THE LAKE OF ROMANCE AND FISHERMEN
The period from 1870 to 1880 was one of rapid growth and development in
Cooperstown. The permanent population increased to over two thousand
souls, and a number of fine summer residences were erected. Almost all
of its natural advantages Cooperstown owes to Otsego Lake. These had
been long appreciated by residents of the village, and now began to be
generally sought by visitors from afar. In summer, the shores of the
lake come to be dotted with the camp-houses and tents of those who
sought relief from the swelter of cities in the cool forests of Otsego,
and found delight in the sailing and fishing for which the Glimmerglass
is famous.
[Illustration: _J. B. Slote_
THE LAKE FROM THE O-TE-SA-GA]
In the summer of 1870 Capt. Daniel B. Boden began regular steam
navigation of Otsego Lake by means of a small steamboat which he had
brought to Cooperstown by railroad, and which had been used as a gunboat
in Southern waters during the Civil War. The boat was renamed the _Mary
Boden_. In the following summer a rival steamboat was launched, much
larger than the former, called the _Natty Bumppo_, and owned principally
by A. H. Watkins and Elihu Phinney. At the beginning of the next season
the conservative folk of the village were scandalized by the _Mary
Boden_, which then commenced to make lake trips on Sunday, a breach of
ancient custom in which the owners of the _Natty Bumppo_ indignantly
declined to compete. On a night early in July there was an alarm of
fire, a great blaze at the lake front, and villagers running to the
scene found that one of the steamboats was in flames and beyond hope of
salvage. A small child at a front window of Edgewater, watching the
fire, clapped her hands, and cried out, "It's the wicker [wicked] boat!
It's the wicker boat!" But it was not the wicked boat that was ablaze.
It was the _Natty Bumppo_, which burned to the water's edge a total
loss, the boat that had never left its dock on Sunday. The event was
long recalled by some in the village as an instance of grave error in
the usually correct dispensations of Providence. The _Natty Bumppo_ was
replaced, in the next season, by a new steamboat bearing the same name.
The new _Natty Bumppo_ and the old _Mary Boden_ were the famous boats of
the lake until they were succeeded by the _Pioneer_ and the _Cyclone_,
and later by the _Deerslayer_, the _Pathfinder_, and the _Mohican_.
Aside from the use of canoes, the first general navigation of the lake
was undertaken in 1794 by a man known as Admiral Hassy, who in his day
was the most celebrated fisherman of Otsego. He had a large flat boat
which he called the ship _Jay_, and upon which he used boards for sails.
This craft was safe, but not speedy.
Some thirty years later a group of enterprising individuals built a
horse-boat as a means of transporting lake parties. The boat had at each
end a high cabin topped by a platform. These excrescences caught
whatever breeze was blowing, and made the craft unmanageable. The
struggles of the two poor horses who were expected to propel the boat
were not equal to a gale of Pierstown trade-winds. More than once a lake
party starting for Three-Mile Point, aboard this vessel, found itself
stranded on the opposite shore.
During the first half of the century a "general lake party" in the
summer corresponded to the "select ball" of each winter as constituting
one of the two great social events of the year in Cooperstown. It ought
to be said that the term "lake party" had a distinct social
significance, and the word "picnic," which came later to be used to
describe the same thing, meant to the elder inhabitants an affair that
had quite lost the flavor of the older custom, and the use of the word
was regarded as one of the signs of social decadence.
The means of navigation most often used by the lake parties was a huge
scow propelled by long oars. A typical lake party was given in July of
1840, when Governor Seward visited Cooperstown. On the way home upon the
lake the old scow, according to custom, was stopped opposite to the
Echo, and several persons tried their voices to show off the wonderfully
clear reverberations that would be flung back from the eastern hillside.
But the master of this art was "Joe Tom," the negro who had been chief
cook of the lake party, and was now at one of the long oars of the scow.
On being asked to awaken the famous echo, Joe Tom shouted, "Hurrah for
Governor Steward!" and when the echo came back, "You've got it to a 't,'
Joe!" exclaimed Governor Seward.
At this period the authority in aquatic affairs, and the most renowned
fisherman of the lake, was Commodore Boden. Miss Cooper says of her
father's novel _Home as Found_ that the one character in it "avowedly
and minutely drawn from life" was that of the Commodore, "a figure long
familiar to those living on the lake shores--a venerable figure, tall
and upright, to be seen for some three score years moving to and fro
over the water, trolling for pickerel or angling for perch, almost any
day in the year, excepting when the waters were icebound in
winter."[120] The commodore was of quite imposing appearance, handsome
alike in form and figure, straight as an arrow, and lithe as an Indian,
with silvery locks that hung gracefully down upon his shoulders. His
method of fishing was fascinating to watch. Standing erect in his boat,
the commodore would paddle from the outlet of the lake to some inviting
patch of weeds, and there, in quite shallow water, noiselessly drop his
anchor. Then, wielding a rod nearly twenty feet in length, he would
"skip" his tempting bait--generally the side of a small perch--with
amazing vigor and marvellous dexterity, oftentimes taking fifteen or
twenty pickerel in less than an hour. To see him strike, manipulate and
land a fish weighing three or four pounds, his pliant rod bending nearly
to a semicircle, was a spectacle not to be forgotten.[121]
In 1850 Peter P. Cooper brought from the Lake Ontario a little schooner,
and became so famous as a boatman and fisherman that he was regarded as
the successor of Admiral Hassy and Commodore Boden. Capt. Cooper
established a boat livery which included five sailboats and twenty
rowboats. He developed the fisheries of Otsego Lake on a big scale,
having introduced the gill net as a means of catching bass. In the
spring of 1851 there were taken from the lake 25,000 bass. The gill net
which Capt. Cooper introduced is made of the best kind of linen thread,
with meshes from two to two and a half inches square. The net is about
three feet wide, having leads attached to one edge, and corks fastened
to the other. The leaded edge is carried to the bottom of the lake,
while the other is buoyed up by the corks, making a complete fence
across the lake at its bottom, even where it is very deep. The fish swim
against the fence, which at once yields to their force, but as it
yields, forms a sack whose meshes gather about their fins and tail,
making it impossible to back out or otherwise escape. Their efforts
serve only to entangle the fish more deeply in the net. Elihu Phinney,
the most expert amateur fisherman of the period, denounced Capt.
Cooper's gill net as the "most deadly and abominable of all devices."
The Otsego bass never exceed about six pounds in weight, the average
being much smaller. Occasionally a lake trout of larger size is caught.
With hook and line trout of great size are not often taken. On Friday,
August 21, 1908, Alexander S. Phinney caught with hook and line, near
Kingfisher Tower, a trout thirty-six inches long and weighing twenty
pounds. He tussled with this trout for an hour, with six hundred feet of
line, before he succeeded in landing him in the boat. In the next season
the same fisherman caught a trout weighing eighteen pounds. So far as
authentic records go, these two trout are the largest fish ever caught
in the lake with hook and line.
The conditions in Otsego Lake are favorable for the artificial
propagation of fish, and many plantings have been made, at first by
private enterprise, and afterward by the State. The lake extends in a
direction from N. N. East to S. S. West about nine miles, varying in
width from about three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half. The
surface of the lake is 1,194 feet above tide-water. The average depth is
about fifty feet, although about two miles north of the village
soundings have been taken to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet,
while toward the midst of the lake the depths are greater. In many
places the water deepens gradually from the shore, but along the eastern
bank there are points at which, Fenimore Cooper declared, "a large ship
might float with her yards in the forest." The lake is chiefly supplied
from cold bottom springs. Its only constant tributaries are two small
streams, whose entire volume is not half that of its outlet, the
Susquehanna River, which here begins its long journey to Chesapeake Bay.
The upper and lower portions of the lake, being shallow and weedy,
afford ample pickerel grounds, while the middle portion and whole
eastern shore are admirably adapted, by deep water and soft marl bottom,
to the coregoni and salmon trout, and nearer shore, by rocky bottom and
sharp ledges, to the rock bass, black bass, and yellow perch. Large fish
find an abundant food supply in the "lake shiner," an exquisitely
beautiful creature and dainty morsel, about four inches long.
The fish for which the lake has become famous among epicures is the
"Otsego bass." In _The Pioneers_, published in 1823, Fenimore Cooper
expressed the general opinion when he put into the mouth of one of his
characters this eulogy of the Otsego bass: "These fish are of a quality
and flavor that in other countries would make them esteemed a luxury on
the tables of princes. The world has no better fish than the bass of
Otsego; it unites the richness of the shad to the firmness of the
salmon." More than sixty years later much the same opinion prevailed,
when Elihu Phinney described Otsego bass as "beyond all peradventure the
very finest fresh water fish that swims."
There has long been a difference of opinion as to whether the so-called
Otsego bass is to be regarded as a distinct species. Louis Agassiz, the
highest authority of his time, after careful analysis pronounced the
Otsego bass to be "in its organic structure a distinct fish, not found
in any other waters of the world." In 1915 Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, the New
York State fish culturist, declared that the so-called Otsego bass "is
merely the common Labrador whitefish which has become dwarfed in size by
some peculiarities of its habitat." De Witt Clinton, a former governor
of New York, wrote the first scientific description, accompanied by a
drawing, of this fish, which he called "the Salmo Otsego, or the Otsego
Basse."[122] At the time when Clinton wrote, the whitefishes were
placed in the genus Salmo. In 1911, in the bulletin of the United States
bureau of fisheries,[123] Dr. Evermann asserted concerning Clinton's
drawing of Otsego bass, which he had examined, that "the cut, although
crude, plainly shows _Coregonus clupeaformis_. The form is elliptical,
and the back shows the dark streaks along the rows of scales usually
characteristic of that species." The same author, in collaboration with
Dr. Jordan,[124] says concerning the common whitefish: "This species,
like others of wide distribution, is subject to considerable variations,
dependent upon food, waters, etc. One of these is the so-called Otsego
bass, var Otsego (Clinton), a form landlocked in Otsego Lake at the head
of the Susquehanna River."
There are Otsego fishermen who are not impressed by this array of
learning, and still insist that the Otsego bass is quite different from
any other fish in the world. The _Otsego Farmer_ in 1915 summed up the
matter thus: "Otsego bass is not what is ordinarily termed whitefish,
but is probably a species of the same family. As a matter of fact,
Otsego Lake has been stocked with whitefish fry from the Great Lakes,
and now the nets of fishermen are always filled with a mixture of
whitefish and Otsego bass. Whatever Dr. Bean may think about it, any
Otsego Lake fisherman can tell the difference, and any epicure having
once tasted Otsego bass is never again deceived by whitefish."
A view which seems to reconcile these diverse opinions is that of
Alexander S. Phinney, the most famous amateur fisherman of Otsego at the
beginning of the twentieth century. He holds that Otsego bass is quite
distinct from whitefish, but believes that the true Otsego bass has
disappeared, giving place to a hybrid fish, now called Otsego bass, but
really a cross between that variety and the whitefish with which Otsego
has been stocked from the Great Lakes.
As many as five thousand Otsego bass have been taken with one draught of
the seine, but in view of the great difficulty of catching any with hook
and line, the following suggestion from an old authority, Seth Green, is
still of interest: "The Otsego bass can be taken with small minnows or
red angle worms. I think if your tackle is very fine, and you do not
twitch when they bite, they will swallow the bait. Put five or ten hooks
(O'Shaunessy 8's, forged) on a fine snell, and loop them five feet
apart; with a small sinker at the end. Bait some with small minnows (an
inch or so in length) and some with worms. Cast out as far as you can
from the boat, and let it lie half or three quarters of an hour on the
bottom, feeling now and then to see if you have one on. The best way is
to let them hook themselves. The angle worms, if used for bait, should
be strung on to the hook with both ends left dangling. A light stroke
must be made and the fish handled very carefully."
[Illustration: FISHERMEN'S SHANTIES ON THE FROZEN LAKE]
Many fishermen are successful in taking Otsego bass with hook and line
in winter, by fishing through the ice. No sooner has the lake become
frozen from shore to shore, usually after Christmas, than the whole
surface becomes dotted with the shanties of fishermen, which remain
until the ice begins to weaken in the spring. The typical fisherman's
shanty on the ice-bound lake is about five by six feet in floor space,
and six feet high. It has a window, and the floor is so arranged that it
can be raised to keep the fisherman above the water that sometimes
floods the surface of the ice. Holes are cut through the floor, and
through the ice beneath, for the admission of the fishing lines. The
shanty is warmed by a small stove, with its stove-pipe sticking out
through the roof. A chair and a coal box complete the furniture.
Two methods of fishing through the ice for Otsego bass are used by the
occupants of the shanties. According to one method the hook is dropped
to the bottom of the lake, and the fish are attracted to its vicinity by
bait strewn on the bottom. The other method is used nearer shore, where
the baited hook is let down part way toward the bottom, to tempt the
fish that move amid the grass and weeds.
There are others besides fishermen to whom the frozen surface of Otsego
Lake offers the means of pleasure and occupation. In some seasons the
freezing of the lake occurs within a few hours, after a great and sudden
fall in temperature, during a night of calm and intense cold. At such
times, before snow has fallen upon the surface, the lake presents a
scene of splendor. The ice is quite transparent, and has the effect of a
great sheet of glass spread out amid the hills. This offers a perfect
surface for skating, and attracts not only the boys and girls of the
village, but a large number of their elders. The lake grows lively with
the gracefully gliding promenade of skaters, with here and there a group
playing at hockey, while others disport themselves at "crack the whip."
The friction of so many gliding feet imparts to the frozen surface a low
and weirdly humming sound, and the droning note is echoed by the hills,
until the valley resounds with monotonous music. There are times when
the lake is so well frozen that skaters traverse the entire length. In
some seasons ice-boats have been used, slanting from end to end of the
lake with prodigious speed. As the winter advances and the ice grows
stronger, driving upon the lake becomes common, and horse-races upon the
ice have sometimes been included among the winter sports.
At about five miles above the foot of the lake, and extending across it
from shore to shore, a large fissure in the ice usually appears during
the winter. This fissure is sometimes so wide that a team cannot cross
it, and many years ago a span of horses was accidentally driven into it.
The crevice in the ice has caused much speculation. The lake is narrow
at the place where the crack appears, and the fissure is supposed to be
created by expansion from the north and from the south, causing the ice
to rise several feet in gable-like form until the ridge cracks, for
fragments of ice are found on each side of the crevice.[125]
The tremendous forces exerted by the expansion of the freezing lake cry
aloud on still winter nights, whenever, after a period of thawing
weather, the mercury suddenly drops to a point far below zero. On such
nights, while the trees of the surrounding forest here and there begin
to be so penetrated with the fierce cold that they crack like
rifle-shots, the ice-bound lake sets up an unearthly groaning, and the
cavernous sound of its bellowing echoes dismally over the sleeping
village, like the trumpetings of some huge leviathan in agony.
Cooperstown has a winter harvest-time, in January or February, when ice
is cut from the lake for the summer supply. This industry occupies a
large force of men, with plows, saws, hooks, crowbars, horses and
bob-sleds, for several weeks. The ice taken from Otsego Lake, from ten
to twenty inches thick, according to the severity of the winter, is
always pure as mountain dew, and clear as crystal.
The midsummer view of Otsego Lake at one time included, in the clearings
along the western shore and hillsides, a great luxuriance of hop-vines.
The golden wreaths of hops, as they hang ripening in the August
sunshine, sweeping in graceful clusters from the tall poles, or swinging
in the breeze in umbrella-like canopies, add a more picturesque feature
to the landscape than any other growing crop.
Hops have a part in the story of Cooperstown, which was at one time the
centre of the most important hop-growing industry in America. Hop
culture was introduced into Otsego county about the year 1830. In 1845
only 168,605 pounds were produced. In 1885, within a radial distance of
forty miles from Cooperstown was included more than half of the
hop-producing region of the United States.
[Illustration: _Elizabeth Hudson_
HOP PICKING]
The hop-picking season, during the latter part of August, has given a
picturesque character of its own to the life of the village and
environs. In the primitive days of the industry, when the harvesting of
the crop did not require any additional help from outside of the
immediate region, the task of hop-picking was lightened by the enjoyment
of social pleasures and romantic excitements that came to be associated
with it by the young people of Otsego. At the beginning of the picking
season, in those days, anyone passing through the country would meet
wagon after wagon, of the style known as a "democrat," loaded down with
gay and lively maidens, with one or two young men to each load. On
reaching the hop-yard to which they were assigned, these frolicsome
parties exchanged their holiday attire for broad-rimmed hats and
working dresses. Boxes were placed about the hop-yard, four pickers to
each, the boxes being divided into four sections holding ten bushels
apiece, and into these were dropped the clusters picked from the vines
by nimble fingers. Experienced hands can fill two or more boxes in a
day, for which as much as fifty cents a box used to be paid.
The midday lunch was taken beneath the shade of the nearest tree, or, in
case the pickers were boarded by the grower, all adjourned to the
largest room in an out-building, where a rural feast was spread with no
niggard hand. Hop-pickers expect to live on the fat of the farmer's
land, and as a rule they are not disappointed. Whole sheep and beeves
vanish like manna before the Israelites in the short three weeks of the
picking season, while gallons of coffee, firkins of butter, barrels of
flour, and sugar by the hundred weight are swallowed up in the capacious
maw of the small army. The nightly hop-dance used to be an indispensable
adjunct of the picking season, much counted upon by the gay throng, but
rather frowned upon, as an occasion of scandal, by staid and proper
seniors.
With the great increase in hop-production during the early 'eighties,
the romance of hop-picking, on many farms, gave place to a picturesque
but undesirable invasion of vagabondage from the large cities. Some
farmers continued to choose their pickers from among the better sort of
young men and maidens of the neighborhood, but many large growers,
requiring a great number of hands for a short season, resorted to the
unemployed of neighboring cities, and the result was an annual
immigration from Albany, Troy, Binghamton, and other cities farther
north, which taxed the capacity of the railways. Among these workers
many were honest and capable, but a large part of them were attracted by
the prospect of three weeks of board and lodging, with an amount of pay
which, if small, was sufficient for a glorious spree. It became the
custom in Cooperstown to augment the village police force during the
hop-picking season, for city thugs were likely to be abroad, and when
the pickers were paid off their revels were apt to become both obnoxious
and dangerous.
Hops will be seen growing in the summer along the shores and hillsides
of Otsego Lake, so long as beer is made; for, aside from the very
limited amount required to leaven bread, and the comparatively small
amount used in druggists' preparations, there is no use for hops except
in the making of beer. But never again will there be in Otsego such
luxuriance of hop-culture as that which developed in the 'eighties
before the Pacific coast learned to compete successfully with the
hop-growers of New York State.
Hop-culture is a gamble which in Otsego county has made fortunes for
some farmers and brought ruin to others. The growth of the product is
singularly at the mercy of freaks of weather, and its preparation for
the market is beset by many possibilities of failure. It is a crop of
which it is most difficult to count the final cost, or to predict the
market price. It has varied in price more than any other product of the
soil. In 1878 the entire crop was marketed at from five to twelve cents
a pound. But for many years every farmer in Otsego remembered the season
of 1882-83, when the average cost of producing a pound of hops was ten
cents, and hops were selling at a dollar a pound, so that, as was said
at the time, "five pounds of hops could be exchanged for a barrel of
flour."[126] Many farmers made money at this time, but some held their
hops for an even higher price, and lost. One farmer held thousands of
pounds of hops in his great barn, and kept buying in the crops of other
farmers, awaiting a price of $1.20, at which he had resolved to sell.
Two years later the hops were still in the barn, and nine-tenths of
their value was lost. There were other tragedies of this sort, yet for
years afterward, while some continued to grow hops at a fair profit,
many a farmer in the vicinity of Cooperstown, lured by the hope of a
dollar-a-pound season, was kept on the verge of poverty by his faith in
the golden vine.
[Illustration: MAP OF OTSEGO LAKE]
Otsego Lake is chiefly famous as the scene of events in two of Cooper's
_Leather-Stocking Tales_. There are glimpses of it in _The Pioneers_,
while in _The Deerslayer_ the whole action revolves about this lake,
which throughout the story is called the "Glimmerglass." The scenes of
incidents in these two tales are still pointed out on Otsego Lake, and
have become as much a part of its history as of its romance.
[Illustration: THE SUSQUEHANNA, near its source]
To begin with points described in _The Deerslayer_, the beehive-shaped
rock where the youthful Leather-Stocking had his rendezvous with
Chingachgook is that now known as Council Rock, and still juts above the
water at the outlet of the lake, near the western shore of the
Susquehanna's source. Here it was that exactly at sunset, to keep his
appointment with Leather-Stocking, the tall, handsome, and athletic
young Delaware Indian suddenly appeared in full war-paint, standing upon
the rock, having escaped his lurking foes. Not far from this point, at a
short distance down the river, Deerslayer got his first glimpse of the
beautiful Judith Hutter, as she peered from the window of the "ark,"
which had been moored beneath the screening foliage of overhanging
trees. It was through these waters, and through the outlet, soon
afterward, that Floating Tom Hutter and Hurry Harry, aided by
Deerslayer, drew the ark back into the lake in the nick of time to
escape a band of hostile Iroquois.
On the western side of the lake, just beyond the O-te-sa-ga as one
travels northward, the first little bay that indents the shore, now
called Blackbird Bay, and somewhat changed in shape and aspect by
fillings of soil and other improvements at the Country Club, is the
"Rat's Cove," where Floating Tom Hutter was fond of keeping his ark
anchored behind the trees that covered the narrow strip of jutting land.
Here it was, at the beginning of the story, that Deerslayer and Hurry
Harry sought Tom in vain, and on this margin of the lake the buck
appeared at which Hurry took the shot that awakened the echoes of the
Glimmerglass. Adjacent to this bay, in the midst of the stretch of land
between the O-te-sa-ga and the Country Club house, was the Huron camp in
which Hutter and Hurry were captured by the redskins; and the quantities
of arrowheads found here in later times suggest that it actually was a
favorite place of Indian encampment.
North of Blackbird Bay and the Country Club, and beyond Fenimore Farm,
are Glimmerglen Cove and Brookwood Point, where charming residences that
overlook the lake add their own attractions to the names of
"Glimmerglen" and "Brookwood," by which they are known. The stream that
gushes into the lake from Brookwood is the one in which Hetty Hutter
made her ablutions, and from which she drank, while on her lonely way
southward to the Huron camp, in her simple-minded scheme for the rescue
of her father and Hurry Harry.
A short distance north of Brookwood there empties into the lake a stream
which is worth tracing toward its source as far as the hillside beyond
the road that skirts the lake, for here the water comes tumbling down
from the height in the beautiful Leatherstocking Falls. A shady glen is
here, a favorite resort of small picnic parties, and while nothing of
Cooper's romance has been added to the scene except the name, some
interest may be found in the traces of an old mill which once got its
power from Leatherstocking Falls.
[Illustration: _Arthur J. Telfer_
LEATHERSTOCKING FALLS]
Some tense situations in the story of the _Deerslayer_ are associated
with Three-Mile Point, the present picnic resort of Cooperstown; and a
full understanding of the events described as having taken place on this
spot almost depends upon some reference to the actual conformation of
the land. It was on the northern side of the projecting point that Hetty
had landed on the errand just referred to, setting her canoe adrift.
Wah-ta-wah promised to meet her Delaware lover, Chingachgook, at the
same landing-place, on the next night, at the moment when the planet
Jupiter should top the pines of the eastern shore. Here came
Chingachgook and Deerslayer in their canoe, at the appointed time, to
steal the maiden from the Hurons, but found that she could not keep the
tryst. Around this point Deerslayer gently propelled his canoe southward
until he gained a view of the fire-lit camp, which the Hurons had moved
from the region of Blackbird Bay to the southern slope of Three-Mile
Point. Back again to its northern side he paddled softly, and having
joined Chingachgook, they left the canoe on the beach near the point,
and made their stealthy detour, approaching the camp from the west, in
the shadow of the trees, informing Wah-ta-wah of their presence by
Chingachgook's squirrel-signal. The spring that still bubbles for the
refreshment of picnickers on the northern shore of the Point was the one
which Wah-ta-wah made a pretext to draw away from the camp the old squaw
who guarded her, and here Deerslayer throttled the vigilant hag, while
Chingachgook and his Indian sweetheart raced for the canoe. Here, when
Deerslayer released his grip to follow them, the squaw alarmed the camp.
Along the stretch of beach he ran eastward to the place where the lovers
were already in the canoe awaiting him, and from this point Deerslayer
pushed their canoe to safety, yielding himself to capture.
It was at Five-Mile Point that the Hurons were afterward encamped when
Deerslayer, whom they had released on parole, returned at the appointed
hour to redeem his plighted word. Back of Five-Mile Point is a
picturesque rocky gorge called Mohican Canyon, through which a brook
ripples, with clumps of fern and rose peeping from the crevices of its
rugged walls. Having fulfilled his pledge, Deerslayer soon ventured the
dash for liberty that so nearly succeeded; and, after making a circuit
of the slope, it was along the ridge of Mohican Canyon that he ran at
top speed to try a plunge for the lake, with the whole band of Indians
in pursuit.
[Illustration: FIVE-MILE POINT]
In the open area of Five-Mile Point, after his recapture, Deerslayer was
bound to a tree, and became a target for the hairbreadth marksmanship of
Huron tomahawks, preliminary to being put to torture.
North of this spot, and along the shore, Hutter's Point is of interest
to the reader of the _Leather-Stocking Tales_, for here is the path by
which Deerslayer reached the lake at the beginning of his romantic
history, and gained his first view of the Glimmerglass. In the second
chapter of the _Deerslayer_, Cooper's famous description of the lake as
it was when the first white man came, based upon his own recollection of
it when nine-tenths of its shores were in virgin forest, was conceived
from the angle of Hutter's Point.
[Illustration: _M. Antoinette Abrams_
MOHICAN CANYON]
Not far from the northern end of the lake a faint discoloration of the
water, with a few reeds projecting above the surface, reveals the
location of the so-called "sunken island," where the waters of the lake
shoal from a great depth, and offer the site upon which, at the southern
end of the shoal, Cooper's imagination built the "Muskrat Castle" of Tom
Hutter, at which the terrific struggle with the Indians occurred when
Hutter was killed. At the northern end of the sunken island was the
watery grave in which the mother of Judith and Hetty lay, and which
afterward became the grave of Hutter, and finally of Hetty herself.[127]
Across the lake, on its eastern shore, south of Hyde Bay, is Gravelly
Point, to which Hutter's lost canoe drifted, and where Deerslayer killed
his first Indian. Farther south is Point Judith, now marked by
Kingfisher Tower, where Deerslayer, returning to the Glimmerglass
fifteen years after the events described in the story, found the
stranded wreck of the ark, and saw fluttering from a log a ribbon that
had been worn by the lovely Judith Hutter. Here "he tore away the ribbon
and knotted it to the stock of Killdeer, which had been the gift of the
girl herself."
Toward the foot of the lake the eastern hills and shore belong to scenes
of Leather-Stocking's elder days, as described in _The Pioneers_. North
of Lakewood Cemetery a climb up the precipitous mountainside leads to
Natty Bumppo's Cave, which, with some poetic license in his treatment
of its dimensions, the novelist employs as a setting for the final
climax of his story. To the platform of rock over the cave, as a refuge
from the forest fire, Leather-Stocking guided Elizabeth Temple and
Edwards, and carried the dying Chingachgook. On this spot, with his
glazing eyes fixed upon the western hills, the last of the Mohicans
yielded up his spirit. Here was the scene of Captain Hollister's charge
at the head of the Templeton Light Infantry, so swiftly followed by the
revelation of the mystery which the cave concealed.
[Illustration: GRAVELLY POINT]
Not far from the spot upon which the Leather-Stocking monument now
stands, near the main entrance of Lakewood cemetery, the log hut of
Leather-Stocking stood, and afterward, according to the story,
Chingachgook was buried there. Farther southward, the road that branches
off to ascend Mount Vision is the one by which Judge Temple and his
daughter approached the village in the opening scene of the story, and
it was during their descent from the upper level of this road that the
buck was shot by Edwards and Leather-Stocking, when Judge Temple's
marksmanship had failed. Near the branching of this road a stairway
climbs the mountain, and reaches the pathway of Prospect Rock, where
Elizabeth found the old Mohican, and was trapped by the forest fire.
Upon this natural terrace a rustic observatory now stands, which offers
a superb view of the lake and village.
It was on the summit of Mount Vision, overlooking the village, that
Elizabeth Temple was faced by a panther crouching to spring upon her,
and had resigned herself to a cruel death, when she heard the quiet
voice of old Leather-Stocking, followed by the crack of the rifle that
saved her life, as he said:
"Hist! hist! Stoop lower, gal; your bonnet hides the creatur's head!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 120: _Pages and Pictures_, 301.]
[Footnote 121: Elihu Phinney in Shaw's _History of Cooperstown_.]
[Footnote 122: Letter to John W. Francis, 1822.]
[Footnote 123: Vol xxix, p. 35.]
[Footnote 124: U.S. National Museum, Bulletin 47, p. 465.]
[Footnote 125: Livermore, _History of Cooperstown_, p. 133.]
[Footnote 126: G. P. Keese, _Harper's Magazine_, October, 1885.]
[Footnote 127: For the purpose of the story, as he explains in the
preface of _The Deerslayer_, Cooper places the "sunken island" farther
south, nearly opposite to Hutter's Point, and at a greater distance from
the shore than its real situation.]