 |
| Tully Lake Hotel. |
 |
| Tully Lake Park, East Drive. |
FROM TULLY
LAKE PARK.
CAMP LAZY, TULLY LAKE, JULY 21, 1891.
To the Editor of the Democrat:
Perhaps some one, if not yourself, has wondered
during the past week what has become of some of the most notorious individuals who
compose our camping party, and in response to an invitation from a
representative of your paper, I now find a quiet nook on the shore and jot down
a few happenings which have served to make our outing lively and enjoyable.
After considering the numerous shimmer resorts,
including Asbury Park, Ocean Grove,
Saratoga and the Thousand Islands, we concluded that none of them offered the
inducements to men of our means, that were offered at Tully Lake. Accordingly we
pitched our tents on the east side of this lake Tuesday, July 14th, and today we
have as comfortable and pleasant a camp as can be found anywhere. The American
flag floats from the top of one of the tallest hemlocks to be found near the
camp, and serves to point out to friends the location of our camp as they come
down the lake.
Tuesday night found six of us in camp, one
of the boys having gone home with the team that brought our traps. Two of the
six were introducing themselves into society at the Park across the lake, when a
storm came pelting down on the newborn camp and threatened to lift the tent from
its temporary anchorage and carry it with four rain-soaked boys up into the blackened
sky. Since that night, however, we have been favored with pleasant weather and
moonlight nights.
The name of the camp was suggested, not by
the words, but by actions or (nonactions) of "Herr" Alger, the
world-famous clarionet soloist, who horrors us with the presence of himself and
clarionet. I might also mention, in connection with the
suggestive latter part of our name, Attorney Dowd and C. S. Hudson, who spend
most of their time drifting lazily in our three-dollar-and-a-half-a-week boat,
or "dressing for the Park Hop."
Gus. and Dowd are general favorites among
the ladies as they are satisfied to sit on the hotel porch and be seen and not heard.
Their next move is to return to camp and interest the boys with glowing descriptions
(made up on the way down) of how they enjoyed themselves with ? ? the girls.
Poor "Fin" Van Hoesen (known in Tully as "Gat's" boy)
disappeared suddenly Saturday night and has not been seen or heard from since.
Judging from an important looking letter which he received that day, we would
say that if he is found wandering through the woods gathering
"Buttercups" in Madison county, we wish he might be returned to us
for we fear we shall need his $10.00 to pay for our boat.
"Chet." Smith charms our lady
visitors with his marvelous performances on the banjo and can be seen or heard
in the "small tent before the large tent opens," for the sum of ten
cents. Frank Holdridge, better known as "dude," is also on exhibition,
advertised as the "Tattooed Man from Borneo." That he is tattooed is
due to the fact that he submitted to the trying operation of having his face
shaved by Attorney Dowd and the next morning the cook came near frying his face
for breakfast thinking it was a piece of beefsteak.
Whoever heard of bed-bugs in camp? Well we
have them, or at least "Gus" thinks so. He found one in his bed last night
that had been tied there with string. "Gus."
was too quick for him though, and only allowed him to climb half way up his spinal
column before discovering him. A post mortem examination proved that the
"bed-bug" was an animal commonly known as a snapping turtle and Gus. thinks
it was the hardest shelled bed-bug that he ever got his hand on.
We have another week of it yet and expect to
entertain a large number of Cortland friends in addition to those already on
our register, among whom are the following:
Mr. and Mrs. C. H. V. Elliott, Miss Harriet K.
Hilton, Mr. F. J. Peck, Hon. J. E. Eggleston,
John Courtney, Jr., T. E. Courtney, Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Thompson, Mr. and
Mrs. Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. S. M. Palmer, E. R. Beach, Tom. McCarthy, Dr. E. M.
Santee, Geo. W. Houk, Myron Crane, Horton Cowan, S. C. Miller, B. S. Weyant,
Seymour Jones, T. K. Norris, Sam. VanBergen, Lee Crofoot and A. Rogers of
Cortland; A. Gruber and wife, New York; Mrs. Frazier, Mr. R. J. Hughitt,
Clarence Hughitt, F. W. Wagner, Syracuse , D. B. Earls, Fred. Roat, Binghamton;
N. H. Waters, Stanton Borst, B. R. Burdick, L. S. Paddock, Homer; A. P. Hobart,
E. J. Lewis, Tully.
Yours,
E. J. E. [author's initials.]
P. S. This narrative would be incomplete without
a short postscript telling of the above author's experience. Dressed in a
dilapidated pair of trousers and an ancient shirt, he is the most domineering master
that a slave ever served. He prides himself on his Napoleonic whiskers (with which
the lake breezes have become exceedingly "familiar") which are
growing in profusion.
A FELLOW CAMPER.
[This unedited letter copied as published--CC editor.]
Tully Lake Hotel and Park:
[This unedited letter copied as published--CC editor.]
Tully Lake Hotel and Park:
 |
| Chief Justice Fuller |
FRIEND JONES:—I had supposed that people
taking a long journey were prompted to write long letters home by a desire for
notoriety or profit, but I discover other motives after a two days ride through
unbroken sameness Minnesota and Dakota, and while I do not expect to interest
you, you will pardon me for trying to amuse myself.
On taking train No. 3 of the N. P. Railway consisting
of thirteen cars at St. Paul, and seeing the multitude aboard on business and
pleasure bent, the thought that no two of the throng were on the same errand, lead
me off into speculative dreamland and there I find pictured the innumerable opportunities
for humanity to grow, prosper and be happy, and if any selfish person has fears
that his opportunities and privileges must unavoidably be trespassed upon, let
him take my seat, look from this car window and find his vision unobscured from
the north pole, the setting sun and the equator, only by distance. Would it be
difficult for us to select from among our
acquaintances those who are so tenacious of their personal privileges, and so out
of touch with their fellow men generally, that free transportation across this
great, beautiful, and diversified country for them would be a good investment,
and which might open up to them the possibility of being happy without being
selfish.
Dakota as you pass through it by this route,
has no limit to the eye but presents an unbroken wheat and pasture field, and
as we passed through the Dalrymple Wheat farm we could not see its limits, but
our sympathy for the proprietor was aroused when we were told that by reason of
the very wet weather this season he had been unable to sow but 15,070
acres, and this as far as we could see was of good color, most of it not in
head yet, but even as the finest lawn. Dakota and Montana have not been as
green and fertile in many years as it is this, and as we enter the latter the
scene gradually changes from wheat to horses, cattle and sheep as well as the
features of the country, until we reach what I had always hoped to escape, "The
Bad Lands."
Here my descriptive English will be
inadequate to the opportunity, and I doubt if any one has ever described them
to their own satisfaction. But still I saw familiar objects, made so by
listening to the detailed and entertaining description of them by our gifted
Miss Kennedy of the Normal, after her trip to Yellow Stone Park, (the lady will
please pardon the allusion). I will venture this, however, that the formation of
the Bad Lands has one striking feature to me, and it is this; you will
see several cone shaped formations standing out alone on the open space as
perfect in outline as if cut by an artist hand and ranging from 15 to 300 feet
high, then you will see hills and ranges formed as though these cone shaped
formations had been moulded in some inconceivably large cauldron, out of a
conglomerate moulton mass of red, green, white and yellow matter, and when
sufficiently cooled had been deposited, some in the open space and others tumbled
so to speak, into indiscriminate collections, some in broken fragments, while
others retained their form, each and all retaining its cone like individuality
of outline and identity, so I suggest that to call this cone land would
permit Its name to fall less harsh on sensitive ears.
A night's ride now of three hundred miles
along the Yellowstone river will bring us to near the foot of the Rocky Mountains,
when I expect the "unbroken sameness" of Dakota will change to
changeable and majestic grandeur.
A little incident on our train this
afternoon happily illustrates the natural propensity of the north westerner to
tell a good story. Governor Toole of Montana, who lives at Helena, is a
passenger in our car on his return from Washington, and who by the way is a
very pleasant gentleman, while Chief Justice Fuller, wife and son, are
passengers on our train in a special car on a visit to his son in law in
Tacoma. Justice Fuller came in to pay his respects to Gov. Toole and a little
company soon gathered, and among other things Justice Fuller told of a pumpkin
which Senator Stanford of San Francisco told him he raised, weighing 250
pounds. The Justice hardly believed it himself, but the Governor said Montana
beat that last fall, raising one weighing 350 pounds. The Justice did not
discredit the story only by the expression on his face. The Governor explained
that a pumpkin was growing so large the owner wanted to save it for the fair and
fearing frost, they cut it from the vine about September 1st, with a stem as
large as his arm and about a foot long, they then inserted the stem in new milk
and the pumpkin consumed nine quarts of milk a day for five weeks. When they
took it to the fair they could not get transportation for it so were compelled
to roll it a distance of two miles. When there the managers of the fair
insisted there was some fraud about its weight, as its size did not indicate so
much, so it was decided to cut the pumpkin open and when they done so they found
it contained 150 pounds of butter—Justice Fuller remarked "Montana is a
very productive state."
Yours,
H. [author's initial or mark.]
ESCAPED
FROM RUSSIA.
A
Polish Carpenter's Experiences in the Modern "Holy Land"—Suspected and
Maltreated.
NEW YORK, July 10.—Thirty detained immigrants,
all Russian Jews, are in detention at the Barge Office, awaiting the decision of
the Superintendent of Emigration. It is most probable that they will all be
sent back, as each one has been assisted, and the law on "assisted"
emigration is inexorable.
One of the detained emigrants, Mendel
Regalski, a young man of 2o, a carpenter by trade, tells a thrilling story of
his own adventures and sufferings in Russia. His efforts to reach America were
long continued and arduous, and the thought that after all his sufferings were
past, as he believed, by landing in America, only to find that he is to be sent
back for a continuation of his trials, affects him most visibly. He became a
suspect while working at his trade in Riga, and to escape Siberia,
which was inevitable, he fled from city to city, pursued constantly. He was
finally taken prisoner, beaten and treated most inhumanly, and prepared for Siberia,
when he again managed to escape. He succeeded in reaching the frontier and by
the assistance of his countrymen was sent to Hamburg. He was further assisted,
and left for America. He had no money, having been robbed of his little saving
for six years when he was taken prisoner in Russia, and he says if he is caught
again in that country he will be put to death.
The Jewish societies have taken hold of his
case and it is likely that by to-morrow he with the others detained will be
bonded.
No comments:
Post a Comment