Malone—Massena—Ogdensburg—Watertown; 133.3 m. State 37.
Two-lane macadam or concrete.
The Grand Trunk R.R. parallels route between Fort Covington and Massena; New York Central R.R. between Ogdensburg and Theresa.
In a wide northern arc State 37 sweeps across the flat dairy country between Malone and Watertown, running for many miles close to the St. Lawrence River. The river rapids roll white between low, shelving shores; here two nations, proud of their century-old peace, build bridges rather than forts.
The North Country was opened up late. In 1776, when Sir John Johnson and 300 Tory sympathizers fled from Johnstown, traveling on foot for 19 days to reach the St. Lawrence near the mouth of the Raquette River, they pierced through an unknown region; as late as 1813 Spafford in his Gazetteer called Franklin County ‘the least valuable county in the State.’
The vast St. Lawrence Valley ships millions of pounds of milk and milk products to the New York City market, produces aluminum products and electric power, transports Pennsylvania coal to Canada, and imports Canadian pulpwood. Inland lakes and the St. Lawrence and its tributaries provide extensive fishing.
Northwest from MALONE, 0 m. (730 alt., 8,657 pop.) (see Tour 18), State 37 follows the Salmon River through flat, sandy dairy country relieved by scattered patches of second-growth pine. Only ten years settled when the Embargo Act of 1808 was enacted, defiant pioneers refused to be denied their principal income, which came from the sale of potash in Canada. They used many subterfuges to evade the law; one was to throw up a flimsy hut on a border hilltop, fill it with barrels of potash, then remove a keystone from the foundation and let the hut and its contents topple down into Canada.
In the autumn of 1812 General Wade Hampton, guarding the border, built a blockhouse at what is now FORT COVINGTON, 15.8 m. (166 alt., 764 pop.). A year later General James Wilkinson left Sackets Harbor (see Tour 17) to join Hampton for an attack on Canada; but the British had stopped Hampton at Chateaugay, and Wilkinson was badly defeated in the Battle of Chryslers Field, across the border, on November 11, 1813. One of the Americans killed in the battle was Brigadier General Leonard Covington, for whom the village is named. Wilkinson returned to the fort here and dug in for the winter; some of his men died of cold and starvation. In 1814 the British captured the fort.
From 1818 to 1824, when the State matched bounties on wolves voted by counties, and a wolf’s head brought $60, farmers in this region enjoyed lucrative hunting, using the same head several times and passing off dog and deer heads for those of wolves. During 1820–2 more than $55,500 was paid in bounties in Franklin County, amounting to an average of $12.50 for every man, woman, and child. A State investigation finally ended the fraud.
The ST. REGIS INDIAN RESERVATION, 19.9 m., nine miles long and three miles wide, half of it in Canada, is home for 2,800 United States and Canadian Indians, who live in straggling story-and-a-half cabins and unpainted frame houses. As a result of intermarriage, mostly with French Canadians, fewer than 100 full-blooded Indians remain. Governed by three elected chiefs, they are wards of the State, paying no taxes and receiving free medical care and schooling. Many of them earn a thin living making baskets and moccasins. Strands pounded from ash are dyed and woven together with sweet grass into baskets.
The St. Regis Indians take their name from John Francis Regis (1597–1640), French nobleman, philanthropist, and priest, canonized in 1793, who died in France before he was able to carry out his plan to cast his lot with the American Indians. The whole story covers a wide territory. Louis XV, impressed with the success of the French mission at Caughnawaga near Montreal, donated a bell to it; the vessel on which the bell was shipped was captured by the British, and the bell found its way to the tower of the Pilgrim Church, Groton, Massachusetts. During Queen Anne’s War a party of Indians sacked the town and took away the bell and 100 prisoners, among whom were the Tarbell brothers, who in Caughnawaga married the daughters of tribal chiefs. Resentment over their growing power drove them from the mission, and they fled across the St. Lawrence to Akwis-as-ne (Ind., where the partridge drums), landing ‘in the name of God and John Francis Regis’; and the name of the tribe was thus established.
In ST. JAMES CHURCH (R), 24.5 m., Eleazar Williams preached from 1850 until his death. His claim that he was the Lost Dauphin of France was widely believed. He was probably the grandson of Eunice Williams, daughter of a Massachusetts clergyman, who had been taken captive in an Indian raid. The rectory, a steep-roofed frame building, in which he lived, is called the Eleazar Williams House.
HOGANSBURG, 24.8 m. (178 alt., 112 pop.), is the trading center of the St. Regis Reservation. Indian-made baskets, moccasins, snowshoes, and novelties are displayed in the TRADING POST (L), a sprawling two-story frame structure.
Right from Hogansburg on a dirt road 2 m. to ST. REGIS (170 alt., 984 pop.), an Indian village of shabby story-and-a-half wooden houses around the ST. REGIS ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, overlooking the St. Lawrence at the mouth of the St. Regis River. The historic Caughnawaga bell hangs in the belfry of this weatherbeaten frame structure.
State 37 crosses the St. Regis River and the western limit of the reservation near ROOSEVELTTOWN, 27.9 m. (208 alt., 48 pop.), formerly Nyando, but renamed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 when he opened the ROOSEVELT INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE (tolls: automobile $1, passengers 10¢ each; automobile with trailer $1.50; reduction on 24-hour trips; pedestrians 10$). The bridge has three links: the Raquette River Bridge, constructed without bolt or rivet, the longest all-electrically welded bridge in the world, crosses the Raquette River; the South Channel Bridge, across the international boundary line, connects the American shore with Cornwall Island, part of the Cornwall Indian Reservation; and the North Channel Bridge links the island with the Canadian mainland, offering a broad view of the St. Lawrence River with the Long Sault Rapids in the distance (L).
The road pushes through fertile farm country of close-cropped pastures and broad, level fields of corn and grain. President James Monroe followed this route on his horseback journey through the northern States in 1817. He was ‘entertained at private houses and saw neither secret service man nor newspaper reporter during the whole trip.’
Industrial MASSENA, 37.9 m. (207 alt., 11,313 pop.), home of the Aluminum Company of America and hub of the State’s second largest milk-producing area, lies along the Raquette and Grass Rivers. Its people, representing more than 30 nationalities, live in frame houses and modern bungalows on wide, shaded streets. The community also produces mica, silk, and milk powder. More than 50,000,000 pounds of milk and cream are shipped yearly, principally to New York City.
In 1792, Anable Fancher built a sawmill on the Grass River, naming his log cabin settlement for Marshall André Massena (1758–1817), veteran of the Napoleonic wars. In 1900, when the place had a population of less than 1,000, Henry H. Warren organized a company to dig a canal connecting the Grass River with the St. Lawrence; the water in the canal dropped 45 feet in three miles, generating 200,000 horsepower. This tremendous power source was responsible for Massena’s growth.
The MASSENA WORKS OF THE ALUMINUM COMPANY OF AMERICA (open by appointment), at the north village limits, occupies 50 acres compactly built up with warehouses, mills, and shops. It is the only plant in the United States producing aluminum cable for transmission of electric energy and contains the world’s largest mill for production of aluminum structural shapes.
Between 1822 and 1900 Massena was popular for its MINERAL SPRINGS, on the north bank of the Raquette River. St. Regis Indians first used the water ‘that comes out of the ground, smells bad, but cures sick animals and sick Indians when they lick it.’
At 52.7 m. is the junction with a country road.
Right on this road 0.5 m. to the WADDINGTON-MORRISBURG FERRY (open 6 a.m.– 12 midnight: car $1; passenger 25¢; free return trip same day).
WADDINGTON, 54.9 m. (250 alt., 679 pop.), is a terminal for Canadian pulpwood and a milk shipping center. Here the St. Lawrence flows through the ruins of an eighteenth-century lock built to permit river traffic through the Rapide Plat.
For miles State 37 sweeps through broad acres of hay, alfalfa, wheat, oats, and corn and smaller patches of potatoes and soy beans.
There is a story that before surrendering ISLE ROYAL (R), 71.8 m., to the British in 1760, the French commander secretly buried a large cache of gold. A century later a man named Pauchet, who called himself a grandson of the French commander, and Captain King, riverboat pilot, dug up 500 pounds of metal. As they were returning a storm broke over the river. Refusing to dump the gold into the river, Pauchet tied the bags to his waist, crying, ‘If the gold goes, I go too!’ The boat was swamped. King reached the shore, but the treasure still anchors Pauchet’s bleached skeleton to the river bottom.
The ST. LAWRENCE STATE HOSPITAL (open afternoons), 72.9 m., covering 1,219 acres of landscaped ground, is for the treatment of consumptives and mentally deranged. The institution houses 2,000 patients and 500 employees and offers a course in nursing.
At 73.5 m. is the junction with a gravel road.
Right on this road 0.5 m. to the 25-acre State-maintained ST. LAWRENCE FISH HATCHERY (open Apr. 15–Oct. 1), annually supplying 35,000,000 small mouth bass, perch, and muskellunge for streams and lakes in the State. The main hatchery is a small cement structure on the riverbank, backed by pump-fed raising basins.
OGDENSBURG, 75.3 m. (275 alt., 16,915 pop.), is a port of entry with five miles of irregular shoreline. A 21-foot channel, dug by the Federal Government and lined with docks, extends 300 yards up the Oswegatchie River, which here flows into the St. Lawrence; a 12-foot dam furnishes water power for mills, factories, and hydroelectric plants. Chief products are brass articles, silk and clothing, powdered milk, and casein.
About 60 per cent of the population is of French-Canadian descent, and relations with Canada are close and friendly. International friendship reaches a climax on Canadian Day, set aside annually by Ogdensburg to welcome Canadian friends, who come across in boatloads; streets are decorated with flags and bunting, stores offer special sales, and restaurants serve special dishes.
In 1749 Abbé François Picquet built Fort La Presentatio at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River to serve as a rallying place for converted Indians, a fortification against the English, and a post for the French fur trade. In spite of the hard conditions that Father Picquet laid down—no more than one wife to a man and no drunkenness—the Iroquois settled here in large numbers; from Fort La Presentation came many of the Indians who helped defeat General Braddock in 1755. The British held the fort from 1760 to 1796. First called Oswegatchie, the town was renamed for Colonel Samuel Ogden, who purchased the site in 1792 and promoted its resettlement after the British evacuation.
In 1837 Ogdensburg was a base for American aid in the Patriots’ War, an abortive effort by Canadian groups and American sympathizers to free Canada from ‘the yoke of England.’ Patriots under the command of Colonel N.G.S. Von Schoultz seized the steamer United States on the St. Lawrence and took in tow two arms-laden schooners; Von Schoultz landed below Prescott, Ontario, and mounted artillery for an attack on the village, but on the fifth day he was repulsed by a British attack from land and water.
The three-story brick REMINGTON ART MEMORIAL (open), corner of State and Washington Sts., which houses Indian relics, cowboy implements, paintings, statues, and books and sketches by Frederic Remington (see Tour 18), was originally the Parish mansion. It was built in 1809 by David Parish, English banker and large landholder in the North Country. In 1838 George Parish, David’s nephew, who lived in the mansion, won, in a poker game at Evans Mills (see Tour 18), Maria Ameriga Vespucci, mistress of John Van Buren, son of the President. For many years Ameriga, called by the scandalized neighbors ‘Parish’s fancy woman,’ lived in utter loneliness amid the splendor of this mansion with its palatial outbuildings—stables, coach houses, gardener’s lodge, and conservatory, all enclosed by an eight-foot wall.
The MAPLE CITY MILL, E. River St., a two-story gray sandstone structure, was built in 1797 by Nathan Ford, agent for Samuel Ogden. It retains the original massive interior woodwork and still serves its original purpose as a mill, though the grinding stones have given way to mechanized grinders.
At the southern city limits are the ruins of the VAN RENSSELAER MANSION (L), built in 1832 by Henry Van Rensselaer, kin of the Hudson Valley patroon family. Opposite (R) is the ESTATE OF JUDGE JOHN FINE, early North Country pioneer; behind his large stone house is a stone barn with portholes, reminders of its service during the War of 1812. Adjoining the Fine estate is the stone VANDEN HEUVEL DWELLING, built by Jacob A. Vanden Heuvel, New York businessman who, in 1820, formed the settlement of Heuvelton southeast of Ogdensburg.
South of Ogdensburg colonies of summer cottages cluster in the pines along the mile-wide St. Lawrence. It was among these charming river scenes that Thomas Moore, Irish poet, wrote ‘The Canadian Boat Song’ while on a visit to America.
From MORRISTOWN, 86.1 m. (290 alt., 505 pop.), bass fishing center on a peninsula jutting into the St. Lawrence, the easternmost of the Thousand Islands are visible (see Tour 25).
State 37 swings through the Indian River lake region, extensively fished for pike and bass, to REDWOOD, 109 m. (365 alt., 524 pop.), trading post for vacationists and fishermen.
At 114.5 m. is a junction with State 26.
Left on State 26 to THERESA, 1.4 m. (376 alt., 873 pop.), birthplace of Roswell P. Flower (1835–99), governor of New York, 1892–5. Flower started as a poor workingman, employed in turn as farm boy, millhand, and teacher; and in his first campaign for Congress, against William Waldorf Astor, he used the slogan: ‘My opponent counts his rents by the millions, while I have only the rents in my clothes.’ But Flower grew wealthy rapidly: in the gubernatorial campaign of 1891 Tammany Hall introduced him as ‘the flower that will never fade’; but anti-Tammany Democrats countered: ‘By nominating a flamboyant millionaire, you propose to make the honor and power of the Republic a mere perquisite to the rich.’
At 115.4 m. is the junction with State 181.
Right on State 181 to LAFARGEVTLLE, 7.5 m. (380 alt., 400 pop.), settled in 1816 by Reuben Andrus and named for John LaFarge, large landholder and father of John LaFarge, American artist, and grandfather of Oliver LaFarge, author of Laughing Boy.
WATERTOWN, 133.3 m. (478 alt., 33,323 pop.) (see Tour 18), is at the junction with State 3 (see Tour 17), US 11 (see Tour 18), and State 12 and 12E (see Tour 25).