In their own words #4 - William F. Morris

Local newspapers also printed enthusiastic stories of Adirondack trips penned by sportsmen. This one was suggested to me by Stillwater and Baldwinsville resident Jim Fox. It not only provides a good description of how to make a trip to Smith’s Lake but also vividly illustrates how the interests of tourists gradually broadened from fishing and hunting to include an appreciation of the natural beauty of the wilderness. 

The author, William F. Morris, was the owner of Morris Machine Works. In 1887, the year this article was written, his company was the largest employer in Baldwinsville, NY. The company manufactured pumps of all kinds and shipped them nationwide on the nearby Erie Canal as well as by rail. The company continued to manufacture its pumps in Baldwinsville until 1981 when the company was sold to the Gould Pump Company in Seneca Falls, NY.

 

The painting at the top of this article is by Levi Wells Prentice of Syracuse who visited Smith’s Lake on sketching trips during the later 1870s. For more about Prentice, see my post of 03/07/21. The photograph of Lamont’s Smith’s Lake Hotel is by Seneca Ray Stoddard. It appeared in J. H. Hunt, MD, Three Runs in the Adirondacks and One in Canada (1892) to illustrate an article about Hunt’s own 1887 trip to Smith’s Lake.

William F. Morris, “A trip to the Adirondacks in the days before automobiles,”

The Baldwinsville Gazette and Farmers' Journal, July 14, 1887.

 

If you admire the "forest primeval” and wish to see it on a scale of grandeur and magnificence never dreamed of, we would advise you by all means to take a trip to the great North Woods; and the particular point to which we would direct your steps is Smith's Lake; away Up in the northwest corner of Hamilton County.

 

You may go via Utica, taking the Utica and Black River R.R. at that city for Lowville. Arriving there you will find Wood's hotel at the station, an excellent place at which to get your meals and a convenient starting point on your trip to the woods. It would be better to arrive at Lowville in the evening and take a morning start.

 

Then, if your party consists of four persons - and you will find that a convenient number – you can engage a conveyance to Stillwater, thirty miles in, for twelve dollars. Get dinner at Fenton's, eighteen miles from Lowville, and at about four or five o'clock in the afternoon you will find yourselves at Stillwater, where jolly Joe Dunbar, the proprietor

of the hotel there, will receive you in hearty backwoods style.

 

Joe will give supper, lodging and breakfast of good quality for one dollar and fifty cents each. If you have taken the precaution to advise Jim Lamont, of Smith's Lake Hotel, of your intended arrival here, you will find him with a guide and two boats ready to take you to your destination.

 

After stowing yourselves and "traps" into the boats you begin a ride of twenty-five miles up the Beaver River, and when you finally land at Muncie's, as you will in about five hours, you will begin to ask how much longer it will take to "git thar." Be of good courage, your discomforts are nearly at an end.

 

After a dinner of venison and trout you resign yourselves again to the boats and continue your winding way up the river to and through Albany Lake, up the outlet to Smith's Lake and finally into the lake itself to Lamont's hotel, the haven where you would be, after having accomplished sixty-seven miles since leaving Lowville.

 

If the love of nature finds any place in your soul you will assuredly break forth into exclamations of wonder and delight as your eyes first behold this lovely sheet of water. It lies at your feet a miniature silver sea - a jewel in a grand setting of hill and mountain rising one above another in every direction as far as the eye can reach.

 

If you try to find fitting words to give expression to your feelings your efforts will result in a miserable failure, for language such as ordinary mortals have at command is utterly inadequate to do justice to the glorious and inspiring picture. At the hotel you may safely commit yourselves to the keeping of Lamont and his excellent wife.

 

Your reception will be cordial and genuine, and no matter how prolonged your stay, you will wish that you could remain just a few days longer. The hotel proper is a commodious log house, in addition to which there is a large and comfortable lodging house and a snug cottage for small parties that prefer to keep together.

Your bill of fare will consist in part of venison, brook trout, potatoes, peas, beans, lettuce, etc., and excellent pastry. The food here has a homelike taste, for Mrs. Lamont is an excellent cook, and with little Nina to serve it every reasonable expectation in that direction is satisfied. As our party arrived before the season had fairly begun, we found but one guest there, Mr. E. S. Whittaker, of Cincinnati, but in him we found a most delightful companion and gentleman.

 

Trout are plentiful in every direction, and the lover of angling can reel in the speckled beauties to his heart's content. The climate is something exquisite, the altitude of the region - nearly 2,000 feet above sea level - ensuring air so pure and invigorating that to breathe it is a perpetual feast. Spring water, icy cold, pure and soft abounds. One-fourth of a mile to the left of the hotel Bald Mountain rears his rocky crest five hundred feet above the lake, and a view from its summit is something marvelous. There one gets an idea of the vastness of the Great Wilderness.

 

Sixty miles to the northeast Mt. Marcy rears his head to the clouds; to the southeast Blue Mountain with its flat sloping top may be seen, with innumerable, smaller peaks in every direction, one and all clothed from foot to summit with an unchangeable verdure of green forest. Even with the aid of a strong glass no evidence of human habitation can be seen, except the little hotel at your feet. Tom Moore could not have stood on Bald Mountain when the muse moved him to write that well known poem beginning: "I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled. That a cottage was near." With the vastness of the view comes a feeling of solemnity and awe difficult to resist. It is a weary climb to the highest point but you will feel repaid many fold for the effort.

 

An evening on the hotel piazza is something to be remembered. The lake is before you with the moonlight shimmering over its waters; the dim outlines of the mountains surround you, "while all the air a solemn stillness holds" broken only by the occasional mournful cry of a loon far out on the waters calling to its mate. Presently the campfire is lighted and soon becomes a roaring mass of flames. In its ruddy light we swing lazily in the hammocks and indulge in expressions of regret that our friends are not with us to share in such a delightful, tranquil scene.

 

At last the hour of departure has arrived. The boats are waiting for us at the little pier. Our baggage is aboard; the last "good bye" has been spoken to those we leave behind, and we embark on our outward trip. As we glide over the placid bosom of the lake in the direction of the outlet friend Whittaker has brought his cornet from its hiding place and presently the touching strains of "Auld Lang Syne,'' sweetly rendered are borne to our ears. We turn and cast one last "longing, lingering look behind" and with moistened eyes again turn our faces homeward.