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There used to be a beautiful three-story hotel where the Blue Heron and the Chaumont Laundromat now stand. The building was originally a mansion built by Oren Schuyler Wilcox (1833-1906). Wilcox was born at Point Peninsula Village, which was then called Wilcoxville. As a young man Oren worked as a sailor on Lake Ontario, and then as a store clerk in Detroit and New York City, before he returned to Lyme. He used his mercantile experience to open two successful stores on Point Peninsula and Three Mile Bay. In 1875 he moved to Chaumont and opened a store in the village. He built his elaborate, 17-room home for the tremendous sum of $6,000. Unfortunately, the Chaumont store did not meet with the success of his others. He was forced to file for bankruptcy and to sell the house. In 1889 Clark Wilday bought the Wilcox residence and reopened it as the National Hotel. It passed through a number of owners and operators, including Mark S. Morehouse, A.J. Shepard, O.P. Reed, Delos Reed, George Diefendorf, Harry Wells, Lewis Ells, Claude Phelps, R.J. Saxe, and Grace Adams. In 1945 Miss Adams sold the building to George M. Carney and John C. Boulier, who combined their last names to re-christen it as “The Carlier Hotel.” The Carlier contained a bar room and lounge in the basement, two dining rooms and kitchens on the main floor, six bedrooms for guests on the second floor, and living quarters for Mr. Carney’s family on the third floor. On March 31, 1957 Leo Bourn, the bartender, opened the bar at about 1 p.m. and found flames shooting out of the registers from the basement. Former volunteer firefighter, Glenn Dodge (now 102 years old), recalls that day: On April 1, 1957, I was at George Brothers Hardware store when the fire siren sounded. At that time, I was fleet of foot and so I ran to the fire hall on Mill Street, opened the doors and proceeded to take the old Ford pumper to the cistern on Horse Creek. I had already hooked up one section of suction line with the second section ready to connect when Leo West came running up yelling that they need the ladder at the hotel. It so happened that Lyle and Danny Warner were first on the scene and rushed up the stairs to check if there were people in any of the rooms. By the time they had reached the top floor, the stairwell was filled with fire and smoke. Luckily, they were able to reach the cupola on the top of the roof. The ladder was carried on a rack on the pumper. It was a wooden extension ladder with three 20’ sections. It took four men to handle it. It required two men at the base of the ladder to pull the rope to extend the two top sections and two men with pike poles to steady the ladder, keep it away from the building and rest it above the eaves. Thankfully, Lyle and Danny were able to come down the roof, grab the rails and escape down the ladder. Just two weeks before the fire, we had trained on handling he ladder at the old fire hall. I’m so glad we had that training. This fire is the only time that I know of that the ladder was ever used. The response to the fire was tremendous. Firefighters reported from Chaumont, Cape Vincent, Three Mile Bay, Black River, Adams Center, the Town of Watertown, Clayton, Depauville, LaFargeville, Brownville, Dexter, and Glen Park, with Sackets Harbor standing by. Victor Bourn, Chaumont Fire Department chief (and son of the bartender, Leo Bourn), oversaw all fire-fighting operations. The fire was later determined to have started in the furnace. In 1958 the Carneys built a one story, cement block building on the site, but nearer to Main Street. They called it the “New Carlier Restaurant.” They were able to move the bar, which Maurice and John Carney had built, from the ruins of the Old Carlier Hotel into the new restaurant. In 1968 the Carneys sold the restaurant to Lyle Warner. Subsequent owners have been George Pound, Steve Borden, and William and Laurie Borden. The current owner is Cari Greene, who re-named the restaurant The Blue Heron. Sources:
Edgar Talbot on his homemade sailboat in 1939 (above)
Edgar Talbot crossed the Atlantic Ocean by ship at least twice, but his greatest voyage was across Lake Ontario. In 1938 Edgar was an unemployed Chaumont electrician. He desperately wanted to see the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto and he figured that he could get himself there across the lake. He knew how to sail, but not how to swim. And he didn’t own a life preserver. Or a boat. . . . Edgar was born in 1903 in West Ham, Essex, a suburb of London, England. In 1906 his family emigrated to Deseronto, Ontario (near Belleville). They lived in Canada until 1909, and then they moved to Hounsfield. In 1919 the whole family returned to England, but they came back to Jefferson County the same year, this time residing in Watertown. By the mid-1930s they were permanently settled in Chaumont. . . . In the summer of 1938 Edgar began to assemble a sailboat using scrap materials from around his house. He lived in Chaumont near the river, and he built his sailboat in the little cove between Schermerhorn Park and the end of Water Street. He designed the boat along the lines of a St. Lawrence skiff. For a spar he cut down a 14-foot cedar tree; for the rest of the boat’s body he collected household lumber scraps. He put on a false stern made of bent galvanized iron, which he made watertight by soldering it. The extra space was a storage compartment for food and clothing, and it added buoyancy to the boat in the event of capsizing. He sewed the sails out of old sugar bags. In test runs he found that they didn’t catch the wind well, so he coated them with household wax dissolved in hot gasoline. The combination made the sails airtight and waterproof. His last piece of engineering was a compass he constructed with a brass cylinder from an old oil lamp and some “odds and ends” around the house. He estimated he’d spent about $3 to build his boat. Edgar left Chaumont for Toronto on August 1, 1939 with 75 cents in his pocket and no life preserver in his boat. He sailed along the southern edge of the lake in small jumps. Because he had very little money or food, he would stop occasionally and find odd jobs to replenish his stores. He arrived in Sodus Point on August 4th and paused there to work for four days. After he left Sodus Point he went to Rochester, where he was forced to dock for several days and wait out a storm. He encountered strong winds as he rounded the western edge of the lake and water began to leak in through the bow. On his last night in the boat he was forced to bail all night long. At one point he fell overboard, but he managed to pull himself back on by grabbing the boom. When the sun rose he could see Toronto. It had been two weeks since he left Chaumont. When he reached the dock his legs were so cramped, he could barely climb onto the dock. After seeing the Exhibition, someone took Edgar back to Chaumont by car. It’s not clear what became of his boat. Edgar’s son Rowland suspects that Canadian authorities seized the sailboat; Rowland says that Edgar may not yet have received American citizenship, and that he probably traveled into Canada without the appropriate papers. Edgar spent the rest of his life in Chaumont. He made his living as an electrician and developed a reputation as an unusually hard-working man. A few hours before he died, Edgar had been going up and down a ladder removing shutters from a house he was planning to help paint. He was 85. References:
If you’re over 50 and you grew up in Lyme or Cape Vincent, you probably have a story about Dr. Haas. There’s a good chance he stitched you up, gave you a shot, or delivered you.
Seventy years ago my mother spent a cold day outside collecting maple sap. In the middle of the night she developed bronchitis and couldn’t breathe. Her mother called Dr. Haas in a panic; he quickly drove down to the Cape and treated mom. As he left the farm, he scolded my grandmother for letting her daughter spend so much time in the cold in a dress. “Never with naked knees!” he said in his thick German accent. . . . Rudolph Haas was born 1898 in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The town of his birth is in the modern-day Czech Republic, near the Poland border. As a teenager, he had to travel to school in the next town each day by stagecoach. However, his secondary education was cut short by the eruption of World War I; he finished his graduation exams early and was immediately drafted. By 1915 he was a rifleman in the trenches on the Russian front. When Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar, Russia withdrew from the war, so Rudolph was transferred to the Italian front. As it became clear that the war was near its end, Rudolph decided that he’d better plan a career. While he loved writing and desperately wanted to be a journalist, he felt that would mean a life of poverty, so he settled on going to medical school instead. To begin the enrollment process, he needed a furlough to go to Vienna. To get permission for the short leave, he had to wait until his commanding officer was quite drunk and in a more pliable mood. After the war, he completed medical school at the University of Vienna. He opened a practice in Vienna in 1923. He advertised for an office assistant, and hired the 19-year-old Maria Josefa Karolina Tobler, who went by the nickname “Lilly.” … Lilly Tobler had lived her entire life in Vienna. Her father was in the Austro-Hungarian diplomatic corps. When he was stationed in Russia, Lilly’s parents moved to St. Petersburg with their younger children, but opted to leave Lilly in Vienna with her grandmother. The family’s separation turned out to be longer than anyone could have anticipated. After the outbreak of World War I, the Russians saw Lilly’s parents as potential spies who knew too much about the coast of Russia and the port of St. Petersburg. They weren’t held as prisoners, but they were not allowed to leave the country; they were removed to Siberia. In 1918 the worldwide flu epidemic reached even the most remote corners of the globe. Lilly’s father, and a newborn brother she’d never met, died in the epidemic. Her mother, desperate to return to Vienna, escaped with her surviving children through China and by boat around the Cape of Good Hope to return to Western Europe. When she reached Vienna, her daughter Lilly had already grown to a young woman. … Lilly Tobler and Rudolph Haas were married in 1932. Like other Viennese, they enjoyed the conversation and wide circles of friends in the city’s famous coffeehouses. Rudolph’s best friend had married a girl whose father ran a movie production studio. In the early 1930s this friend recommended beautiful Lilly for work as an extra in a film starring the Viennese actress Hedy Lamarr. The name and the exact date of the film have been lost (perhaps no copies of the film survived World War II), but in that movie Lilly was in a nightclub scene alongside Lamarr. In 1934 Lilly gave birth to a girl. Rudolph, who greatly admired American writer Dorothy Parker, wanted to name their daughter “Dorothy,” but Austria’s Christian naming laws required that all children be given saint’s names. Lilly’s grandmother stepped in to assist; she and the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna were old friends from Bohemia; she asked him for special permission to give the child this English name and the Bishop consented. In 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in what was known as the “Anschluss.” Rudolph was Jewish, and it was clear that the little family needed to flee. Rudolph had an aunt who lived in Buffalo, NY; she’d gone to the US years earlier to work as an au pair, had married, and became an American citizen. She was able to sponsor the Haas family to come to Buffalo as refugees in 1939. Dorothy, then only four years old, picked up English very quickly. Rudolph knew a bit of English, but Lilly knew none when they arrived. Rudolph’s family in Europe was scattered. His step-mother and one sister died in concentration camps, while one brother survived the entire war in a concentration camp. Another brother was able to slip away and join the Czech resistance, in which he fought until the war was over. A sister escaped to England. (His mother died when he was very young and his father, a baker, had died before the war.) Unfortunately, Rudolph’s European medical license was not recognized in the US. He had to spend years re-doing his residency and internship to be able to practice here. After completing his American medical training, Rudolph tried to enlist in the US Army, but he was rejected for being too old (he was already in his 40s) and for the ulcer he’d developed during World War I. Then in 1942 he heard of two opportunities for doctors in Jefferson County – one was as a mill doctor in Dexter, and the other was the sale of a deceased doctor’s practice in Chaumont. Rudolph, Lilly, and Dorothy traveled north to see about these prospects. While strolling around Chaumont, the family saw tombstones for another Haas family (unrelated) in Cedar Grove Cemetery. They thought it was an auspicious sign, and Rudolph bought the doctor’s office next door to the Catholic rectory. Rudolph and Lilly lived in that home for the rest of their lives. As they settled into their lives as Americans, they welcomed a son, Steven, in 1945. And they began several decades of service to the community. Rudolph’s practice covered all of Lyme and Cape Vincent, as well as parts of Brownville and Clayton. Dr. Haas did not take appointments; if you needed him, you could either just show up at his office (in his house), or call and ask him to come to your home. A typical day for him would run like this: he would spend the morning making rounds at the hospitals in Watertown; from 1-3 he would have walk-in office hours at home; from 3:00 until supper time he would make home visits; and from 7:00-9:00 pm he would take walk-in patients at his home again. He always kept two medical bags in his car: one with his regular instruments and one with obstetric supplies. Dr. Haas particularly loved delivering babies, and he often did so with midwife Nellie Wallace of Point Salubrious. He estimated that he’d delivered thousands of children over his career -- some in their homes, some in the hospital, and a few in cars. Once a man drove a horse-drawn cutter across the ice from Point Peninsula because his wife was in labor and he was desperately trying to find Dr. Haas. Another time Dr. Haas was called to deliver a baby at a farm, only to find that his car couldn’t make it down the long snow-covered driveway. The baby’s father had to drive down in his tractor and carry the doctor and Nellie back in the manure spreader. The sailors and fishermen of the lake and the river kept the doctor quite busy as well. When asked if he had a specialty, Dr. Haas said it was the removal of hooks from fishermen, an art he’d mastered around Chaumont Bay. Once he was called to Cape Vincent in the night to attend to a Korean sailor on the Seaway. To get into the ship, Dr. Haas had to climb the rope ladder on the side of the freighter in the dark of night. He was a terrible driver during his early years in the United States (he hadn’t been a car owner in Vienna). At one point the Lyme Highway Superintendent asked Dr. Haas to let him know when he was going out on snowy nights so he could have a man on stand-by to pull the doctor out of the ditch. Lilly also devoted herself to community service. She was her husband’s office assistant, and ad hoc nurse. During World War II she was one of the border’s volunteer airplane spotters (and probably the only person in Chaumont who’d witnessed a German airplane in action). She was also a member of the Northern Choral Society, the North Country Artists Guild, the Northern New York Duplicate Bridge Club, the Chaumont Presbyterian Church and its choir, and Lyme Free Library Board of Trustees. She also was a grand officer of the Order of the Eastern Star and a Cub Scout den mother. In their early years in the North Country the Haases tried to offer medical services for free to the very poor, however they found that patients became angry and embarrassed when their money was refused. Thereafter, Dr. Haas decided that he would simply charge as little as possible, to satisfy the patients’ pride and his desire to take as little as possible from them. At the end of his career he was still charging only $3 for each office visit. (Teachers were only charged $2 per visit, because he held their work in such high esteem.) Dr. and Mrs. Haas were beloved in the community for their devotion to the well-being of all. Rudolph, the town’s health officer and the school’s doctor, was very concerned about the quality of Chaumont’s drinking water. For decades he’d seen waste freely dumped into Chaumont Bay. Also, drinking water was still being pumped from neighborhood wells next to rudimentary septic systems. In 1963 Dr. Haas took his concerns to the town board. He then led the push to create a municipal water system that would ensure treated, untainted drinking water for all. In addition to serving our little town, Dr. Haas was also the president of the Jefferson County Medical Society, president of the medical staff of the House of the Good Samaritan, president of the Jefferson County Academy of General Practice, and president of the medical staff of Mercy Hospital. In November 1973 Rudolph died of a heart attack. He’d been planning to retire, but hadn’t yet. Larry Comins, then mayor of Chaumont, led a campaign to collect private donations for a monument in his honor. The obelisk still stands near the Chaumont tennis courts. Lilly, who was nine years younger than her husband, lived until 2004. They are buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery, where over 70 years ago the refugee family decided to make Chaumont their permanent home. Thank you very much to Steven and Carla Haas for sharing their family’s stories! Thanks also to Kent “Fud” Horton for suggesting the story.
“Many curios and antiques were found by boys of the Y.M.C.A. camp on Long Point during their visit Friday to the Indian burying grounds on Point Peninsula.” -The Watertown Daily TImes, July 6, 1921
Lyme’s best-known Native burial sites are those on Point Peninsula, but Native graves have been found all along our waterfront. Unfortunately many of these sites have been unearthed by amateur diggers and treasure hunters, who treated the human remains with little reverence and the artifacts as curiosities to be pocketed. I found references to the following mass grave discoveries in Lyme: 1886, Cherry Island, six skeletons; 1906, “near Chaumont Bay,” 18 skeletons; 1920, Northrup Farm near Point Peninsula’s Carrying Place, 16 skeletons; 1921, Point Salubrious, 19 skeletons; 1944, Wetterhahn farm in Three Mile Bay, 4 skeletons. These graves may have been ossuary-style burials, in which individuals who had previously died were disinterred and then buried together in a common grave. Some tribes in Canada and Northern New York practiced this type of burial. While some of these sites were discovered and documented by trained archaeologists, many were not. Old newspaper articles mention the cavalier way in which burial grounds were approached and relics were taken (including the camp mentioned at the beginning of the article). Items commonly found around these sites included arrowheads, chisels, barbed fishhooks, awls, beads, pipes, and pottery shards. While some of these artifacts have been collected in the Jefferson County Historical Society and even at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, many are scattered in private collections. (The Jefferson County Historical Society does not keep artifacts specifically related to graves/burials; those items have been repatriated to Native tribes.) Some of the most ardent diggers around the Isthmus and the Carrying Place were not looking for Native artifacts, but for rumored British treasure. In 1777 a British flotilla on Lake Ontario washed into Chaumont Bay during a huge storm and wrecked near the Isthmus. That much is historically accurate. A persistent legend tells that the sailors, guided by Native American allies in a hasty retreat to Fort Haldimand on Carleton Island, buried their quartermaster’s coins in chests, or in the barrel of a brass cannon, under an earthen mound near the Carrying Place. There’s never been any reason to believe this story was true, but nevertheless it spurred on the digging of Point Peninsula’s mounds. If you find Native artifacts on your property, please consider contacting the archaeologists at the New York State Museum in Albany for information about proper handling and documentation. If you’d like to read them for yourself, you’ll find copies of my resources on the Historic Town of Lyme Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HistoricTownOfLymeNewYork/. I’m still learning about Lyme’s Native history and so I’m very much looking forward to hearing Dr. Tim Abel, the Jefferson County Historical Society’s consulting archaeologist, speak at the Lyme Heritage Center on June 20th. Please mark your calendar and join us! References:
Questions:
In 1914 the Little White Church by the Lake was still known as the Point Peninsula Methodist Episcopal Church. Its new minister was the Rev. Mr. Benjamin J. Clearmont, who claimed to be a native of Geneva, Switzerland. He also said he was a former Catholic priest with a mission to reveal the evils of the church he’d left behind. When he wasn’t ministering at the church, Mr. Clearmonttravelled widely to give anti-Catholic lectures. He had handbills printed in Watertown and distributed throughout the North Country to precede him. The handbills claimed that during his lectures he would divulge secret Catholic practices and sinister plots he’d learned about during his time in the priesthood. His handbills riled towns in advance of his visits. The notoriety brought Clearmont to the front page of local newspapers, and some began to investigate this North Country newcomer. In its research, the Canton Commercial Advertiser found “some discoveries which do not exactly tally with Mr. Clearmont’s own account of his early life.” It was discovered that he had fabricated most of his history – he was in fact a French-Canadian native of Manotick, Ontario who had never been a Catholic priest and who had no training in any Protestant denomination either. His mother told an Ontario newspaper that she had not seen him since he’d run away from home at age 12, after he fought with their parish priest, but that “he had always been a very bad boy.” (Immigration records show that he entered the United States from Canada at Ogdensburg with an 18-year-old wife.) On March 24, 1914 he was in Potsdam to give a lecture; he was grabbed off the street by a group of men, bundled into a car, and taken to a secluded farmhouse in Norwood. The police located him about two hours later; they took him to his hotel and guarded him overnight. At 6:15 the next morning he was placed on a train to return to Point Peninsula. Nine men were later convicted of his kidnapping. They pled guilty, but were given only minor fines. One Potsdam police officer was charged with neglect of duty for witnessing the event and failing to act to protect Mr. Clearmont; he was fined but allowed to keep his job. Clearmont’s case was reported nationally and picked up by muckraking anti-immigrant journalists, who called his kidnappers “a Catholic mob.” After their slap-on-the-wrist convictions, Mr. Clearmont sued his kidnappers for $25,000. However, neither he nor his attorney appeared in court to support the case, and the action was dismissed. In October 1914 he was fired from his Point Peninsula ministry; he then sued his former church for back salary and for payment for work he’d done on the building. The church countered that not only had Mr. Clearmont lied about being an ordained pastor, but that his “work” on the church had been disastrous, resulting in little more than removing the church’s furnace (to his own house) and leaving the building with holes in the walls. The church’s lawyers called Clearmont “a faker acting as a firebrand.” This lawsuit also seems to have come to nothing. Clearmont left the North Country and settled in Rochester. By 1925 he was listing himself in documents as a carpenter. That same year Clearmont married again. His marriage certificate contained two lies: he claimed to have been born in France, and he also stated that he had never been married before. It’s unclear what became of his first wife (Edith May Lewis Clearmont, whom he married in Ottawa in November 1912); I can’t find a record of her after they left Point Peninsula. By 1942 Clearmont was living in Tempe, Arizona. He died there in 1964. Sources:
First Baptist Church of Three Mile Bay The Town of Lyme was established in 1818. Twenty years later, citizens of the town had built 3 taverns, but no churches. In 1840 the Baptist congregation erected Lyme’s first house of worship on what would become known as Church Street in Three Mile Bay. The structure cost $2,500. The congregation had been holding regular services in various buildings around town since organizing on Point Salubrious in 1816. With over 200 years of worship, the Baptist congregation is the town’s oldest continuous religious gathering. Chaumont Presbyterian Church Lyme’s Presbyterian congregation formed at Chaumont in 1831 with 18 members (11 of whom were named McPherson). Before they had a permanent home of their own, they gathered to worship in a stone school house which used to stand on the corner of Main and Washington Streets (where the Hunt family’s house is now). In 1844 Solon and Alathea Massey donated land for a new church; the building was completed in 1845. One of the early ministers in the new building was the Rev. William Cleveland, who took the pulpit in 1890. Cleveland was the brother of Grover Cleveland, the only President of the United States to serve two non-consecutive terms in office (1885–89 and 1893–97). After Grover Cleveland was nominated for a second Presidential run, political tensions in the church flared. Republican members of the church chafed at Rev. Cleveland’s Democratic associations and his brother’s national policies. The feud spilled out into the village and made headlines across the state; the Watertown Daily Times reported that “Chaumont was rent in twain” by fighting Republicans and Democrats. William Cleveland finally resigned his position in 1896 and left Chaumont for Cleveland, Ohio. Three Mile Bay United Methodist Church A Methodist Episcopal congregation formed in Three Mile Bay in 1838, but was not able to build a church until 1854. The building cost $5,000 to construct. Asa Wilcox, renowned Three Mile Bay shipbuilder, may have been the master builder of this church. (During repairs to the steeple in 1932, his name was found chiseled into the timbers.) Wilcox gifted the church with a bell for the belfry. Wilcox’s newly-installed bell had a tragic christening – it was rung for the first time for his son Byron’s funeral. The elaborate steeple was removed in 1953. The Little White Church by the Lake Lyme’s first Methodist Episcopal congregation gathered on Point Peninsula in 1834, but had no permanent home until their church, now commonly known as the Little White Church by the Lake, was built in 1883. The church continues to offer United Methodist services on summer Sundays. The church’s minister in 1914 was Rev. Mr. Benjamin Clearmont. Mr. Clearmont claimed he was a native of Geneva, Switzerland, and that he had formerly been a Catholic priest. He travelled the North Country giving anti-Catholic lectures. In handbills announcing upcoming speeches, he claimed that he would divulge secret evil Catholic practices to his audiences. On March 24, 1914 he was in Potsdam to give a lecture; he was grabbed off the street, bundled in a car, and held against his will for two hours. Nine men were later convicted of his kidnapping, but were given only minor fines. Mr. Clearmont then sued the men for $25,000. That October he was fired from his Point Peninsula ministry; he then sued his former church. Both of his lawsuits seem to have come to nothing and he left the North Country, eventually settling in Arizona. Clearmont’s notoriety brought him to the front page of North Country and Ontario newspapers. It was discovered that he had fabricated most of his history – he was in fact a French-Canadian native of Manotick, Ontario who had never been a Catholic priest and who had no training in any Protestant denomination either. His mother told an Ontario paper that she had not seen him since he had run away from home at age 12. St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church, Chaumont Chaumont’s original Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1874 on land donated by Hiram Copley. (The Masonic Temple now stands on the spot.) After that building burned down on May 8th, 1897 the congregation decided to re-build on Washington Street. The new building was dedicated on December 21, 1897, just in time for Christmas services. The congregation and its funds dwindled until 1941, at which point it merged with, and began meeting at, the Presbyterian Church on Main Street. The Methodist Church building subsequently housed several different congregations. It is currently owned by the Agape House Fellowship Church of LaFargeville, but stands vacant. All Saints Catholic Church, Chaumont
Lyme was 50 years old before a Catholic mass was said in town. That first service, in 1868, was a funeral mass held in a boarding house on Water Street, where a railroad worker had died. A Father Hogan traveled to Chaumont from St. Patrick’s Church in Watertown to perform the mass. The original All Saints building was built on Madison Street in 1896. That building stood until 1930, when it was destroyed in the second huge fire on neighboring Mill Street. The current building was constructed almost immediately after the fire, and was built in much the same style as its predecessor. Sources: · Archives of the Lyme Heritage Center · Archives of the Watertown Daily Times · Archives of the Cape Vincent Eagle · Chaumont Presbyterian Church History, 1831-2006, Compiled by Martin G. Jones · “History of Lyme Churches,” a typed document by “C. Angell” (perhaps Lester C. Angell) In August 1883 a volcano erupted on the Pacific island of Krakatoa; particulates in the atmosphere caused spectacular sunrises and sunsets around the world for several months. Simon Winchester’s book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded (2004), describes the eruption’s global repercussions. As I read the book, I was pleasantly surprised to find a mention of my hometown. Mr. Winchester wrote that Frederic Edwin Church, a world-famous artist, had traveled to Chaumont in December of that year to paint a picture of the fiery sky over Lake Ontario. The painting was titled “Sunset Over the Ice on Chaumont Bay.” (You can see a copy of it here: https://www.art.com/products/p13951357-sa-i2748238/frederic-edwin-church-sunset-over-the-ice.htm)
While trying to learn more about the Church painting, I stumbled across a virtually identical watercolor called “The Ice On Chaumont Bay,” by lesser-known artist Peter Caledon Cameron. (For comparison, please view it here: http://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/2590M/lots/520) The two paintings are both watercolors, show the same view, use similar colors, and are painted in the same style. Cameron’s painting was inscribed with the date December 27, 1883 and Frederic Edwin Church's picture was painted on December 28, 1883, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s Art Inventories Catalog. I bought a print of the work attributed to Church; there’s no visible signature on it or on any online copies. However, Cameron’s painting has an inscription on the bottom that reads "Sunset on the Eve of Mr. & Mrs. G. Dillenbeck's Silver Wedding Anniversary. Dec 27 1883. Presented with the Artist's Compliments." I believe he’s referring to George and Ellen Hoxie Dillenback of Chaumont, who were married in 1858, and therefore would have celebrated their 25th anniversary in 1883. (Cameron spelled the name "Dillenbeck" on the painting, but the name is "Dillenback" on their mausoleum here in Chaumont.) The Dillenbacks lived in a large stone house near Chaumont Bay. The vantage point of both paintings appears to be from a spot only a stone’s throw from the Dillenback house. Peter Caledon Cameron (1852-1934) was born in Scotland. He was certified a “British government art master” at the National Art Training School in London in 1883. That October he arrived at the Port of New York, and by December had made his way to Chaumont. He was most likely seeking a good view of the brilliant sunset over an open body of water to the west. Newspaper articles show that he was in Jefferson County (at least from time to time) for the next few years, and he seems to have been living in Watertown in 1886. By 1900 he was living in Philadelphia and was working on creating illustrations for a science fiction novel by Franklin Littell. He spent the rest of his life in that city. Considering that Church's Chaumont painting is almost identical to Cameron's, appears to have been painted from the same spot, and was dated the day after the one attributed to Cameron, I suspected that the two artists must have been traveling together, and that perhaps both had stayed as guests at the Dillenback house. I figured that it couldn’t be just a coincidence that two well-known artists were in Chaumont, painting in the same spot, at the same time. I ran these thoughts past Ida Brier, the archivist at Olana, Frederic Edwin Church's Hudson River mansion, which is now a State Historic Site. She dug in to the archival material on Church and to our surprise found documentation that Frederic Edwin Church was in Mexico in December 1883. She even looked into his whereabouts on December 28, 1888 (in case there was a misreading of the painting’s date), but found that on that date he’d written a letter stating that he was at Olana. She could find no evidence that Church had ever traveled to Chaumont. She also told me that, other than his architectural sketches for the design of Olana, Church had never been known to work in watercolors. (On the other hand, Peter Caledon Cameron worked exclusively in watercolors.) She and I were also both struck by the coincidence that “Sunset Over the Ice on Chaumont Bay,” which has for years been known in the art world as the work of Frederic Edwin Church, is in a private collection in Philadelphia, where Peter Caledon Cameron spent the last four decades of his life. My suspicion is that Cameron was the artist of both paintings. Cameron never married or had children, so I'm not sure who would have inherited his works upon his death. I have to wonder if someone found, or inherited, an unsigned painting and took the liberty of attributing it to a much more famous, and lucrative, artist. (In 1979 Church’s “The Icebergs” sold for $2.5 million, making headlines and setting a new record for the highest amount ever paid for an American painting. In contrast, Cameron’s Chaumont painting sold at auction in 2012 for only $385.) I’ve tried in vain to find out who owns the painting attributed to Church, and how it ever came to be linked with him. For several months I’ve tried emailing all of the art museums in Philadelphia, posting notices on Philadelphia art blogs, and even written to Simon Winchester (twice), but no one has responded to my inquiries yet. In the meantime, I’m afraid that somebody in Philadelphia has a painting that is worth much less than they think it is. Sources: · Conversations with Ida Brier, the Librarian/Archivist at Olana State Historic Site · Skinner Auctioneers and Appraisers site at http://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/2590M/lots/520 · Schwarz Gallery of Philadelphia at http://www.schwarzgallery.com/artist/330/Peter-Caledon-Cameron · Archives of the Watertown Daily Times through NYS Historic Newspapers at http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/titles/places/new_york/jefferson/ · 1882 Albany City Directory · Dillenback family records on Ancestry.com · Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded By Simon Winchester (excerpt available at https://books.google.com/) · Temple University archives at https://sites.temple.edu/librarynews/tag/people/ · Smithsonian Institution Art Inventories catalog at http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID:siris_ari_178167 This is the painting attributed to Cameron: By Phyllis, Margaret, and Julie Putnam
The Town of Lyme will be 200 years old in 2018. We thought it would be interesting to write a time line of major historical events leading up to our bicentennial. We can only include part of it this month, so we’ll print the rest in June. 600 BC - 700 AD: The Point Peninsula Complex indigenous culture flourished in Northern New York and Southern Ontario. Thereafter the area was used mainly as hunting and fishing grounds by the Oneida and Onondaga tribes, who called the entire Golden Crescent area “Naionre.” 1654: Father Simon Le Moyne, Jesuit missionary to the Onondaga, portaged at the Long Carrying Place, Point Peninsula. He was the first non-indigenous person to land on the shores of Lyme. 1772: Tryon County was created, encompassing all of the current North Country, in what was then the British province of New York. It was named after named after William Tryon, the last British colonial governor of New York. After the revolution the county was re-named Montgomery, for a patriot hero. 1776: British soldiers en route from Oswego to Carleton Island were overtaken by a storm. Their boats were swept over the isthmus and into Chaumont Bay, where they were stranded without food and many died. (A tale has been passed down through the years that the soldiers buried a chest of money by a big oak tree at the isthmus. There’s no evidence to suggest there’s any truth to it.) 1788: New York negotiates a treaty with the Onondaga After the Treaty of Fort Stanwix was signed between the U.S. and the Six Nations Confederacy in 1784, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Oneida tribes. After years of negotiation, the tribes ceded almost all of their land in New York (including Lyme) in return for 1,000 French crowns (currency), 200 New York pounds worth of clothing and 500 New York pounds annually forever. (New York had its own currency -- the pound, shilling, and pence -- until 1793.) 1791: Alexander Macomb, with partners William Constable and Daniel McCormick, bought 3.7 million acres of the North from New York State in six great “tracts” at 8 pence an acre and no money down. The town of Lyme was within lot number 4 of that purchase. Macomb could not sell lots fast enough to pay for the huge purchase, and ended up in debtors’prison. 1798: Oneida County was created from a part of Montgomery County; the current area of Jefferson County was included. 1800: Macomb’s partner Constable sold 220,000 acres of Northern New York to Jacques-Donatien (Anglicized to James) LeRay de Chaumont for $46,315.12. In the same year another part of the lot was deeded to Gouverneur Morris, and became known as the “Morris Tract.” 1801: LeRay hired Jonas Smith and Henry Delameter to manage the sale and settlement of his lands in what would later become the Town of Lyme. Delameter and Smith were accompanied by Richard Esselstyne, Peter Pratt, T. Wheeler, James Soper, David Soper, and Timothy Soper, all of whom arrived by boat from Oswego. These men built a log house and a frame building about two and a half miles up the Chaumont River at the location known as the “Old Town,” along the current Old Town Springs Road. 1802: Timothy Soper drowned in the Chaumont River; his death was the first recorded in Lyme. 1803: The Old Town settlement was abandoned after widespread malaria. The inhabitants moved to the area of the current village of Chaumont. A sawmill and Samuel Britton’s log tavern were among the structures built that year. (The tavern stood about where the marina is now on Circle Drive.) 1802: The first Independence Day in Jefferson County was celebrated at Independence Point in Chaumont on July 4th. 1803: A state road was laid out from Brownville to Putnam’s Ferry (near Millen’s Bay), creating the first road through Lyme. 1805: Nancy Smith organized and taught the first school in the town, which met in the house of her father, Jonas Smith. In the same year, Jefferson County was created out of a section of Oneida County. 1806: (Mar 6) The first postoffice in Chaumont was established with James Shields as postmaster 1806: The settlement at the village of Chaumont was nearly deserted when Delameter and Smith failed in business and the population was “greatly reduced by lake fevers,” as malaria was called. At one point in the summer, only one person in town was well enough to get out of bed – an unnamed “colored man.” 1806: Henry Horton arrived from Delaware County and became the first settler on Point Salubrious. 1806: Bears and wolves troubled the settlers. James Horton’s family barely survived the winter after “the bars et all the corn” he’d planted. 1807: A group of Point Salubrious men nearly starved to death when they were stranded on the tip of uninhabited Pillar Point for a week during a return boat trip from the nearest mill in Sackets Harbor. 1808: Nathan Persons from Vermont was the first settler on Point Peninsula. 1812: In June General Jacob Brown convinced the citizens of Chaumont to build a blockhouse for protection against the British. (It stood about where the Chaumont bridge meets Circle Drive now.) It was furnished with a cannon that someone found at the isthmus of Point Peninsula and sold to Jonas Smith for two gallons of rum. A second blockhouse was built at Fir Point on Point Salubrious. Eliza Horton Ryder in later years told that the inhabitants of the point gathered there and listened to the battle raging at Sackets Harbor. 1812: In June General Jacob Brown convinced the citizens of Chaumont to build a blockhouse for protection against the British. (The blockhouse stood about where the Chaumont bridge meets Circle Drive now.) It was furnished with a cannon that someone found at the isthmus of Point Peninsula and sold to Jonas Smith for two gallons of rum. 1813: A company of British soldiers camped overnight on Point Peninsula en route to attack Sackets Harbor. One soldier deserted, made his way across Chaumont Bay, and exposed the plan to residents of Point Salubrious. They were able to get word to Sackets in time to alert the American troops. 1815: James LeRay de Chaumont built a turnpike from Cape Vincent to Brownville (the route of the current Route 12E). There was no bridge at the Chaumont River; it had to be crossed by rowboat, scow, or poling on a raft. At some later point a rope ferry was introduced. 1816-1855: The catch of Chaumont Bay ciscoes using seine, scoop, gill, and pound nets exceeded 10,000 barrels annually. 1816: A Baptist congregation was established on Point Salubrious and became the first organized religious gathering in the town. 1816: Simon and Jared White, lumbermen squatters, were the first settlers on Three Mile Point. 1816: Peter, Benjamin, and Richard Estes were among the first settlers in what is now Three Mile Bay. 1818: Eight Wells brothers arrived from New Hampshire and began to clear the thick woods along what is now the Ashland Road, creating the Wells Settlement. 1818: On March 6Lyme was formed out of the larger town of Brownville. The new Town of Lyme included all what is now Cape Vincent and part of the town of Clayton. Eben Kelsy, a native of Lyme, Connecticut, offered the name for the new town. 1818: Sebra Howard, William Wilcox, Oliver Wilcox, and John Wilcox, with their families, were the first permanent settlers on Point Peninsula. 1820: The population of Lyme was 1,724. 1820: Peter and Richard Estes built a sawmill at the mouth of Three Mile Creek. It stood for many years. 1822: The town offered a bounty of $15 for wolves and $10 for their whelps. Bears and wolves were troublesome to early settlers. 1823: Vincent LeRay began construction of a 16-foot wide toll drawbridge over the Chaumont River. 1823: Lyme’s standing militia, known as the “Floatwood Company,” participated in an attack on “trespassers” (the British) on Grindstone Island. The only death was that of a man whose own gun accidentally discharged. 1825: The Davis Brothers opened the first limestone quarry in Chaumont. 1825: The population of Lyme was 2,565. 1828: The Point Peninsula Post Office opened. 1828:“Malignant fevers” (malaria) swept through the populace, killing an untold number of citizens. The death toll must have been very high, as the epidemic is mentioned somberly in several different histories for the next hundred years. 1830: The population of Lyme was 2,873. 1831: The Presbyterian Church of Chaumont was formed with 18 members, of whom 11 were named McPherson. The church originally met in a stone schoolhouse at the corner of Main and Washington Streets, across from the present Masonic Temple. 1832: Asa Wilcox and S. Howard began shipbuilding on Point Peninsula. The first ship built there was the schooner New York. It was the beginning of Lyme’s shipbuilding industry, which endured into the 20thcentury. 1832: Chaumont’s first shipyard was built by William Clark. 1833: William and Timothy Dewey purchased 1,000 acres of land from Vincent LeRay. The land was swampy, but covered with valuable timber, including many ash trees. It became known as the Ashland Farm. 1833: Lyme’s first temperance organization was formed on Three Mile Point. 1833: Seven family members drowned when their skiff overturned on Chaumont Bay near Point Peninsula: Jesse Farman, Curtis Farman and his wife and child, Charlotte Farman Collins, her husband Alva, and their infant. It remains Lyme’s single most deadly accident. 1834: Alexander Copley moved to Chaumont after buying a store, sawmill, and a gristmill from William Clark. 1834: There were 90 males and 96 females born in the town. 1835: John Reed, Charles Leonard, and Benjamin Estes were the only men living in Three Mile Bay until they were joined by Asa Wilcox in this year. Wilcox founded a shipyard in Three Mile Bay from which he launched 48 vessels between 1835 and 1853. *QUESTIONABLE 1835: According to the New York State Census, Lyme was home to 2,012 males, 1,804 females, 343 non-naturalized aliens, 365 men subject to militia duty, 672 men entitled to vote, 8 “persons of colour not taxed,” 4,054 head of cattle, 881 horses, 5,455 sheep and 3,874 hogs. The census also noted the number of yards made in homes; that year Lyme produced 3,640 yards of flannel and other woolen cloths and 2,819 yards of linen, cotton, or other thin cloth. 1835: Chaumont had three taverns, but no churches. (Although Lyme was home to several religious gatherings, no church buildings had yet been built. Religious groups met in homes or public buildings.) 1838: The Methodist Episcopal congregation was founded in Three Mile Bay, but had no permanent home yet. 1838: Four Lyme men were hanged at Fort Henry, Kingston. The British had captured them during the disastrous Battle of the Windmill at Prescott, Ontario. The battle was a part of the Patriot “War,” a series of skirmishes between civilians and the British colonial government in Canada. At least five other captured Lyme men were deported on a prison ship to a penal colony in Tasmania, Australia. 1840: The Baptist church, the first house of worship in Three Mile Bay, was constructed at a cost of $2,500. 1845: The population of Lyme (which then included all of what is now Cape Vincent and a part of Clayton) was 6,018. -The Point Salubrious “End of the Point” School (also known as the Little Red School) was built. 1849: The northern half of Lyme split off to become the new Town of Cape Vincent. 1850: The population of Lyme was 2,925. 1850: Gaige and Hamblin’s saw mill in Chaumont was one of the first in the county to use the revolutionary new circular saw blade. Mid-19th Century: Before the Civil War, Lyme housed at least two stops on the Underground Railroad, ushering slaves to freedom in Canada. One was a house on the east side of Three Mile Point and the other was near the isthmus on Point Peninsula. (There may have been others, but no documentation of them survives.) 1850: Chaumont Masonic Lodge No. 172, F. & A. M was chartered. The original lodge stood on Main Street across from the Depauville (Evans) Road. 1851: The railroad was extended from Watertown to Chaumont and Three Mile Bay. 1853: Chaumont contained 50 houses, five stores, several warehouses, four saw mills, one gristmill, two schools, a Presbyterian church and a railroad station. (No count of taverns was given.) 1861-1865: At least 252 men from Lyme participated in the Civil War. Fatalities included William Breadsell, Sylvester Brougham, Frederick Vernum, Frank Armstrong, Walter Ryder, Miller Klock, and brothers Eugene and George Herrick (aged 16 and 21). (There were certainly other casualties, but these are the only ones we have found records of.) 1867: Lawrence Gaige, J. W. Moak, and Addison Day, erected a $3,000 lime kiln in Chaumont. It was considered the best of its kind in Northern New York. 1868: Chaumont's first Catholic mass was celebrated in a private home. 1873: The Cedar Grove Cemetery Association was formed. 1873: The Point Peninsula Oil and Mining Company was incorporated with $5,000 for the "search for oil, ore, salt, coal and other minerals on Point Peninsula." The company failed, but did find enough natural gas to light L.D. Collins’ house for a long time thereafter. 1874: Incorporation of the Village of Chaumont. 1874: A Methodist Episcopal Church was erected on the site of the present Masonic Temple. 1875: A Diphtheria and Typhoid Pneumonia epidemic killed at least 50 in the village of Chaumont alone, mostly children. 1875: The population of Lyme was 2,241. 1876: Rogers Brothers Seed Company was established in Chaumont; it stood near the railroad tracks behind where Mostly British is now. 1878: The Three Mile Bay Union School was erected. It remained open for the next 90 years. 1880: The first Chaumont High School was built. It was a wood frame building on the site of the current brick school. 1880: A Methodist Episcopal Church was built on Point Peninsula. 1881: On July 15th most of the buildings on Mill Street in Chaumont burned in a huge fire. All of the church bells were rung to alarm the village of the quickly-spreading blaze. The fire was so huge that a telegraph was sent to Watertown requesting help; a train rushed down 25 Watertown firemen and one of their water wagons. The fire left 16 men unemployed and destroyed property valued at $25,000. 1885: There were three telephones in town. They were called “telephone toll stations.” Point Peninsula’s phone was in L.H. Collins’ store, Three Mile Bay’s phone was in A D. Curtis’ store, and Chaumont’s phone was in E. Jacquay’s store. 1886: Between 60 and 75 men were employed in the town’s stone quarries. 1888: Lyme had 16 school districts, each with its own schoolhouse. 1891: “The” Chaumont telephone was moved into the post office. 1894: The first cottage was built in Chaumont’s Schermerhorn Park. 1896: All Saints Catholic Church was built. The original building stood until 1930, when it was destroyed in the second huge Mill Street fire. 1900: A new Chaumont train depot building was built. 1902: The Central House hotel in Three Mile Bay burned. 1904: The Crescent Yacht Club moved from Sackets Harbor to Chaumont after the Department of the Navy refused them the use of Ship-house Point in Sackets. 1905: Ward Mount opened a dry goods store in Three Mile Bay in a building that had been constructed by Green Wilcox in 1887. 1905: Lyme population was 2098; of those, 1981 were American citizens and 117 were aliens. 1907: Electric light poles were installed along Main Street in Chaumont. Also, the Township Telephone Company was founded. 1909: Lewis Crouse of Chaumont went on a trip in an automobile. It was unusual enough to be noted in the newspaper, suggesting that he was one of the first in town to own a car. 1911: The Electric Light Company of Chaumont was incorporated to provide power to homes and businesses. 1914: TheChaumont Volunteer Fire Department was founded. Its original home was on Mill Street. 1914: A Watertown newspaper article noted that Chaumont must be a very healthy place to live, because so many of its citizens lived to be “exceptionally old.” The article noted that Chaumont had 48 inhabitants over the age of 70 (which was apparently “exceptionally old”). 1916: Electric lights were installed in the Crescent Yacht Club and the old kerosene lanterns were removed. 1917: At least 79 Lyme men entered US forces to fight in World War I. 1919: The Three Mile Bay Athletic Association was formed. 1925: The population of Lyme was 1,690, of which 1,628 were American citizens and 62 were aliens. The population of Chaumont was 624 – 613 citizens and 11 aliens. (Figures were not collected for Three Mile Bay, since it was not an incorporated village.) 1926: Toad Hole School on Point Peninsula closed. Its students were sent to the “End of the Point” School. 1930: In August a fire started in the hay in A.L. Rogers’ barn on Mill Street in Chaumont. The massive blaze swept down Mill Street, destroying houses, barns, boathouses, warehouses, and the Catholic Church on adjacent Madison Street. The only fatality was that of Lewis Crouse (the automobile owner mentioned previously), who died of a heart attack while pumping water. Mr. Crouse had been working frantically to fight the fire, and had even run into his burning garage to save his car. 1931: Austin Rogers donated his Chaumont house for the creation of the Lyme Free Library. 1933:This year marked the last large operation of the Adams and Duford quarrying company. 1935: After a huge rainstorm, Horse Creek in Chaumont overflowed its banks. The flood was so powerful that it pushed the Chaumont Grange building off its foundation and washed Garry Putnam’s car into Sawmill Bay. Horses and cattle at farms along the Morris Tract Road were swept away and drowned. 1937: The wooden Chaumont High School was torn down to make way for the construction of a modern brick building. For the school year 1937-1938 classes were held at the Masonic Temple. 1937: Point Peninsula received electricity. 1938: In September the new $100,000 Chaumont High School building opened, with a 326-foot well for water. The same year the Bell School, the last one-room schoolhouse in Chaumont, closed. 1940: The Three Mile Bay school began to offer only grades 1-8; high school students were required to travel to Chaumont High School. 1941: The Point Peninsula Village school closed. In its last year there were only two students. 1942: The Chaumont High School was renamed “Lyme Central School.” The Three Mile Bay school began to offer only grades 1-6; students in grades 7-12 were bussed to Chaumont. 1945: As World War II ended, Lyme mourned the loss of eight men killed in battle: Raymond Walrath, Donald Dailey, Francis Monick, Gaylord Fraser, Clarence Wetterhahn, Donnell Walker, Kenneth Barth, and John Thornhill. 1946: The Old Town Springs School and the Point Peninsula Four Corners School closed; they were the last operating one-room schools in Lyme. 1947: The Three Mile Bay Volunteer Fire Department was organized. It was first housed in a garage across the street from its current location. 1951: The New York Central railroad discontinued service between Limerick and Cape Vincent and so the Chaumont railroad station closed. (The Three Mile Bay station had already been closed for a number of years.) 1951: Lyme Central began to offer Kindergarten classes. 1952: The railroad bridge in Chaumont was torn out and sold for scrap iron. 1959: A new bridge was constructed on route 12E crossing the Chaumont River. 1961: The new Chaumont Post Office was completed. 1963: A water system was introduced in Chaumont; individual wells were no longer necessary in the village. 1968: The Three Mile Bay school closed. All Lyme students began to attend classes in Chaumont. 1969: The new Three Mile Bay Fire Company building was built. 1971: The new Chaumont Volunteer Fire Department/Chaumont Municipal building was finished. 1984: The Crescent Hotel in Chaumont was torn down. It was 138 years old. 1990: The Nature Conservancy bought 87 acres of land along the Van Alstyne Road to preserve and protect the Chaumont Barrens, “one of the last and finest examples of alvar grasslands in the world” (according to their web site). 1990: The Chaumont train depot burned. It was 90 years old. 1991: Cellular phone capability reached Lyme. 1998: A massive ice storm in January left Lyme residents without power for over two weeks. 1998: The Lyme Community Foundation was founded in the historic Alexander Copley house. 2001: Lights were installed at the Morris Tract ball field, allowing night ball games. 2004: The Chaumont sewer line was constructed. 2007: The Citizens Bank of Cape Vincent and the Watertown Savings Bank each opened new buildings in Chaumont. 2010: The population of Lyme was 2,185. 2018: The town of Lyme will turn 200 years old on March 6th. Sources:
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