We continue in today’s Transitions the four-part series concerning Racquette Falls. It will be recalled that some sort of dwelling has existed in the clearing at the falls since about 1860. Also that it was headquarters for a large distribution point for supplies brought up from this village and destined for use at the clearing and remote camps on the Seward Mountains. It is 20.25 river miles to the Moody Bridge, 10 miles to the outlet of Follensby Pond and 17.75 miles to the Oxbow and the Natural History Museum observer platforms from that location.
Old maps between 1860 and 1890 indicate the clearing as Johnson’s. This name was in reference to Lucy Johnson – a cook at the lumber camp there. When lumbering operations halted, Mother Johnson, as she was known, stayed on there with her husband, who had the wonderful first name of Philander. The Johnsons then ran an inn and stopping place for travelers.
The late Tupper Lake historian and editor, Louis Simmons, reported in an article printed in the Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald (Jan. 19, 1961) that a Newcomb census in 1860 recorded a Lucy Johnson and her husband, Philander Johnson, as living on the Old Chester to Canton Military Road in that community. (Another settler at that time was named Valorous Hall. How about that for poetic first names?) The Johnsons evidently came to the Falls shortly after that 1860 date.
Do you wonder which way the Johnsons would have traveled to arrive at the Racquette Falls Lumber Camp from Newcomb? The stagecoach road to Long Lake wasn’t built until 1876, so that left two possibilities, the first one being 16 miles on the Chester to Canton Military Road that went by their Newcomb home and then crossed the outlet of Long Lake, which was at that point seven miles further downriver to the falls. The second possibility was the waterway route that led across a series of lakes and ponds to the Racquette River in roughly the same distance as the overland route. A description of both routes may be of reader interest, and you can form your own opinion which route the Johnsons might have used (in the absence of any documented account that I could locate).
Donaldson, in his History of the Adirondacks, tells us that the Chester to Canton road was one of the earliest of three so-called Military Roads opened through the Adirondacks. It was authorized by an “act of 1807 to lay out and open a road from the town of Chester to the town of Canton.” Chester is in the part of Warren County just south of Schroon Lake. The exact course of the road is as follows: Starting at Chester, it ran northwest into and through Essex County, following approximately the north branch of the Hudson River. The road then swung, according to an 1851 map of Hamilton County, “around the foot of Long Lake, crossing the Cold River and the Racquette River in its course.” Thence it passed into the extreme southwest corner of Franklin County, skirting the southern end of Big Tupper, crossing a brook near there on a bridge (Bridgebrook Outlet). After that, it approached the Grasse River (near Mt. Arab Lake and Massawepi) and followed that river to Canton. Incidentally, if you have visited the Interpretive Center at Newcomb near Rich Lake, you may have walked along trails there that were once part of the Newcomb section of this long-ago road. The road also passed by the “Catlin Clearing,” named after Cromwell Catlin, an early settler. A woods road leading to Cold River through Huntington Forest Preserve off 28N passes by this clearing today, which is overgrown but still discernable – as members of Tupper Lake’s hiking group on its annual guided Huntington Forestry tour will confirm.
Further evidence of that road comes from Tom Bissell of Long Lake, a fourth-generation Adirondack native. Tom’s great grandfather arrived in Newcomb in 1822 from Shoreham, Vt., and knew and used that road. In a letter to the Elizabethtown Post and Gazette, dated around 1900, Tom’s grandfather, Charles Bissell, noted that the Bissells “traversed the country there (Newcomb) far and near, often accompanied by Indians, and knew well the location and outlets of the Military Road visible at that time.” It seems, he noted, “that it was not known by any other name.”
Since the Johnsons were known to own oxen, this may have been the route of choice. On the other hand, a boat builder by the name of Caleb Chase was turning out boats in Newcomb as early as 1850 – “such as one a man can carry on his head through the woods from river to river and lake to lake.” A boat built by Chase that, along with contributions from other builders found in Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, evolved into the guide boat as we know it today. A Chase boat in the woods ranked with a “Brewster buggy” in the city. Thus, like Mart Moody and others, whose chief transport were their boats, the Johnsons may have elected to use the water route, a description of which follows:
By boat through Belden Pond, carry of 12 rods; Rich Lake, three miles; west branch of river, one mile; Catlin Lake stream to Lilly Pad Pond, one mile; Catlin Lake, three miles; Round Pond, one mile; one mile carry to Long Lake. A little over 13 miles in all. Note: Much of this route is now on Huntington Wildlife Forestry (Syracuse University) property and is off-limits to the public.
“Mother Johnson’s” as the modest halfway house or inn was called, became a popular stopping place. That this was successful probably comes to no surprise, given Mother’s extended reputation as hostess and cook. Consider that a cook employed at a well-run lumber camp didn’t last long unless they were hard workers and could provide excellent meals for calorie-consuming, vigorous lumberjacks. It was not unusual for one lumberjack at his 3 a.m. breakfast to consume 10 pancakes, four eggs, bacon, six doughnuts, fried potatoes and many slices of heavily buttered toast in addition to black tea, coffee and juice. It was a fact that the best lumberjacks went to work at only the camps that had good food. Camp bosses and owners stepped softly around a prized cook. Rules such as “no talking during meals” were a direct result of the cook’s demand for silence – talking would slow the meal time and delay cleaning tables and doing dishes. Mother Johnson, as lumber camp cook, was noted for her pancakes, beans and molasses and, especially, her prune pies. Prunes were also a camp staple, both as stewed and in pies. As one French Canadian cook, probably at a Santa Clara Lumber Company camp once remarked, “For me, I’ll take the prune. It makes even better apple pie than the peach.”
On a bitterly cold February night in 1987, Mother Johnson quietly passed away, those in the adjoining room not knowing she had left them. The Tupper Lake Free Press of Jan. 19, 1961, quotes an account of her burial as follows:
Larmie (Fournier), the Frenchman who had driven the oxen on the Racquette Falls Carry for the past two years, immediately started down the Racquette. He was joined at Calkins place by Mr. Wood.
They came through to William Dukett’s on the Indian Carry on snowshoes. Mr. Dukett brought them here (Bartletts), and they got the boards for the coffin, which Mr. Dukett made. They will bury her at the foot of Racquette Falls until the river opens up, when she will be buried at Long Lake.
Dukett owned the Hiawatha House on Stony Pond, now the residence of Anne Disotelle Whittum and her husband, Stan.
Note: Today a marker in the Long Lake cemetery bears her name and stands among other stones dated back to her era. However, it is generally believed that her body was never moved.