In the late 1850s, Alfred B. Street, the New York State Librarian, and a group of his friends rowed up Tupper Lake on a leisurely trip from the Saranac via Bog River to Mud Lake (Low’s Lake) and return. There was only one settler at the head of the lake, Sid Jenkins, whose name is perpetuated in Jenkin’s Brook, which enters the lake from Litchfield Park at Jenkin’s Bay on the lake’s east side. Note: Lake Madeleine on Litchfield was once known as Jenkin’s Pond. A drive dam on that pond’s outlet (Jenkin’s Brook) allowed lumbermen like Albert Hosely (1984) and, later, John D’Avignon (late 1920s) to drive or float their logs down this outlet to the lake and then to be rafted (towed) to the mills located either on Racquette Pond or others downstream on the river. They could also be taken out of the river near the Underwood Railroad Bridge by conveyor belt (Jack Works) and loaded on railroad cars for shipment to St. Regis Paper Company at Deferiet, N.Y., etc.
As Street’s party passed Long Island (today’s Country Line Island), Street’s guide, Harvey Moody, exclaimed, “Bog River Falls,” pointing, as Street related in his book, to what appeared to be a sloping plate of pearl amid the rounded shores of the lake, three miles distant. About a mile further you’ll hear the roar. In the spring when there’s high water, the falls gets up considerable young thunder, the foam splashes over ugly. I’ve seen mighty big trees dashin’ and squirlin’ and crashin’ over the rocks as though lightin’ had sent them; and then a deer come rollin’ and strugglin’ and be pitched down ‘ords like a duck’s feather in a ripple. The deer ‘ud be dead enough though when it got to the bottom.
Street’s party continued up the lake, passing what he described as the two Norway Islands [later named Norway and Pine, now Norway and Green] and cast successfully at the mouths of three trout brooks that crept into coves upon the east side. We then crossed the lake, passing a small island with a leafy dome [later named Pearly Island] and entered a beautiful bay at the head of which was a small clearing [later the women’s infirmary]. On the left a wild mountain frowned against the sunset sky [Twin Mountain].
“Jenkins who has a choppin’ up there, is the only one who lives on the lake,” Harvey said.
“It isn’t that rather solitary for him, Harvey?” Street asked.
“Why bless ye, no!” Harvey replied. “In his boat with any kind of rowing, ‘twill take him only about two hours to go the Racket – there’s some five or six families there.”
That would have been the families of Sim Moody, Phineas Moody, Rerben Stetson, William McLaughlin, George McBride and S.E. Clark, who lived along the river below today’s LeBoeuf’s Bridge.
Street’s party landed in the bay on a dry, small knoll near a spring in a little hollow, which Street described as about six feet in diameter, boiling clear as dew and cold as snow from a deep floor of pearly sand.
The party made camp at this spot, and Street tells us, It was now just after sunsetting. A blush was painted on the lake below a streak of golden purple with a white star trembling at its edge. Merry was our meal in the eye of the star and we fell asleep with the camp fire drenching our camp in pleasant light.
That 1856 Saranac/Racquette journey made by Street and his friends was the vanguard of what was to become a popular destination for adventurers and tourists seeking to explore the virtually unknown Adirondacks. The south end of Tupper Lake became the “jumping off” spot for the land and lake trips via either the Bog River or Little Tupper outlet. The Little Tupper route, which still today follows an early portage or carry trail along that beautiful stream to Round Pond and Little Tupper Lake, has been closed to the public for over a century but is currently scheduled to become transferred as a result of a recent Nature Conservancy purchase (from I.P. Company) to New York State sometime this summer. It will then be reopened to the public. Fishermen will be pleased to learn that, unlike neighboring Little Tupper, a limited harvest of brook trout will be allowed on Round Pond, with a minimum size of 12 inches and limit of three per day caught with artificial lures. Hopefully, a proposed snowmobile trail utilizing an existing log road will be allowed under the new guidelines.
Most travelers in that early period would cross from the Saranacs using the Sweeney Carry to the Racquette River, where Tupper Lake resident Oliver Tromblee kept a small house that could accommodate six or eight people and provide acceptable meals (a state lean-to is located near that location today, which is still referred to as Tromblee’s).
Thus it was that the head of the lake became a strategic place to build a hotel for “city sports” to gain shelter and meals before continuing their journey upstream. A man named Blanchard was the first to recognize such a need, and he built in 1860 a crude shelter on the present site of the former women’s infirmary of the American Legion Mountain Camp.
Blanchard subsequently sold out to Sid Jenkins, who later sold to William Graves (Graves Pond and Graves Mountain on Otter Brook Preserve were probably named after Mr. Graves, who drowned in Horseshoe Lake when a wounded deer tipped over his boat).
In the 1890 edition of Stoddard’s popular Adirondack guide book, he had this to say: Tupper Lake House is on the west shore of the lake, near its south end. It is about 35 miles by water from Saranac Lake, making a pleasant day’s journey by rowboat. The opening of this section by John Hurd’s Northern Adirondack Railroad this year makes it possible to leave New York in the evening at 6:25 and reach the Tupper Lake House in time for dinner the next day. The fare from New York to Tupper is $12.40.
According to Marian Corey of Bridgewater, Conn., in a letter to the N.Y. Conservationists some years ago, at one time around 1886, the Tupper Lake House was operated by her father, Alembert Corey, who founded one of the earliest resort inns of the area, Rustic Lodge on Upper Saranac Lake, and who gave his name to the Corey’s area. It was a welcome haven for some of the great men of America in its day. Among them President Grover Cleveland, who, according to Miss Corey, spent his honeymoon there. She said, “And when his daughter, Marian, was born the following the year, all the babies for miles around were named Marian – including me!”
The original Tupper Lake House was destroyed by fire in 1894 and later acquired by Colonel William Barbour as part of his 20,000-acre timberland holdings. Today, an energetic family has transformed that Tupper Lake House location into a splendid seasonal home.