Susan Elizabeth and Amanda Benedict

This post is a tribute to sisters-in-law Susan Elizabeth Benedict and Amanda Benedict. Susan Elizabeth visited the central Adirondacks with her husband Farrand during the 1840s up until 1855. Amanda visited every summer between 1852 and 1876 in company with her husband, Joel Benedict, Farrand’s younger brother.

 

Susan Elizabeth Ogden Benedict

 

In 1849 on a camping trip to Long Lake, Joel T. Headley, author of an early book about Adirondack camping, The Adirondack; or Life in the Woods (1849), happened to encounter his cousin, Prof. Farrand Benedict [1803 – 1880] and his wife, Susan Elizabeth Ogden [1810 – 1871] on their way to Raquette Lake. They were camping with two other couples. They had three tents: one for men, one for guides and one for women, all with beds of hemlock boughs covered by buffalo robes. Headley remarked that these women were quite enjoying themselves and were not the least bothered by being caught in a rainstorm out in the middle of the lake.

 

Farrand Benedict, professor of mathematics at the fledgling University of Vermont, is best remembered as the person who accurately measured the height of Mt. Marcy in 1838. During the 1840s and 1850s he visited the central Adirondacks frequently to pursue his ultimately unsuccessful plans to exploit the natural resources of the region by building a canal and a railroad across the wilderness. Often not mentioned or consigned to a footnote is the fact that his wife, Susan Elizabeth, accompanied her husband to assist him with his ambitious plans.

 

To reach their usual destination from their home in Burlington, VT the Benedicts had to cross Lake Champlain by boat, take a stage from Crown Point to Root’s Hotel in the Schroon River Valley, then hire a driver with a wagon to take them and their baggage to Newcomb, and then to Long Lake along the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road. It was an arduous trip, much of it on foot due to the poor condition of the roads. They would typically spend a night at Root’s Hotel and stay at a family homestead in Long Lake. 

 

By 1851 they had built a house and barn at a spot they called “Lumberville” located near Fishing Brook about halfway between Newcomb and Long Lake. According to the diary of Abner Leavenworth, a student of Prof. Benedict along on the 1851 trip, that camp was especially beloved by Susan Benedict. “Mrs. B was fond of this place . . . she was in excellent spirits, highly delighted with the woods and scenery, better in health, and full of talk.” That year they stayed there for a week before moving on to build an open camp on Raquette Lake.

 

On their way to Lumberville on August 1, 1851, Susan and Farrand Benedict along with Farrand’s younger brothers, William, Joel and Abner, stopped in Newcomb at Aunt Polly’s Inn [a/k/a Bissell’s] for their mid-day meal. By chance, they encountered the artists Jervis McEntee and Joseph Tubby who were on their way from Long Lake to sketch in the high peaks. They all had dinner together then went their separate ways. McEntee recorded the encounter in his diary, including the fact that the menu included fresh green peas. Unfortunately, McEntee made no specific observations of the Benedicts or record of the conversation.

 

In 1855, due to Susan’s chronic poor health, the Benedicts moved from Burlington, VT to Parsippany, NJ. After that Susan made no further trips to the Adirondacks. Between 1855 and 1871, Farrand Benedict only travelled to the central Adirondacks once in the summer of 1867. Susan Elizabeth Ogden Benedict died in 1871 at the age of 61.

 

Amanda Brinsmaid Benedict

 

Amanda Brinsmaid [1823 – 1877] and Joel T. Benedict [1821 – 1892] were already both experienced teachers when they met in 1848. Joel was the principal of the Burlington [VT] High School where he also taught mathematics. Amanda taught French and drawing. They were married on Aug. 23, 1849. In 1850 Joel and Amanda moved to New York City. Joel took a teaching job at the Free Academy. Amanda established a private school for girls on East 42^nd St. where she taught geometry and botany. They both worked as teachers in New York City for the rest of their lives.

 

By the time of their marriage, Joel Benedict had already been camping in the Adirondacks for more than ten years. He was only seventeen when he made his first trip with his older brother Farrand in 1838. That trip was followed by many others during the 1840s with the two brothers concentrating their exploration on the territory around Long Lake and Raquette Lake. On these trips Joel assisted his brother in surveying and with his development projects, but his love of the great northern forest was rooted mostly in his appreciation of its natural beauty rather than its economic potential.

 

Joel Benedict was so enamored with the beauty of the Adirondacks that he convinced Amanda that they should take a summer vacation together at Carey’s house in Long Lake in 1852. That summer Amanda discovered that she shared Joel’s enthusiasm for time spent in the wilderness. The two of them returned to the Adirondacks every summer thereafter until 1876. Joel’s reminiscences of the couple’s annual trips together, written while attending Amanda during her dying days, can be found on pp. 139 – 186 of Barbara McMartin’s To the Lake of the Skies (1996). Unlike most other visitors of the time, Joel and Amanda came to the Adirondacks, not to hunt and fish, but just to enjoy being in the wilderness. They botanized, they marveled at clouds reflected in the lakes, the deep forest and the voice of the loon. 

 

Even though they were experienced campers, during their vacations they preferred taking lodging in a house or hotel. In 1854 they bought fifty acres just west of the outlet of Raquette Lake from Farrand. They cleared land and built their own cabin. They lent Amanda’s sister, Matilda Wilber, $3000 and allowed her and her husband to build a hotel on Raquette Lake on part of their land. The hotel was not a success, due perhaps to Mr. Wilbur’s abrasive personality. As they grew older both Amanda and Joel suffered from health problems. By 1867 they decided they could no longer make the arduous journey to Raquette Lake, so they made their headquarters at Root’s Hotel on the Schroon River. They continued their annual visits there until 1876.

 

Amanda and Joel shared a love of botany. Judging from Joel’s reminiscences, much of their time in the Adirondacks was spent finding and identifying plants. They were especially drawn to the type of plant that has no true flowers or seeds, such as ferns, mosses, lichens, and fungi. They made copious field notes and sketches of these plants over the years. Amanda eventually compiled their notes into a manuscript entitled “The Neglected Plants, or A Journey Through the Realm of the Cryptogams” that she probably intended to publish. That didn’t happen, but the manuscript survives in the research library of the Adirondack Experience at Blue Mountain Lake.

 

Amanda also was the probable author of another intriguing manuscript. A great part of McMartin’s book is occupied by her annotated transcription of a series of letters that describe a very large women’s botanizing expedition to Blue Mountain Lake in the summer of 1873 supposedly organized by Amanda and undertaken by students and teachers from her school. 

 

McMartin argues in her book that this expedition actually occurred but admits that there is little to no independent evidence for it. For example, the letters detail plans for publication of a report of the expedition. No such report exists. The letters claim that sixteen well-known Adirondack guides of the time participated, but there is no evidence that they did. Most telling is the fact that the reminiscences of Joel Benedict contain no mention of what would have been a momentous occurrence. To my mind a more plausible explanation is that the letters were all written by Amanda and intended as a sort of epistolary botanical novel. It makes for interesting reading in any case.

 

After living an extraordinary life including a quarter of a century of summer vacations in the Adirondacks, Amanda Brinsmaid Benedict died of cancer on March 26, 1877.

 

 

Source: 

Barbara McMartin, To the Lake of the Skies: The Benedicts in the Adirondacks (1996)

 

The sketch of a pioneer farm is a copy of Thomas Cole’s Newcomb Farm House Adirondacks, September 1846.