations, chimneys, etc., was all quarried from the mountainside in out-of-the-way places.
Volumes could be written, both storied and factual, about the close connection over the past 105 years between the residents of this community and Read Park and its succession of family owners. They have been what former town historian Louis Simmons has labeled “our neighbors,” whose outstanding Adirondack retreat has been their “home away from home.” It has been a connection that is warm, friendly, supportive, interesting and caring. We can all hope that such a tradition continues as the challenges of maintaining and owning a Great Camp and its surrounding lands become more and more difficult and complex.