The French Cannon

During a recent discussion concerning pre-Civil War roads in the Adirondacks, I mentioned to a friend that I am amazed by the number of people who insist on calling certain early roads “Old Military Roads” even though they never had a military purpose. My friend responded by telling me he heard that a hunter once found the remains of an old cannon somewhere near Terror Lake deep in the Pigeon Lake Wilderness. His point, I think, was that the cannon must have been abandoned in the course of some American military expedition along a long-vanished woods road.

I asked him if he knew who had found the cannon. He didn’t. A few days later he sent me an email to inform me that one of his friends knew the identity of the hunter who discovered the cannon. He promised to track the guy down and question him closely. A few days passed before his next email. He had contacted the hunter and It turned out that he had not seen the cannon himself but had heard about it from someone else who had heard it from someone else.

 

The argument that discovery of lost cannon establishes some military usage of certain Adirondack roads has been around for at least 100 years. Alfred Donaldson discussed this phenomenon at some length in his 1921 History of the Adirondacks, Vol. 2, pp. 123 – 130. His point was that the three early northern Adirondack roads commonly labeled old military roads, i.e., the roads from Chester to Russell, from Westport to Hopkinton and the Albany Road from Fish House to Russell, were not built by soldiers and had essentially no military purpose. Donaldson supported this contention by referring to maps of the era and by careful analysis of when and why those roads were constructed.

Donaldson handily dismissed the theory that the discovery of a cannon establishes a road’s military credentials. He was aware that two old cannon barrels had been discovered near Tupper Lake. Based on their location and condition he surmised they were from Sir John Johnson’s retreat to Canada in 1776. Johnson’s loyalist band was traveling along a Mohawk trail as there were no roads at that early date through the Central Adirondack wilderness.

 

Because the tales of old cannon seem so persistent, I set out to discover how many bona fide Adirondack cannon discoveries have been reliably documented. So far as I can determine only three military cannons have ever been discovered anywhere in the Adirondack wilderness. It turns out that Sir John Johnson was probably responsible for all three.

 

The first two were found about five miles apart just south of Tupper Lake. These are the cannon mentioned by Donaldson. Their recovery was discussed fully in an article titled “Cannon abandoned near Tupper in 1776 now at Johnstown” in the Tupper Lake Free Press, October 07, 1937. The third, a small swivel gun that fired a 1-pound ball, was more recently discovered along the old Bartman Road near Baker’s Mills. Sir John and his loyalist troops may have abandoned this cannon during the course of their 1780 raid on Johnstown. [see Glenn Pearsall, “New Evidence About A Cannon Found in Johnsburg,” Adirondack Almanack, Feb. 19, 2015]

That’s it. All the documented abandoned cannon are associated with the American Revolution, none with the War of 1812. Nonetheless there are still plenty of people who are sure American soldiers dragged heavy cannon along Adirondack wilderness roads during or just after the War of 1812.

The subject of cannons in the woods came up again a few years back while I was sharing a cup of coffee with retired DEC Forest Ranger Terry Perkins at our camp on Stillwater Reservoir. In the middle of our discussion of the old roads and trails of the area Terry paused and said, “Did you ever hear the story of how a lost hunter once found an old cannon back there in the woods?”

 

“Yes, I’ve heard that story before connected to the old Albany Road.”

 

“Well,” Terry continued, “I can tell you about that. Back maybe in the 1970s or 80s I was part of a search for a hunter lost north of the reservoir. We found him wandering around a few miles in. After we got him out, I talked to him a bit. He said he spent the night near a little pond with cliffs on the north side. He claimed he found a partly buried old cannon back there with French writing on it.”

 

“Was he able to remember its location?”

 

“Yes, he had headed north from the reservoir on the Red Horse Trail to Salmon Lake then followed an old logging road off to the west. He was able to describe the spot pretty well. You know me. I couldn’t let that rest. As soon as I got the chance, I went back in there to see if I could find that cannon.”

 

“Did you find it?”

 

“Well, yes, sort of. I located the pond he described pretty easily. It’s got no name on the survey maps. In an open area near the shore I found a big rusted metal cylinder sticking out of the duff. It didn’t take much to see that it was one of those old round wood stoves. I figure there must have been a hunting or logging camp back there at one time.”

 

“Did it have French writing on it?”

 

“Well, no. It had writing on it all right, but it was just some cursive letters, probably the name of the stove and its manufacturer, in English.”

 

It all fell into place. The hunter was tired and lost. What he found wasn’t a cannon but it looked a little like one. It didn’t have French letters on it but the letters looked a little foreign. It wasn’t very near the old Albany Road but it was near an old logging road in that general vicinity. That’s how Adirondack legends are born.

Before we returned to our main topic Terry wryly noted, “I still call that pretty spot Cannon Pond. Maybe someday that name will show up on maps, who knows?”

 

A few days after this conversation I spoke with Kristy Rubyor, assistant director of the Goodsell Museum in Old Forge. I told her Terry’s story. After she stopped chuckling, she said, “Did you ever hear the story of how there is an old cannon filled with gold lost somewhere back in the woods?”

An earlier version of this article appeared in two installments in the Adirondack Almanack on 09/11/2019 and 09/14/2019, see, “Myths about Adirondack Military Roads” 

https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2019/09/myths-about-adirondack-military-roads.html and “The French Cannon: An Adirondack Legend”

https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2019/09/the-french-cannon.html