Postcard History

This card was recently re-discovered lying flat in the bottom of a box of cards where I keep the ones that are curious and need to be researched. It is easy for me to imagine many of you doing the same thing. Please allow me to set a mind-picture; you make the comparisons.

When I found this card, it was the only oversized card at the back of the box; I pulled it out to examine. I have no memory of seeing the card before. I have no idea when it was acquired, nor any idea what the picture was. I had to read the caption on the address side. It was:

SAVE SAGAMORE
Coalition to Save Camp Sagamore
307 Hamilton Street
Albany, N.Y. 12212

**

The word “Sagamore” originated in the Eastern Abenaki language, where it meant “chief” or “leader.” It’s an anglicized version of the word “sagamo,” which the Penobscot Nation of Maine used for their chiefs. The earliest documented use of “sagamore” in English was in 1613 where it referred to a subordinate chief of the Algonquian Indians.

To reach Camp Sagamore, find your way to New York State Highway 28. It is a two-lane winding road through the Adirondack Mountains in north-central New York. As you travel east from Utica, scenes like the one above are typical. (This is a modern 4¼” x 6” chrome that was postmarked in 2014.)

When you’re in this part of New York state, you drive dozens of miles on roads along lake shores. At the western edge of Adirondack Park, you pass First Lake, then Second Lake, Third Lake, and Fourth Lake. The road then crosses an inlet and suddenly you find yourself on the east side of the ordinal numbered lakes. When you get by Eighth Lake it is time to watch for signs to your destination. (The numbered lake names aren’t very imaginative, so the locals call them by their cardinal number: 1, 2, 3, etc.)

Then within two miles there is an intersection with Sagamore Road. Turn right, into what is known as the Moose River Forest and drive south for three miles. You’re there!

**

William West Durant built Camp Sagamore as a hunting cabin, circa 1896. Durant was the son of the notorious Dr. Thomas C. Durant, the financier and railroad promoter who was vice-president of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 when it met with the Central Pacific railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory.

William had been called home from an extended stay in Egypt. His father wanted William to assume leadership of a family business meant to develop part of the half-million acres he owned in Adirondack Park. Dr. Durant recognized there were millions to be made off the vacationing-public and he realized the potential of rustic hotel resorts in the nearby mountains. Camp Uncas and Camp Pine Knot were just the beginning. Camp Sagamore came along late in the 1890s on a smaller scale since it was meant to be his own private and self-sufficient family camp. All three are now National Historic Landmarks.

In 1901 Durant was forced to sell Sagamore to settle a lawsuit and to save himself from bankruptcy in court. It was purchased by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who expanded and improved the property to include flush toilets, a sewer system and hot and cold running water. He later added a hydroelectric plant and an outdoor bowling alley with an ingenious system for retrieving the balls. Other amenities included a tennis court, a croquet lawn, a 100,000-gallon reservoir, and a working farm. Vanderbilt died in 1915, a victim of the Lusitania sinking, leaving Sagamore to his widow Margaret Emerson, an avid sportswoman who continued to occupy the camp seasonally for many years.

When family interest in Sagamore waned, Mrs. Emerson transferred the property to Syracuse University. For several years the university operated a conference center at the site until the State of New York offered to buy it and allow the land to be part of the “Forever Wild” provision in the state’s constitution.

To avert this, the Preservation League of New York arranged with the State to take title, transferring the property to a not-for-profit institution that would provide suitable occupancy. Great Camp Sagamore has continued to function as an education institution.