Fishers of Men in the WIlderness
Adirondack Memories – Jon Kopp
“Adirondack Murray” popularized the Adirondacks. His book, “Adventures in the Wilderness” published in 1869 led to a tourist boom in the Adirondack’s. By the end of the 19th century, grand hotels were erected and entertained a very wealthy and exclusive cliental, one of the grandest being the "Prospect House" in Blue Mountain Lake, a place, perchance, where an engaging young lady, dressed in the proper attire, could make a good catch.
“Raquette Lake.—This is the forest primeval, they tell me, men tell me, that is; a superior sex, believe me my sisters, and convenient to tell us things we want to know without the trouble of learning— that the lumberman has cut and gashed the woods away up the Raquette River, has dammed the forest lake as to leave their shores a melancholy blight of dead trees standing in the water, and has turned mile upon mile of the beautiful river course into a sort of canal between sloping mud banks, where one cannot disembark for lunch or rest; but that it was never profitable to cut and float the logs from quite this distance, and so most of the lake's shore is still State property.”
“I know it must be true, for right on the lake shore you may see many a big pine rearing its great head a hundred feet aloft upon a stem two feet and more through near the base, and I know that the Raquette River some miles below is the muddy and melancholy waste they describe.”
“We came through that waste. Every one does. This big lake, big enough for storms and shipwreck and wide driving reaches of angry water, it is the meeting, place of the three highways into the woods' heart, from the north up the Raquette, from the southeast by way of Blue Mountain Lake, from the southwest by way of the Fulton chain and the Browns tract inlet where in the muddy stream there grew more water lilies than I had supposed the world held.”
“And I know that the Raquette River wood, what a delight to travel again by boat as the Indians did! Up the Saranac, through Round lake, a glimpse of the Upper Saranac Lake, the Indian Carry, across to the Spectacle ponds, the row up the river, where I saw the most lovely freight barge, rowed by six strong men and rejoiced that such things still were.”
“Up Long Lake; through lovelier reaches of foaming shaded river beyond; through Forked Lake and across to the foot of the Raquette, we had a two days journey full, every moment of delight. There are little steamers here and on Blue Mountain lake and there are hotels and Saratogas and women happy to be for once in a place where there are more than men enough to ‘go round,’ and splendid men, too.”
“The last week of the summer, and very autumnal in the evening, chill is here among the mountains. Yet summer still reigns unquestioned in the gowns of the fair ones here. They are, as I have said, two kinds. Some fishers of men don appropriate garb of serge and leather and join the prey in their sports; some dress in frills and furbelows and take care of their complexions at the hotels. Each method is the best and worst. It depends on the person who adopts it.”
“There is an adorable brunette at one of the hotels on Blue Mountain Lake who carries devastation through the woods in a most extraordinary gown of moire with a deep frill at the bottom, attached by three rows of delicate embroidery, swept downward to a point in front. The bodice is adorned with a similar triplet of bands, forming a pointed yoke which is filled in with white satin, embroidered with forget-me-nots. The sleeves have triple puffs. The shoulders are roofed with flat epaulettes of embroidery. There are big satin bows at the top and front of the shoulder seam, and a satin belt with a big medallion buckle. The hat is a high-crowned shade with wide spreading plumes, and there is a parasol for some strong man to carry.”
“Such garb is rather ridiculous in the woods, but the complexion of the wearer is most admirable, and—-well, men have the instinct of wanting to take care of pretty, helpless creatures. On the other hand, there is an adorable girl, shorter and plumper than the other, whose leggings of buff are scratched with blackberry briars, whose waist is encircled with a wide ribbon corselet, who wears, when she thinks of it, a flat sailor hat in a rather bedraggled condition of sunburn and rain slain and a fetching little jacket of dark cloth edged with black braid, opening over a soft front of yellow silk, chosen so "it won't show dirt so soon," the wearer frankly says.”
“And between two such examples of the opposing schools the honors of contest are easy. But I notice that ever, the wood nymph puts a big, fluffy bow at her throat before coming down to dinner, when she has time.”
“There is no question that the drift of the times is away from sweet simplicity and toward flounce, frippery and frivol. The draped skirt—“
“Yes, we are to have the draped skirts. There's no dodging that conclusion. They will be worn only for rather ceremonious purposes, the plain skirt seeking reservation for purposes of active exercise. I don't look to see flounces on a bicycle skirt, surely, not yet. But, I have heard from New York of the arrival of a gown bowed across with 13 rows of narrow lace—not wide flounces, each meeting the other, but narrower ones, perhaps an inch wide and three inches apart.”
“And in Paris there is free use made of wide-flounced skirts, worn with matching capes and of embroidery in long panels, and of van dykes heavily marked with embroidery and of single bands of lace flouncing. And all these things are held in especial regard for fete gowns and lawn parties.”
“Extraordinary is the popularity of the corselet. It may take the form of a simple wide belt. It’s more apt to be defiant with embroidery and ablaze with steel or jet or paste. The underlying principle of the corselet is that it calls attention to a fine figure, and now that tight lacing is no longer the mode there are fine figures in plenty to exhibit.”
“The spotted-muslin-over-silk combination is most popular. The colors are pale pink and cream, pale blue and white, pale green and yellow. Such a gown can be made very simply, with a perfectly plain bodice, ribbon belt and collar and sleeves snug-fitting well above the elbow, and gives a charming effect of neat simplicity to which the examination of the dressmaker's bill might be fatal.”
“It has become possible to decorate the-new tight sleeves with little rows of lace, bowing them about to match the trimming of the skirt. Such refinement of the sleeve is really an innovation and not altogether a pleasant one. It must be that only a lady with very long, thin arms could possibly need such a device.”
“The battle of the shoes is interesting. Extremely wide, round toes are the new style, but—people won't wear 'em. The very ultra height of fashion is what is called the "bulldog" toe, an odd, unnecessarily wide shape. These look so odd to eyes accustomed to the Razor Point, that what is really worn, and will be for the next six months, will be a compromise between the wide and narrow toes; and that is very satisfactory.” ----- ELLEN OSBORN in a letter written to the Watertown Herald, September 12, 1896
They were lured by the romance of vacationing in the heart of the primeval forest, these fishers of men in the wilderness. :>)