Reminiscences of Saratoga and Ballston ... Illustrated

Front matter

INTERIOR court view of united states hotel, 1880. UNITED STATES HOTEL, SARATOGA SPRINGS. This magnificent structure was completed in June, 1874, and is situated on the block bounded by Broadway and Division street, on the site of the old United States Hotel, around wliicli so many pleasant memories cluster, but which was burned a few years ago. It constitutes one con tinuous line of buildings, six stories high, over fifteen hundred feet in length, containing nine hundred and seventeen rooms for guests, and is the largest hotel in the world. The architectural appearance is exceed ingly elegant. The building covers and encloses seven acres of ground in the form of an irregular pentagon, having a frontage of two hundred and thirty-two feet on Broadway, six hundred and fifty -six feet on Division street, with " Cottage Wing" on the south side of the plasa.

This wing is one of the most desirable features of this admirably arranged house, as it affords families, and other parties, the same quiet and seclusion which a private cottage would afford, together with the attention and conveniences of a .first-class hotel. The rooms of this wing are arranged in suites of one to seven bedrooms, with parlor, bath-room and water closet in each suite. Private table is afforded if desired, and the seclusion and freedom of a private villa may be enjoyed here. The entire building is divided into five sections by thick, fire-proof walls, and the openings through them are protected by heavy iron doors, thus affording great protection in case of fire. There are also fire-hydrants in each section, with hose attached, on each floor. There are ten staircases which afford ample means of escape.

Two elevators are used solely for conveying guests to the various floors, and every convenience has been adopted in equipping this elegant hotel for its immense summer business. In fact, everything that is needed to make the hotel attractive and con venient is found here, and the United States Hotel stands unexcelled in its furnishing and arrangements by any of the hotels. The Hon. James M. Marvin, who is well known to all old frequenters of Saratoga, has the general control of the whole interest, while Messrs. ToMPKiJfs, Perry, Gage and Janvrin, the proprietors and managers, have the entire supervision of the house. Their experience in our metro politan hotels specially fits them for this important department, and guests can rely upon having everything provided that will conduce to their comfort and happiness.

Chapter I

Visit of Sir William Johnson, Bart., in 1707. " Is this not a strange fellow, my lord ? that so confidently seems to undertake this business, which he knows is not to be done ; damns himself to do, and dares better be damned than to do it ? "—Shakspere. BEFORE giving an account of the visit of Sir William Johnson, Bart., it seems proper to say a few words in relation to Saratoga itself. The name Saratoga, Kayaderoga, or Saraghoga — and, in view of the great confusion existing in regard to it, the fact should be duly remembered — means The Place of the Swift Water — " saragh " signifying " swift water," " aga " or " oga " in the Iroquois dialect being merely an inflection or termination meaning "the place of" or " the people of." * Hence, Ticonderp^vz, " the place where the lake (Lake George) shuts itself"; Sa candaga, " the place or the people of the roaring water " ; Niagara, " the place of the falling waters," etc.

Formerly, Schuyler's settlement on the Hudson * Letter of Sir William Johnson to Arthur Lee, of the Philosophical Society, nfion the Language of the SiX'Nations, Feb. 28, 1771. (now Schuylerville) was known by the name of "Saratoga" or "swift water," to distinguish that point in the river from the " still water" which there begins and extends down to the present village of " Stillwater." Saratoga Lake was so named from its proximity to Saratoga on the river ; and when the Springs became famous, as they were within the district, they were named " The Saratoga Springs." * Nor is Saratoga without its warlike traditions. Long before its Springs were known, the old " Stiles Tavern " in Wilton was the site of a sanguinary battle, fought in 1693 between the French forces under the celebrated partisan De Manteth and the English, led by Maj'or Peter Schuyler, the grand-uncle of General Philip Schuyler.

The latter were victo rious; and the enemy, utterly discomfited, beat a hasty retreat into Canada. Having thus disposed of these preliminaries, we now come to the visit of Sir William Johnson, the first white man who, so far as is known, visited Saratoga Springs. Sir William, under a commission of Major-General from his Majesty George H., defeated the flower of the French army, under Baron Dieskau, at the battle of Lake George, on the 8th of September, 1755. In this action he received a severe wound by a bullet in * The meaning of the name Saratoga has long been involved in obscurity. Tbe falherof Judge G. G. Scott, of Ballston, however, was informed by a Mohawk In dian that the meaning of Saratoga is the one given in the text, and there seems no £uud reason for doubting that it is the correct one SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S VISIT- 7 his thigh, from the effects of which he never wholly recovered, but was frequently subject to serious illness.

At such times the wound, from which the ball was never extracted, became excessively painful, rendering him for weeks, after an attack, unable to ride on horseback or to endure any active exercise. Suitable medical attendance it was very difficult to procure, and it frequently happened that, having exhausted the contents of his own medical chest, he was obliged to send to Albany, and sometimes to New York, for a physician. It was during one of these attacks, in the summer of 1767, that the Mo hawks determined, in solemn council, to reveal to their beloved brother, War-ra-ghi-ya-ghy, the peculiar medicinal properties of the " High ROCK SPRING." Nor, perhaps, could there have been any stronger proof of the affection in which he was held by these sons of the forest, than their resolution to give their brother the benefits of that which they had always sacredly guarded as the precious gift to themselves alone from the Great Spirit.

Accompanied by his Indian guides, the Baronet set out on his journey the 22d of August, and passing down the Mohawk from Johnstown in a boat, soon reached Schenectady. At this place, being too feeble either to walk or ride, he was placed on a litter and borne on the stalwart shoulders of his Indian attendants through the woods to Ballston Lake, which he reached the same evening. Tarrying over night at the log cabin of Michael REMINISCENCES OP SARATOGA. 8 McDonald, an Irishman, who had recently begun a clearing in the vicinity, the party, three hours before sunrise the next day, plunged again into the forest ; and, following the trail of Indian hunters along that which is now the road from Ballston to Saratoga, came to the chief tributary of Lake Saratoga, the Kayaderosseras. In the gray dawn of that summer morning, along the green aisles of the primeval forest, the party silently pursued their way.

The moccasined feet pressed down the wild-flowers in their path. Wheel ing above with untiring wing, as if moving with and watching over the party, were several noble bald eagles, whose eyries hung on the beetling crags, affording to the invalid a presage of health and happiness. Aloft, the pine-tree towered above a sea of verdure, and below, the maple, whose virgin cheeks were not yet brazen with the paint of early frosts, modestly shrank from the passing gaze. " Old fir trees, hoary and grim, shaggy with pendant mosses leaned above the stream, and beneath, dead and submerged, a fallen sycamore thrust from the current the bare, bleached limbs of its colossal skeleton." The sun was an hour above the eastern hills when the startled deer saw the evergreens sway and the Baronet's party emerge from the thicket.

Their polished bracelets and rich trappings, glittering in the dewy foliage like so many diamonds, were in keeping with the cheerfulness visible upon each countenance SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S VISIT. 9 — for were they not bearing their dearly beloved brother to the medicine spring of the Great Spirit? As the party emerge from the glade upon the green sward, they separate into two divisions, and, with gentle tread, approach the spring, bearing their precious burden in the centre. Pausing a few rods from the spring, the Baronet leaves the litter; and, for a moment, his manly form, wrapped in his scarlet blanket bordered with gold lace, stands towering and erect above the waving plumes of his Mohawk braves. Then, approaching the spring, he kneels, with uncovered head, and reverently places upon the rock a roll of fragrant tobacco — his propitiatory offer ing to the Manitou of the Spring.

Still kneeling, he fills and lights the great calumet, which, through a long line of kings, had descended to the renowned Pontiac, and, taking a whiff from its hieroglyphic stem, passes it to each chieftain in turn. Then, amid the profound silence of his warriors, he for the first time touches his lips to the water; and, gathering the folds of his mantle about him, amid a wild and strange chant raised by the Indians to their Deity, he enters thcrude bark lodge which, with prudent fore thought, his braves had erected for his comfort, directly where the bottling-house now stands; and in this primitive hotel reclined the first white man that had ever visited this Spring. Yet while the sufferer lay on his evergreen couch, did the fortunes of the General whom he had defeated twelve years previously occur to him ?

Perhaps so ; 'for by a singular coinci dence, while the conqueror of Dieskau was prostrated amid these forests, where the wounds of both had been received, the French General was languishing on his death-bed at a small town in the interior of France* — " The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Sir William Johnson had been but four days at the " High Rock " when he received letters obliging him to hasten immediately home. Short as his visit was, however, the water restored his strength so far as to enable him to travel some of the way to Schenec tady on foot ; and again taking his water-carriage, he arrived on the 4th of September at Johnstown, to welcome his son, Sir John, who had just arrived from England. The popularity of Saratoga Springs as a watering-place may be said to date from this visit.

" My dear Schuyler," writes the Baronet upon his return, to his intimate friend, General Philip Schuy ler, " I have just returned from a visit to a most amazing Spring, which almost effected my cure; and I have sent for Dr. Stringer, of New York, to come up and analyze it." Hence it was that the fact of so distinguished a personage as Sir William having been partially restored by the water soon became noised through the country, inducing others to make the * Baron Dieskau died from the effects of his wounds, received at Lake George, on the fth day of September, 1767, at Turenne in France. SCHUYLER VISITS THE " HIGH ROCK." 11 trial. In 1770, a Dr. Constable, who resided at Sche nectady, examined the water at Saratoga, and pro nounced it highly medicinal. In October, 1777, the late Major-General Mooers, of Plattsburg, who was stationed after Burgoyne's surrender at Palmer town (Wilton), visited the Spring; and in 1783, seven years afterwards, Dr. Samuel Tenney, a regi mental surgeon, in camp at* Fish Creek, also paid a visit to the Spring, and made some interesting and judicious remarks on its properties and uses as a medicine.

In the summer of the same year, Major- General Philip Schuyler cut a road* through the forest from Schuylerville to the High Rock, and erected a tent, under which himself and his family spent several weeks, using the water. New springs were subsequently discovered ; and thenceforth the "Springs" became a resort of those who were in pursuit of health and pleasure. For many years after its discovery, the High Rock continued to be the resort of people from all sections of the country; and when other springs were found in the neighboring village of Ball's Town, in 1770, the chief drive of the visitors there was through the woods to the " High Rock Spring. "f The accommodations, how- * This road went from the Upper Village through the Ten Springs ; thence easterly on the sandy ridge north of the " Bear Swamp " to Scidmore's Tavern ; _nd from Scidmore's (now Birch's) to the " Slocum Place " (Lockro s), and thence along Fish Creek direct to Grangerville and Schuylerville on the Hudson River. + For an exhaustive account of the " High Rock," its geology, etc., the reader is referred to A Coitcise History of the High Rock Spring, by Henry McGuire, ever, for a long time continued to be of the most primitive character.

" These waters," writes Elkanah Watson, in visiting the " High Rock" in 1790, "are situated in a marsh, partially enveloped by slight eminences, along the margin of which the road winds. There is no convenience for bathing, except an open log-hut, with a large trough, similar to those in use for feeding swine, which receives the water from the Spring. Into this you roll from off a bench." Albany, C. Van Benthuysen & Sons, 1868. This work also contains the addresses of Chancellor Walworth and the author at the Centennial Celebration of the High Rock Spring in 1866.

Chapter II

Visit of General Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Goi'ernor George Clinton to the High Rock in 1783. *l Can Freedom find no champion and no child Such as Columbia saw arise, when she Sprang forth a Pallas, arm'd and undesil'd ? Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, Deep in the unprun'd forest, 'midst the roar Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smil'd On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? " Byron. year 1783 was a memorable one in the his- ■*- tory of Saratoga Springs. In that year, General Philip Schuyler, as mentioned in the preceding chap ter, cut a road through the woods to the " High Rock " ; and in the same summer, no less a personage than General Washington, accompanied by his aides, Alexander Hamilton and Governor George Clinton, honored it with his presence.

The circumstances which led to this visit are casually hinted at in the following passage from Irving's Washington. Mr. Irving says : "Washington now (1783) found his position at Headquarters (Newburg) irksome ; there was little to do, and he was likely to be incessantly teased with applications and demands, which he had neither the '3 means nor power to satisfy. He resolved, therefore, to while away part of the time that must intervene before the arrival of the definitive treaty by making a tour to the northern and western parts of the State, and visiting the places which had been the theatre of important military transactions. He had another object in view: he desired to facilitate, as far as in his power, the operations which would be necessary for occupying, as soon as evacuated by British troops, the posts ceded by the Treaty of Peace.

" Governor Clinton accompanied him on the expedition. They set out by water from Newburg, ascended the Hudson to Albany, visited Saratoga [Schuylerville] and the scene of Burgoyne's surren der; embarked on Lake George, where light boats had been provided for them ; traversed that beautiful lake, so full of historic interest ; proceeded to Ticon deroga and Crown Point ; and, after reconnoitring those eventful posts, returned to Schenectady." * On their return route, the party, which included, besides Clinton, Alexander Hamilton and Colonels Humphreys and Fish, visited the High Rock Spring — their attention having been directed to it by Gen eral Schuyler while guests at the latter's house at Schuylerville. \ Thence they left on horseback for * Griswold, in his Republican Court, page 135, states that " Washington and Clinton at one time thought of purchasing the Mineral Springs at Saratoga."

This may have also been another reason for the visit-though Griswold gives no au-horityfor his statement. t While at the High Rock, the party tarried with the son of Samuel Norton. WASHINGTON AND TOM CONNER. 15 Schenectady, with the intention of visiting on their route the newly-discovered Spring at Ballston Spa — ■ afterwards known as the "Iron Railing Spring " — and of dining with General Gordon, who, at that time, lived upon the " Middle Line Road." On their route through the woods between the two Springs, they struck the path leading west by Mer rick's Mills (now Factory Village) to the " Middle Line Road," and continued west toward that road, thus losing their way. Near Merrick's lived one " Tom " Conner, who was chopping wood at his cabin door. They enquired of him the way to the Spring, and " Tom " gave the requisite directions.

The party accordingly retraced their steps a short distance upon the road by which they had come, but, soon becoming bewildered, rode back for more ex plicit directions. " Tom " had, by this time, lost his temper, and peevishly cried out to the spokesman of the party — who happened to be Washington — " I tell you, turn back and take the first right-hand path into the woods, and then stick to it — any darned fool would know the way ! " When " Tom " afterwards learned that he had addressed Washington himself in this unceremonious and uncivil manner, he was extremely chagrined and mortified. His neighbors, for a long time afterwards, tormented poor " Tom " on his " reception of General Washington " ! * * The spot where Conner was chopping wood at the time of this encounter was two miles from Ballston, a little west of north, or about a half a mile north of Blood- The party, following " Tom's " instructions, found the Spring, then flowing through a barrel, and in the midst of a dense forest.

From the Spring, Washing ton and his companions proceeded to General Gor don's, where they dined. Toward nightfall, they parted from that General with many expressions of regret, and left for Schenectady, General Gordon, attired in full regimentals, escorting them and riding upon General Washington's right. As the party moved off, James Scott, the father of the Hon. G. G. Scott of Ballston, then in his tenth year, boy-like, secreted himself behind a rail-fence by the roadside, and peeped through the rails. He ever afterwards retained a vivid recollection of Washington's physiognomy and appearance on horseback. The next year, 1784, another distinguished visitor came to the High Rock, brought there, undoubtedly, by the advice of Washington. This was Colonel Otho H. Williams, who, in a letter to the latter, thus gives an account of his visit, as well as a description of the " High Rock Spring" itself: LETTER FROM COLONEL OTHO H. WILLIAMS TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.* Baltimore, July 12, 1784.

Dear Sir : After I had the pleasure of seeing you in Philadel phia, I made an excursion to New York, and from there up the ville, on the east and west road through Factory Village, and a little east of the bridge crossing the Kayaderosseras Creek. At that time, as now, the most direct route from Lake George to Schenectady (via Glenn's Falls,! was by Saratoga Springs, Ballston, and General Gordon's house * Washington's Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 73. VISIT OF COL. O. H. WILLIAMS. 17 North River as far as Saratoga. One motive for extending my tour so far that course, was to visit the Springs in the vicinity of Saratoga, which I recollected you once recommended to me as a remedy for the rheumatism. They are now frequented by the uncivilized people of the back country ; but very few others resort to them, as there is but one small hut within several miles of the place.

Corporal Armstrong and myself spent one week there which was equal i to a little campaign ; for the accommodations were very wretched, and provisions exceedingly scarce. The country about the Springs being uncultivated, we were forced to send to the borders of the Hudson for what was necessary for our subsistence. During our stay we made a few little experiments on the waters. Bark of a restringent (sic) quality turned them to a purple color very suddenly, and we thought that iron was discernible even to the taste. They have certainly a very great quantity of salts. A quart of the water boiled down produced a spoonful, which, being diluted in common water, there remained on the surface a quantity of in sipid, tasteless matter, like chalk, which we collected ; then, pouring off the water into a clear vessel, we found remaining at the bottom something like slacked lime.

The water in which the first produc tion was diluted, being boiled down, produced half a spoonful of very acute salt. But that which distinguishes these waters in a very conspicuous degree from all others, is the great quantity of fixed air which they contain. They are exceedingly pungent to the taste, and after being drunk a short time will often affect the nose like brisk bottled ale. The water will raise flour sooner than any other thing, and cannot be confined so that the air will not, some how or other, escape. Several persons told us that they had corked it tight in bottles, and that the bottles broke. We tried it with the only bottle we had, which did not break, but the air found its way through a wooden stopper and the wax with which it was sealed. A trout died in the water in less than a minute, or seemed dead, but moved in common water.

This experiment was repeated with the same effect. We observed in digging that the rocks which are about the Springs, and which, in one or two places, project them selves above the earth in a conic form, go not deep into the ground, but are formed by the waters, which (the man who lives at :he place informed us) overflow once per month, when not disturbed, and the earthy parts, being exposed to the air and sun, petrify and increase. This opinion is strengthened by the shells and bodies of insects which we found in broken parts ofthe rock. At Clermont, Mrs. Livingston charged me with a letter for Mrs. Washington, and with her most respectful compliments to you, Sir. All that amiable family joined in affectionate compliments to you and to Mrs. Washington ; and I beg you will permit me to add my own I am, etc., Otho H. Williams.

Chapter III

A Visit lo Saratoga Springs and the Battle-Ground in 1789. •' There is a charm in footing slow Across a silent plain, Where patriot battle has been fought, Where glory had the gain." Keats. THE following interesting narrative of a visit to the High Rock Spring in 1789, a little more than twenty years after Sir William Johnson's visit, was taken down from the lips of the visitor, Mrs. Dwight, by her son, the late Hon. Theodore Dwight. The account of her visit to the Saratoga Battle- Ground confirms the statements of Mrs. General Riedesel, whose interesting letters have been recently translated and given to the public. Nor can this relation, beincr among the earliest ones that have thus far come under our observation of a visit to Saratoga, fail to be of peculiar interest. Before, however, pro ceeding with the immediate narrative, it will be well, perhaps, to give a sketch of Mr. Dwight, who, as on? of the oldest and most respectable habitues of Sara toga, may justly claim a passing notice.

Theodore Dwight, who came to his death, a few years since, through injuries received from the New Jersey Railroad Company, was a nephew of President Dwight of Yale College, and a son of the distin guished Hartford editor who was the immediate pre decessor of the late Colonel William L. Stone in the editorship of the old Hartford Mirror. Mr. Dwight, at the time of his death, was the Secretary of the American Ethnological Society — a society of which he and the late Albert Gallatin were among the founders. He was also the author of a number of entertaining works of travel, among which are his Tours in Italy, the Northern Traveller, and Summer Tours. He was likewise for a long time editor of Dwight' s A merican Magazine. In figure, as many of the older residents of Sara toga will remember, Mr. Dwight was of medium height, and thin, his head somewhat drooping; his brow lofty rather than broad, his cheeks pale, his lips inclining, even in repose, to a smile.

Heart-seated benevolence and constitutional serenity of mind were the qualities most conspicuous in his face. His eye was bright ; and while his physical frame indicated somewhat his age, yet his mental energies and feel ings had all the freshness of youth. "Although seventy years of age," he remarked to us a few days before his decease, " yet I feel as if I were not thirty." He had also, at all times, an air of perfect simplicity, and his presence was constantly invested with a charm which the most dignified old age, with all the sanctity THEODORE DWIGHT. 21 and veneration that rightfully belongs to it, often fails to awaken. In the death of Mr. Dwight the present generation lost another of those links that bind them to the days of the Fathers. In Mr. Dwight's presence, this was felt to be peculiarly the case ; and no one could spend an hour with him in pleasant, social converse respecting the early days of the Republic without feeling the charm of those days come back on him with irresistible force.

For many years it had been his custom to travel over all the prominent spots in this country that have been "dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue," taking down in his memorandum book the early historical incidents of the Revolution from the lips of the actors themselves, and with his pencil sketching all points and places of interest. He it was that in 1820 brought Saratoga Springs into extensive notice by the first real guide-book of the United States that had ever been published. In this way he had accumulated nearly a hundred of these MS. journals, filled with the most interesting reminiscences of our early history, which, but for this custom, would have been irretrievably lost. Having thus endeavored to pay a proper tribute to the memory of one of the earliest visitors to Sara toga, I proceed with Mrs. Dwight's narrative.

Two things will be observed, however, in her story — first, that the HIGH ROCK was at that time called the ROUND ROCK ; and, secondly, that those who assert that the water never flowed out of the top of the rock subsequent to the Revolution are in error. Narrative of Mrs. Dwight. " Our party originally consisted of five, three gentlemen and two ladies, who travelled with two gigs (then called chairs) and a saddle-horse. From Hartford, where I resided, and where the party was made up, our party proceeded westward, and some idea of the fashions may be formed from the dress of one of the ladies, who wore a black beaver with a sugar-loaf crown eight or nine inches high, called a steeple crown, wound round with black and red tassels, being less showy than the gold cord sometimes worn. Habits having gone out of fashion, the dress was of London smoke broadcloth, buttoned down in front, and at the side with twenty-four gilt buttons, about the size of a half-dollar.

Large waists and stays were in fashion, and the shoes were extremely sharptoed and high-heeled, ornamented with large paste buckles on the instep. At a tavern where we spent the first night, we ladies were obliged to surround ourselves with a barrier of bean-leaves to keep off the bugs which infested the place; but this afforded only temporary benefit, as the vermin soon crept to the ceiling and fell upon us from above. The green woods, through which the road lay for many miles, were very rough, and in many places could not be travelled without danger. We scarcely met anybody A GAY CAVALIER. 23 on this part of the way, except an old man with a long, white beard, who looked like a palmer on a pil grimage to the Holy Land ; and his wife — who rode a horse on a saddle with a projecting pommel, and a single chain for a bridle — was as ugly as one of Shakspere's old crones.

The few habitations to be seen were so uninviting that we generally took our meals in some pleasant spot under the trees, the recollection of which is pleasant even to this day. After three days we reached Hudson, where a gentle man who had come to attend a ball joined our party, sending a message home for clothes; and, although he did not receive them, and had only his dancing dress, persisted in proceeding with us. He mounted his horse, therefore, in a suit of white broadcloth, with powdered hair, small-clothes, and white silk stockings. While at Hudson it was determined to go directly to Saratoga, the efficacy of the water being much celebrated, as well as the curious round and hollow rock from which it flowed. Hudson was a flourishing village, although it had been settled but about seven years, by people from Nantucket and Rhode Island.