Durant Family Saga
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Verplanck Colvin Adirondack Surveyor

9/3/2017

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PicturePlate from Verplank Colvin's Seventh Report to the New York State Legislature as Superintendent of the Adirondack Survey (1881).
What immediately drew me to Verplanck Colvin as a character in my novel is his appreciation for the Adirondack Wilderness and tenacious spirit to protect it. Best known for discovering Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds on Mount Marcy as the source of the Hudson River, Verplanck was a tireless explorer - using much of his own resources to survey the peaks in the Adirondack Wilderness. From these heights, Colvin had the advantage of seeing what vast forests and river valleys lay open to exploitation, and he was one of the first to sound the alarm that if overdone, not only would the Adirondack's suffer, so would the Hudson River Watershed and all of the small cities and towns that relied on it for industry.

Here is how he describes his journey up Mount Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondacks and the source of the Hudson: "Down we plunged, down through the dense thickets of dwarfed balsam... Our rubber coats were speedily torn in ribbons, our clothing ripped and torn, and the icy drizzle of the clouds penetrated everything...Suddenly before us through the trees gleamed a sheet of water....It was a lake, and flowed...to the Hudson, the loftiest lake spring of our haughty river! First seen as we then saw it, dark and dripping with the moisture of the heavens, it seemed, in its minuteness and its prettiness, a veritable Tear-of-the-Clouds, the summit water as I named it."

Within a few years of his discovery, Verplanck was, like many other devotees of the Adirondacks, lamenting the opening up of the wilderness to the masses. And heaven-for-bid women outdoor enthusiasts. "The first romance is gone... The woods are thronged; hotels spring up as though by magic. The wild trails once jammed with logs are cut clear by the axe of guides, and ladies clamber to the summits of the once untrodden peaks."


While reading Colvin's written accounts of his surveys, and learning more about him, I see some similarities between William West Durant and this entrepreneurial explorer.

How do I dare compare
the men? Well, consider both were exploring territory unfamiliar to them at the exact same time: William was plying the Nile River in Egypt while Verplanck was scaling Mount Marcy in 1869.

And they both passionately pursued their visions even when it did not end in financial gain. Verplanck at times, went unpaid by New York State. Yet he continued anyway, in extreme weather conditions, without adequate food or provisions, to reach the highest peaks.

And both men relied on the local native Adirondackers to make their dreams a reality. 
In fact, Colvin was dependent on the very guides he accuses of opening up the trails to the commoners, quite often employing Alvah Dunning, another famous Adirondack character that appears in my book, to blaze the trails for his expeditions up the mountainsides.

Likewise, William's camps would never have been achievable without the local craftsmen that knew the forests well enough to help him find timber and stone for building material.

According to their biographies, both men were also known to be task masters, expecting nothing but complete adherence to direction. However, in both cases these men take most of the credit for the work.

And both dared to continue their adventures in the Adirondacks in the most unforgiving seasons, a time when most other men might be tempted to hold off and continue until better conditions. Colvin surveyed the high peaks  during snow storms in November, Durant scoped out the landscape for Camp Uncas and Sagamore during the winter months.

Sadly, both men died without achieving all of their intended plans. Although Covin can take credit for convincing the State legislature to pass an act creating the Adirondack Wilderness Preserve in 1885, he was ousted from his position as Superintendent in 1900 by then Governor Theodore Roosevelt. Because the state delayed or in some cases, refused to pay him, many of his maps stayed in his personal collection.

Durant's last big venture was also a failure. He couldn't find the backing he needed to continue construction on Eagle Nest Country Club, a resort that he hoped would deliver him from bankruptcy.

Here their stories dissever. Verplanck died at the age of 73 in a hospital for the mentally ill. William lived to age 83 and was fully in charge of his faculties.

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Walking the Path to Camp Kirby

7/6/2017

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The sun filters through the hemlocks and dapples the ferns on the forest floor as you walk the shoreline to the rustic cabin in the woods called Camp Kirby.Walking the mile path along the shoreline of Raquette Lake is the only way to get back and forth between the Camp Huntington and this small cabin unless you take a boat ride. We rented the cabin a few summers ago and it started me on my journey- writing the fictional account of the man who built the camps in the midst of the wilderness, William West Durant.

While walking the trail one day I imagined what it must have been like for William to take the same route in 1890-93, especially, if, as the local legend goes, he was venturing to meet up with his mistress Minnie Kirby for a rendezvous in the woods. This piece of folklore is what started me on my research journey to learn more about William West Durant and his family. I thought it would make a great story: wealthy genius keeps a mistress in a hunting cabin sequestered away in the woods. It was the basis for my novel on the Durants.

Then I started to learn more about Minnie Everette Kirby (1876-1944) and her cousin Cornelia Trimble Kirby (1854-?) and as sometimes happens, myths get busted. Slightly.

First, a bit about the cabin itself. It is nestled in the woods on Raquette Lake in the Adirondack mountains. The sign above the front door states it was built in 1890. Every room in the cabin has an exit door to the outside. This intriguing feature has led to speculation that it made for an easy escape for anyone having a clandestine affair.

There is no record of Camp Kirby in the inventory that Durant kept when he sold his camp to Collis P. Huntington in 1896. But a map I found in Huntington's papers at Syracuse University  shows the cabin bordering the property with the owner's initials: C.T. Kirby - Minnie's cousin Cornelia,  who appears on the Durant guest registry numerous times.  So where did this story about Minnie get started and why is this cabin called Camp Kirby?

 At some point after the State acquired the cabin the staff (or somebody) found a small candy dish at Camp Kirby. It was a silver dish from a company that got its start in 1894 and inside was Minnie’s calling card with a ‘With best love and wishes for a Merry Christmas, Miss Minnie Everette Kirby'. It’s not clear who the calling card is addressed to. Like all good folktales, this is how the one about Minnie got started: lack of facts can lead to good story telling when you have to fill in the blanks.

I found Minnie's obituary and discovered Minnie graduated from the State Teachers College of Potsdam in 1895 which would have made her 17 years old when (or if) she was having an affair with William. Cornelia, Minnie’s cousin, is another interesting character in the lives of the Durants. She was a friend of William's wife, Janet and in the summer of 1894 she was staying at the cabin on Raquette Lake. There is a reference to her made by the wife of a traveling minister (Rev. John V.L. Pruyn) who was invited by William West Durant to speak at the Church of the Good Shepherd on St. Hubert’s Isle. During their visit, Mrs. Pruyn states Mr. Durant was living on his houseboat while his wife Janet stayed on land. She said they took a ride on the Durant houseboat to ‘Camp Kirby’ where a Miss Kirby was staying for the summer months, and had a campfire by the water. In the winter, she says, Miss Kirby lived in Saratoga.

This had to have been Cornelia. Indeed, Cornelia may have met Janet in Saratoga, where the Durant family house was located. Cornelia plays a role in Janet’s life later when, after Janet divorces William, she lends Janet money. How she became friends with Janet I am not sure.

As I recall my walk between the two cabins in the woods I remember the sound of the tree limbs in the forest canopy above, rubbing against each other, creating an eerie creaking sound like the opening of an attic door that hasn’t had its hinges oiled in decades. It shatters the calmness. And in the background, is the undercurrent of water lapping against the shore. Would William have heard all of this as well?
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    Sheila Myers  Professor at Cayuga Community College in Upstate New York.

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