In 1936, W.J. Brown decided to take pen to paper and composed a lengthy letter to the editor of the Essex County Republican, a weekly newspaper published in Keeseville, NY. In the text he described a hike to the summit of New York’s highest peak, Mount Marcy, in 1888, forty-seven years earlier. The clarity of his recollections illustrates how influential the trip was on this much younger man and his companions. The trails and gear was much different than at the present. Brown’s trek started at Upper Ausable Lake, over Bartlett Ridge, down into Panther Gorge and them up the peak of Marcy. Part of the trail is no longer readily accessible, but one thing has not changed since 1888—the 360 degree panorama one gets atop this 5,344-foot high peak. The editor published the letter in the paper’s January 24, 1936 edition.
Who is W.J. Brown? Through the result of a little research it has been discovered the author was William J. Brown. He was born in 1857 and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He subsequently enjoyed a lengthy successful career in banking in Brooklyn before he retired to Keeseville with his wife to live with his married daughter. Brown must be thanked for his writing ability and willingness to share an experience early in his life.
Here is Brown’s narrative entitled ‘Memoirs Of My Trip To Mount Marcy – 1888.’
It is said that if you “scratch a Russian you find a Tartar.” If you scratch the average man you find the original savage, coveted, more or less, with a veneering of civilization. How else can you account for the longing that comes over one periodically to get away from his fellow-man, out into the wilderness, to hold communion with the hills and streams, rocks and woods. Mt. Marcy had for years appeared upon the map as a challenge to unknown adventure, and we had longed to drop the conventional garb of the city, put on the tourist’s costume, and trace the lordly Hudson from mouth to source, far up the slopes of Marcy. Circumstances compelled a modification of our original desire, but the morning of Sept. 6, 1888, found us encamped on the shore of Upper Ausable Pond, and ready to make the attempt to gain the summit of Tahawus cloud perch! We had entered the mountains at Ausable Chasm on Monday night, ridded via “buckboard” through Wilmington Notch, past Whiteface Mountain, lingered a while at Cascade Lakes and Keene Valley and Keene Flats, and Thursday night found us in camp. A wind from the north had swept down the lake during the night and when we waked on Friday morning there was ice upon the surface of the lake. We had slept in an open camp, but our guide had built a roaring camp-fire directly in front, and with lots of blankets we had managed to keep fairy warm. When we turned out, however, it was bitterly cold, and until we had started the circulation by plunging head and face beneath the surface of the lake, we suffered severely. The appearance of one of our company with all available clothing on his person, including heavy overcoat, his hands deep in his pockets, collar around his ears at the bottom and hat jammed down over them at the top, with teeth chattering like an ague patient, was hailed with shouts of laughter. He said he preferred warm weather for his vacation himself. But we must not linger upon the delights of camp life, nor the beauty of the Ausable Ponds, set like twin jewels between the Boreas and Gothic ranges.
After a hearty breakfast of steak, potatoes, coffee, and the inevitable “flap-jacker,” we took boat up the lake at 8 o’clock in the morning. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and we anticipated a royal day. The trail leads up over Bartlett Mountain, through Panther Gorge to the summit. We were light-hearted when we started—a party of four. Our guide carried guns, and each had strapped to his back a species of “creel” peculiar to the mountains, containing provisions and blankets indiscriminately packed in together, for we had more camping out to do after we had reached the summit. Our guide, gentle Ed. Phelps , had our frying-pan sticking out of the top of his basket, towering over his head like a Roman shield, except that it was in the rear instead of in front. Our trail was through the primeval forest, over fallen trees, sharp rocks and gnarled roots. At times we came to some fallen monarch, too large to climb, and our way led directly under it. At one of these places the frying-pan stuck as Ed went under. He stopped short; he pulled; he got mad; he used bad language; he swore. We mildly asked, “What’s the matter Ed?” For answer he gave a snort and a vicious “yank,” which landed him on his face, while our provisions were scattered around “promiscuous like.” After he had picked the things up, and duly apologized for using unorthodox language, we proceeded. Up, up until we imagined the summit must be at an unattainable height. Our feet were bruised and lacerated by the sharp rocks, our limbs ached and the breath came fast, while it seemed like the beating of the heart could be heard twenty feet away. At last we reached the head of Panther Gorge about one o’clock. There is an open camp here, and we stopped to take dinner. The summit was a thousand feet higher, and not in view. One of the party could not rest so near the fruition of his hopes and started through the dwarfed pine trees alone. A few hundred feet, and these disappeared, and a little stunted grass remained. Finally we stopped and looked up. The naked summit stood revealed in solemn majesty, bathed in sunlight—awful, sublime! Before us was nearly a thousand feet of naked rock, up which we must climb, sometimes on hands and knees. As we looked we saw something away up there near the summit. Were they wild goats? We looked again and found them to be a party of men, who had preceded us, coming rapidly down from rock to rock. As we neared the top the cold wind chilled us, and we attempted to change a light coat for a heavier one. It was necessary to kneel upon the clothing as we changed, and we seemed about to be blown from the mountain. Higher and higher we mounted, and broader spread our vision. At last we climbed a huge mass of rock, and stood upon the summit of Tahawus!
(The word Tahawus was Native American and meant ‘Cloud-splitter.’ Mount Marcy is named for New York Governor William L. Marcy who served the state from 1833 and 1838.)
How can we attempt to describe the sublime picture that burst upon us? The air was clear, with a slight haze in the east. We could see clearly about sixty miles. “A sea of mountain tops.” An awful storm whose waves were frozen as it raged wildly! A panorama of mountains and lakes worth traveling a continent to see. Away to the east lie the Green Mountains, in full view, with Lake Champlain—a silver streak at their base. A solemn thought steals over us as we mark the spot where went a pure soul from Earth to Heaven—Watkins Camp. We dimly discern the St. Lawrence River on its course to the Gulf. At our feet lie the Gothic and Boreas ranges and noon-mark—giants all but dwarfed by Marcy’s superior grandeur. We turn to the south, and looking over sky-top before us, away over range after range, until our eye rests upon Blue Mountain and the unnamed mountains around Schroon Lake and Lake George. As we turn west our eye covers Mount Adams, Santonini range, Owl’s Head, and, near at hand, Colden, McIntyre and Mad Face, with Indian Pass lying darkly between. Mounts Seward and Dix are plainly seen. The names I have mentioned distinguish the largest mountains, while piled in every direction are others of less note. Here and there a sparkle of silver denotes the presence of one of the numerous beautiful lakes which abound in this region. From the top of old Whiteface—standing as the out-post of the mountains to the south sixty-five different bodies of water can be seen. We see, from Marcy, Lake Placid and Mirror Lake to the north, Long Lake, Lake Henderson (more beautiful, in many respects, than Lake George), and Sanford and Lake Harkness; south-west, Blue Mountain Lake; south, Boreas Pond; south-east, Upper and Lower Ausable Ponds and Clear Pond; east, Lake Champlain. These lakes, set like sparkling diamonds between dark mountains clothed in forests, where the lumberman’s axe has not yet been heard, form a picture that no words can describe. As we stood alone upon the summit of Marcy and remembered that the Adirondacks are said to be the oldest mountains on the globe, and that in all probability the spot where we stood was the first land to make its appearance above the great deep, when the “earth was without form and void,” a feeling of awe came over us and we thought, “what is man, that Thou are mindful of him!” We were soon joined by the rest of the party, and we drank in the scene until we were compelled to leave. At our camping-place where we took dinner we saw a rock about four feet square. A little stream took its place on the easterly side of the rock, gathering strength as it went on, until it became the Ausable River, emptying into Lake Champlain, finding its way through the St. Lawrence to the upper Atlantic. On the westerly side of that rock was a little marshy spot from which trickle a tiny stream into Lake Perkins, 4,293 feet above tide, then into the Opalescent, which finally becomes the Hudson, bearing the commerce of the world upon its broad bosom. Our desire of years had been accomplished, and, as we reluctantly turned our faces towards Lake Colden, we feel that should sight suddenly fail us there was one beautiful vision that should always remain with us, “a thing of beauty and joy forever.”
We should like to tell further of the glories of Lake Colden and Avalanche, the Indian Pass, John Brown’s grave, Lakes Cascade, Placid, Saranac, Upper and Lower; Raquette, Blue Mountain, venison steak, trout and so on, ad libitum (at one’s pleasure), but we already see the look of dismay that will come over the face of the editor when he sees the length of this sketch, and we forbear.
We say reverently of the Adirondacks “Doubtless God could make better country, but doubtless God never did.”
W.J. Brown
When Brown and his party hired Ed Phelps to be their guide, they hired one of the best. Phelps’ father was Orson “Old Mountain“ Phelps, a guide made famous by the Adirondack photographer Seneca Ray Stoddard. It was the elder Phelps who cut the first trail from the east to reach the top of Mount Marcy back about 1861 using Upper Ausable Lake as the starting point. Phelps Mountain is named after “Old Mountain.” Ed Phelps served as the personal guide to Verplanck Colvin on many of his surveying expeditions into the Adirondacks. He also cut his own trail to the top of Marcy, known as both the Johns Brook Trail and the Phelps Trail. Legend has it that Ed Phelps was responsible for giving noted writer William Henry Harrison Murray the nickname of “Adirondack Murray” as he guided the minister around the region which, according to Phelps’ obituary was “much to Mr. Murray’s delight.”
Image: Sketch of Mount Marcy by Verplanck Colvin
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