The Adirondack Guideboat-Adirondack Murray

I said that I would tell you how William West Durant affected the characteristics of the Adirondack guideboat.  Then I realized that another larger-than-life character also had an impact on guideboat design.  His name was William Henry Harrison Murray.  Neither Durant or Murray had a direct influence on what became the quintessental Adirondack guideboat, but they surely had an influence.

Adirondack Murray as a young man.

Durant drew the absurdly rich to the Adirondacks by building his Great Camps.  Murray was a preacher in Boston who was drawn to camp in the Adirondacks every summer.  He became convinced that everyone, regardless of their social or economic status, should experience the wonders of the wilderness.  He felt that through such a journey one was brought closer to his Maker.

In 1869 Murray published  Adventures in the Wilderness, a book rich with tales of his experiences while being guided down Long Lake and into Raquette Lake.  His writing is clear and direct.  It neither talks over the reader’s head or talks down to him.  Humor, suspense, and mystery are sprinkled throughout the book.

But the book carries through on his wish that the common man have the spiritual  experience of being immersed in the natural world.  The first part of his book reads like a Fodors of the Adirondack wilderness.  It tells how to get there, what clothes to wear, who are the best guides, the best hunting and fishing gear, and so on.  The railroads, anticipating a rush to the Adirondacks, began giving the book away.

Adirondack Murray’s book Adventures in the Wilderness, published in 1869.

The public’s response to the book was overwhelming.  Tourists, sportsmen, and all manner of humanity flocked to the Adirondack wilderness during the summer of 1869.  You can imagine the chaos when several thousand people descended on a wilderness where there was little of everything; food, lodging, and guides.

To make matters worse the summer of 1869 was miserable, rainy and chilly.  Those who heeded Murray’s call to follow him became known as “Murray’s Fools”.

So how did these two very imposing figures, W. W. Durant and William H. H. Murray have an effect on the Adirondack guideboat?  Before they came on the scene guideboats were a work boat, created by each guide over the winter months.  A guide might sometimes make more than one boat to sell to another guide but the demand for these boats was not great enough to make a living building them.  Guides built their boats to meet their own needs.  First of all they had to be lightweight and rugged.  They kept things simple.  Their boats were painted and they used planks for seats.

The  owners of vast wealth brought to the Adirondacks by Durant and the stable tourist trade encouraged by Murray changed that.  The Great Camps owners became enamored by the sleek design of these boats and decided just one or two wouldn’t do.  The Pryuns of Camp Santanoni  had a boat house on Lake Newcomb, home of their Great Camp, a boat house on near-by Moose Pond, and one at their gatehouse in Newcomb.   They had at least eight guideboats scattered about these locations, all built by Caleb Chase.  Hotels hired guides by the day to row their clientele about their lakes.  My friend Tom Bissell remembers that builder Wallace Emerson would tow a fleet of guideboats each spring up Long Lake to the long gone Sagamore Hotel there.  Private clubs, like the Adirondack League Club, took many of the boats.

The increased demand for guideboats meant that shops devoted to building these handsome, but not easily built, craft began to spring up and prosper.  Towards the end of the 1800’s there were 72 guideboat builders in the Adirondacks.

With the increase in number of builders came competition.  Though easier to plank, lapstrake construction was replaced on these boats by smooth skinned planking. Simple plank seats gave way to caned ones.  The middle seat got a hinged back rest that would fold down when not in use.  Now can you see any self respecting guide using a back rest?  The ultimate in catering to the changes that tourism brought was a grate-like affair that conformed to the inside of the hull.  It was meant to protect the thin skinned hull from ladies in high heeled boots.  Decks were not immune to being gussied up.  Fancy woods were used and each builder had his own idea for a unique design.  And that bare hole in the bow deck used to hold the lantern for jacking deer; now adorned with a fancy brass feed thru.

Brass feed thru that goes into the bow deck to hold the lantern for jacking deer.

Varnish replaced paint as the preferred finish.  Varnish showed off the light honey color of the pine planking.  It also showed the vast array of copper tacks used to seal the hull and the lines of brass screws  used to secure planks to ribs.  Applying varnish to get a mirror-like, run-free finish is tricky business and far more time consuming than brushing on a few coats of paint.

Shops like the Grants, Chase, Parson Brothers, Warren Cole, and others hired perhaps six or more skilled carpenters and soon gained a reputation for excellence.  The Grants, father Dwight and son Lewis, built 358 boats, all from their shop in Boonville, NY.  The Parson Brothers, Ben and Ira, inherited their boat building business from their father.  Here they are in their later years.

The Parson Brothers, Ben and Ira, with one of their guideboats.

Here is one of their boats, a Raider, at 14 feet 3 inches.

A Raider built by the Parson Brothers.

I found fascinating a view of their shop taken around the turn of the century.

The Parson Brother boat shop, about 1900.

There are actually six men in this photo.  You probably missed the fellow outside the rear doorway.  He is carrying a guideboat on his shoulders in true Adirondack guide fashion using a yoke.

So would the Adirondack guideboat have evolved into such an extraordinarily beautiful craft without the upheaval wrought by Durant and Murray?  Who knows?  I think not,

The Adirondack Guideboat-William West Durant-Part 2

In the last post we learned that William West Durant created a new style of architecture called Adirondack Great Camp in Raquette Lake NY in the 1870’s.  We heard all about Great Camp Pine Knot, Durant’s first venture into this new, bold expression of rustic living.  In that post. architecture was the prime focus.  In this one we will search for what kind of man Durant was.  Like all of us he was both saint and sinner.  Here is a profile of Durant as a dashing young man.

William West Durant

This pose would suggest that he was quite a ladies man.  Indeed he was.  He was especially attracted to young ladies.  He married Janet Strop, age 19, in 1884.  The Strops were long time friends of the Durant family.

Now I’ll take a tangent and show you an old photo that piqued my interest.  It is of guides and guideboats at the Camp Pine Knot landing.

Raquette Lake, landing at Camp Pine Knot.

What attracted my attention was the object floating offshore.  It must be the houseboat Durant called Barque.  Here is a close up of Barque pulled up on the shore at Pine Knot.

The houseboat Barque.

What was the purpose of Barque?  In the Adirondacks starting in about mid-May and lasting well into June and perhaps beyond, a scourge of tiny insects called black flies appears.  They look more like a gnat than a fly.  They are relentless in their pursuit of bare human flesh.  Their bite is painless but soon a welt the size of a dime rises at the bite site.  This welt may last for up to a week and it itches like mad.  Insect repellents have no effect on black flies.

One can escape them by getting out on the water, especially if even a slight breeze is present.  Hence Barque.  Durant supposedly built Barque so that ladies visiting Pine Knot in the spring and early summer would be comfortable.  He may have had an ulterior motive.

Here is Durant’s cabin at Pine Knot, a modest affair.

W. W. Durant’s cottage at Camp Pine Knot.

My admiration for Durant went up when I learned he spent the winter of 1875 in a tent on the Pine Knot site.  Having spent a full year in the Adirondacks I can appreciate the struggle he faced to keep warm and sane.  The landscape turns white, with some splotches of dark green, and the sky is uniformly pewter.  It snows every day, often just an inch or so, but it all adds up.  We had seventeen feet of snow fall the year we stayed through the winter.

There was another structure on the Pine Knot grounds that had a very low profile.  In fact, when the Camp was sold to Colis P. Huntington, it was not even marked on the survey of the property.  This building was unusual in that every room in it had a door that opened to the outside.  So visitors to Camp Kirby could come and go undetected.  It was called Camp Kirby after its owner, a Mrs. Kirby.  A young lady, Cornelia, spent her summers with her cousin at Camp Kirby.  Cornelia was seventeen.

The docent on our tour of Camp Pine Knot said that Durant kept a bicycle handy for a quick transit to Camp Kirby.  So while the ladies were safely holed up on Barque avoiding the black fly menace, Durant was braving them to make his way to other pursuits.  His interest on other women apparently became widely enough known that his wife was granted a divorce in 1895.

Durant was a brilliant architect but a terrible business man.  He simply could not control the cost of building his Great Camps.  In order to avoid bankruptcy he would sell each of his camps as soon as they were completed.  As mentioned, Camp Pine Knot was bought by Colis P. Huntington, while Camp Uncas went to J. P. Morgan and Camp Sagamore to Alfred Vanderbilt.

When Durant’s father died without a will in 1885, William was drawn to this new source of money like a moth to flame.  He somehow wrested control of the estate and proceeded to cheat his sister out of her share of it.  When he granted her a mere $2oo a month while buying a 190 foot ocean going yacht, sister Ella took legal action.   After years of litigation she was awarded $750,000.  You have probably guessed the outcome, there was no money left in the estate satisfy her judgment.

There is a brighter side of William West Durant.  He built two churches on Raquette Lake.  Both are still there and in fine condition.  Here is St. Williams Roman Catholic Church.  The other is an Episcopal Church, the Church of the Good Shepard,

St. Williams Roman Catholic Church on Raquette Lake.

Next time I’ll give my take on how Durant affected the iconic Adirondack guideboat.