Alexandria Bay—Clayton—Watertown—Boonville—Utica—Norwich—Binghamton; State 12. 209.9 m.
Two-lane macadam or concrete.
New York Central R.R. parallels route between Boonville and Remsen; Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R.R. between Waterville and Binghamton.
The sweeping arc of State 12 crosses the State between the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River and the Susquehanna River at Binghamton. Through both the Black River Valley of the North Country and the Chenango Valley of the Southern Tier it is an important milk truck route for two great dairy farming areas.
Section a. ALEXANDRIA BAY to UTICA; 119.9 m. State 12
South of the Thousand Islands summer resort area the route follows the Black River Valley between the Tug Hill Plateau on the west and the Adirondacks on the east. Village names and historical sites go back to the men who divided and settled the southern tracts of the huge Macomb Purchase. The Black River Canal, which carried grain and building materials south and clothing and machinery north, is traceable along a narrow ditch with fine masonry retaining walls and moldering wooden lock gates. Today the region is primarily interested in milk and butter and cheese.
ALEXANDRIA BAY, 0 m. (282 alt., 1,952 pop.), a village of white painted houses on clipped lawns, is a tourist and summer resort center for the THOUSAND ISLANDS REGION. Main Street, facing the St. Lawrence River and overlooking the northernmost of the Thousand Islands, is lined with large and small hotels. During the long winter months the river freezes over and the village slows down to the tempo of local farm trade.
A number of Thousand Islands motorboat tours leave Alexandria Bay daily: the trip to Boldt Castle ($1 a person); trips through the lower and upper sections of the islands (each $1.50 a person); and twilight tours (8 p.m.; $1 a person) past a group of islands not included in the daytime trips.
The Iroquois called the Thousand Islands region Manitonna (the garden of the great spirit), because it corresponded to the happy hunting grounds of their dreams. An early French explorer looked out upon the island-strewn upper reach of the St. Lawrence River and exclaimed, ‘Les milles îles!’ And the Thousand Islands they have remained, though there are more than 1,500 of them. Some of them are no more than projecting rocks with room but for a single dwarfish tree; others are rounded tufts of forest rising gently from the water; still others are miles long, supporting entire villages. Historical events and freak natural formations suggested such names as the Lost Channel, the Needle’s Eye, Fiddler’s Elbow, and Devil’s Oven.
BOLDT CASTLE (open), on Heart Island, visible from the Alexandria Bay shore line, is a turreted, castellated structure erected for his wife by George C. Boldt (1851–1916), who rose from a hotel dishwasher to become president of the company owning the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.
MARY ISLAND STATE PARK (camping $2 a week, rowboats $1 a day, bathing, picnicking, fishing) is two miles by boat from Alexandria Bay.
CEDAR ISLAND STATE PARK (camping $2 a week, rowboats $1 a day, bathing, picnicking, fishing) is 10 miles by boat from Alexandria Bay.
South of Alexandria Bay, State 12 parallels the St. Lawrence River but without the elevation necessary for river views.
At 4.3 m. is the United States entrance (R) to the THOUSAND ISLANDS INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE (tolls: autos with 1 to 8 passengers, $1.25; trucks and autos with trailers, $2; cyclists and pedestrians, 25¢), dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 19, 1938.
The bridge, jumping across the St. Lawrence from island to island, consists of several parts: on the American side a suspension bridge connecting the mainland with Wells Island and a road across the island; on the Canadian side a long suspension bridge, a viaduct, and two short bridges connecting the mainland with Hill Island and a road across Hill Island; spanning the International Rift between Wells and Hill Islands is a 90-foot concrete structure, the world’s shortest international bridge. From mainland to mainland the distance is about six miles.
On Wells Island, side roads from the bridge lead to THOUSAND ISLAND PARK and WESTMINSTER, both resort villages, and to WATTERSON POINT and DEWOLF POINT STATE PARKS (camping $2 a week, rowboats $1 a day, bathing, picnicking, fishing), also reached by boat from Alexandria Bay, Fishers Landing, and Clayton.
Off State 12 is (R) GRASS POINT STATE PARK (camping $2 a week, rowboats $1 a day, bathing, picnicking, fishing), 6.2 m.
Port of entry, railroad terminal, vacation and fishing center, CLAYTON, 11.8 m. (290 alt., 1,940 pop.), occupying a peninsula jutting into the river, is a square of right-angled streets surrounding the business district on Central Square. The village has several small industries, the largest making snowplows. In the summer, vacationists crowd the place; Saturday night band concerts and block dances bring in countryside residents. Pleasure yachts, fishing boats, and freighters tie up at the docks that line the water front.
The CLAYTON FERRY (automobile, $2.50, passenger 50¢) crosses to Gananoque, Ontario, except in severe winter weather.
From Clayton boats can be hired for GRINDSTONE ISLAND, one of the largest of the Thousand Islands, on which are CANOE POINT and PICNIC POINT STATE PARKS (camping $2 a week, rowboats $1 a day, bathing, picnicking, fishing).
At Clayton is the junction with State 12E, a longer alternate route to Watertown.
Right (straight ahead) on State 12E to (R) WILKINSON’S POINT, 0.6 m. Here General Jacob Brown repulsed a British attack in November 1813. In BARTLETTS’S POINT STATE CAMPSITE, 3 m., an American battery was set up during the war.
CEDAR POINT STATE PARK (camping, bathing, fishing, dancing), 8.8 m., covers 13 acres.
From RIVERVIEW, 9.2 m., then known as Millen’s Bay, in June 1812 a party of Americans led by Abner Hubbard crossed the channel and captured Fort Haldimand on CARLETON ISLAND, in the river opposite. The island has never since been fortified.
A few yards left from the stone bridge over Millen’s Bay is SLAVE’S CAVE, the last stop on the Underground Railroad; from here the fugitives were spirited across the St. Lawrence to Canada and freedom. It is said that the cave was a hiding place for American spies during the Revolution and that in the Patriots’ War of 1838 William Johnson used it as a refuge between sorties.
BURNHAM POINT STATE PARK (camping, fishing, hunting), 11.2 m., comprises eight acres.
CAPE VINCENT, 15.2 m. (370 alt., 898 pop.), draws large numbers of tourists as a terminal point for Thousand Islands water tours; and near-by waters are noted for bass, muskellunge, and lake trout.
James LeRay de Chaumont (see Tour 18) induced a number of illustrious Frenchmen to settle here, including Count Pierre François Real, Napoleon’s chief of police; General Roland, the Count’s son-in-law; Camille Armand, painter; Professor Pigeon, private secretary to Count Real, who wore no hat, having sworn not to wear one so long as Napoleon was imprisoned; Louis Peugnet, a member of Napoleon’s bodyguard; and Marshal Grouchy, whose failure to arrive in time at Waterloo is said to have caused Napoleon’s defeat. A popular village legend is that these Frenchmen planned to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and bring him here, and for that purpose built the Cup and Saucer House. Old pictures of the mansion, which burned in 1867, reveal a two-story octagonal structure with a rounded roof crowned with a cupola, looking like an inverted cup in a saucer. The cupola contained all the trophies of Napoleon snatched up by his followers when they fled from Paris, and on the round walls Armand painted scenes of Napoleon’s battles.
At 21.4 m. is the junction with Long Point Road; right on this road 7.3 m. to the junction with an unmarked gravel road; left here 1.5 m. to LONG POINT STATE PARK, a 12-acre tract on Point Peninsula facing Chaumont Bay, frequented by fishermen and duck hunters.
CHAUMONT, 26.6 m. (295 alt., 553 pop.), is another fishing center and summer resort, named for James LeRay de Chaumont. From 1816 to 1855 thousands of barrels of ciscoes (whitefish) were shipped annually to every part of the country. For a time ciscoes became the legal tender and were commonly spoken of as ‘Chaumont currency.’ Ice-boating is here a popular winter sport.
BROWNVILLE, 35 m. (340 alt., 842 pop.), a paper manufacturing community on the Black River, was settled in 1800 by Jacob Brown. The BROWN MANSION, Main St. (open), a two-story house of native limestone built in 1811, was Brown’s home until he moved to Washington as commander of the U.S. Army. Jacob Brown (1775–1828), a Quaker, commanded the frontier militia from Oswego to St. Regis during the War of 1812 and in 1813 defended Sackets Harbor.
State 12E continues to WATERTOWN, 40.8 m. (478 alt., 33,323 pop.) (see Tour 18).
DEPAUVILLE, 19.3 m. (297 alt., 300 pop.), was named for Francis Depau, early settler, who in 1834–5 built the stone DEPAUVILLE UNION CHURCH (R). The church is now owned by a union of Universalists, Baptists, Free Will Baptists, and Congregationalists.
WATERTOWN, 33.3 m. (478 alt., 33,323 pop.) (see Tour 18), is at the junction with State 3 (see Tour 17), US 11 (see Tour 18), State 37 (see Tour 19), and State 12E (see above).
South of Watertown the route climbs up and across a broad plateau, one of the greatest dairy farming areas in the State.
LOWVILLE, 63.4 m. (865 alt., 3,556 pop.), is a characteristic North Country village with tree-shaded streets, frame dwellings, and a neat brick business section. In one of the largest cold storage plants in the world, cheese and other farm products are gathered from the surrounding farms for shipment.
The HOUGH RESIDENCE, Collins St., a spacious brick house, was the home of Dr. Franklin B. Hough (1822–85), the ‘father of American forestry.’ Born in Martinsburg (see below), Dr. Hough was a Civil War Army surgeon, a mineralogist, a botanist, and a local historian. Pioneer in the conservation movement in New York State, he drew up the report of the State Park Commission in 1872 recommending a State forest preserve. In 1876 he was appointed Forestry Agent in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and he was instrumental in the establishment of the Division of Forestry in 1881. He published 78 volumes, including several histories of northern New York counties.
In Lowville is the junction with State 26 (State 12D).
Right on State 12D-State 26 to MARTINSBURG, 4 m. (1,240 alt., 302 pop.), a quiet settlement of retired farmers. The GENERAL MARTIN TAVERN (R) was built in 1805 by Walter Martin, the first settler, who later served in the War of 1812. Admiring the architecture of Johnson Hall (see Tour 13), Martin set out to reproduce it in his residence. The central two-story stone building is flanked by one-and-a-half-story wings, which were added later.
HOUGH’S CAVE (R), 5.8 m., which serpentines under the road and emerges some 500 feet away, was used by Horatio Hough, father of Dr. Franklin B. Hough, as a station on the Underground Railroad; in the daytime he hid the fugitives here and at night loaded them into his wagon and carried them to the next depot.
At 6.4 m. is the entrance (R) to WHETSTONE GULF CAMPSITE (camping, picnicking, hiking), a narrow, twisting gorge three miles long and 200 to 300 feet deep cut by Whetstone Creek in the soft shale.
In the narrow square of TURIN, 12.4 m. (1,264 alt., 260 pop.), stands (L) OLD SOW, a blunt brass cannon mounted on a square stone pedestal. It is said to have been sent to the Colonies by the British in 1689, captured by Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, used by General Knox at Dorchester Heights, and finally, to have belched forth the first shot in the Battle of Sackets Harbor.
At 14.6 m. State 12D branches (L) to BOONVILLE, 9.4 m. (see below). State 26 continues (R) to CONSTABLEVILLE, 17.6 m. (1,260 alt., 348 pop.), named for William Constable, to whom part of the great 4,000,000-acre Macomb Purchase was transferred; in 1819 his son, William Constable, Jr., built CONSTABLE HALL (grounds open), near the western village limits, as his manor house. It is a high-columned, graystone Georgian Colonial mansion with one-story wings; between the two front bays is a recessed entrance with a pedimented portico, which rises the full height of the structure.
State 26 continues south to ROME, 43.7 m. (see Tour 12).
South of LYONS FALLS, 77 m. (865 alt., 882 pop.), the narrow ditch of the Black River Canal crosses and recrosses State 12; down the sharp hill slopes, the dilapidated locks, some of them still bearing their hand-operated wooden gates, appear like short stairways. The 35-mile canal was begun in 1838 and completed in 1855; it was not finally abandoned until 1926, when it was superseded in its final function as water feeder for the Barge Canal by the Hinckley and Delta reservoirs.
BOONVILLE, 87.7 m. (1,121 alt., 2,090 pop.), is built around a triangular park with a bandstand; the business section is composed of two- and three-story red brick buildings; along the residential streets are fine old homes occupied by the descendants of New England settlers, the business and professional men of the village.
As the forests gave way to dairy farming, the village became the distributing and shopping center for a large and important dairying region. Here the milk strike of 1933 reached its height of violence. Bands of from 400 to 800 farmers stopped milk trucks on the highways and dumped the milk into the ditches. State troopers armed with clubs and tear gas bombs attacked the farmers, who fought back with stones, clubs, monkey wrenches, and curses. In the second week simple weapons gave way to high-powered rifles, and rioting to guerilla warfare. Huge glass-lined trucks were fired upon; special deputy sheriffs were sworn in by the hundreds; Governor Lehman appealed to all sides in the struggle; finally, after 16 days of warfare a truce was arranged. The latest effort to settle the problem of milk prices is a Federal-State marketing agreement (see Agriculture).
In Boonville is the junction with State 12D (see above).
ALDER CREEK, 94.9 m. (1,200 alt., 150 pop.), is at the junction with State 28 (see Tour 15), with which State 12 runs in common to TRENTON, 106.5 m. (800 alt., 313 pop.) (see Tour 15).
UTICA, 119.9 m. (500 alt., 100,063 pop.) (see Utica), is at the junction with State 5 (see Tour 11), State 5S (see Tour 12), and State 8 (see Tour 14).
Section b. UTICA to BINGHAMTON; 90 m. State 12
Across the southern part of the State the route follows the beautiful Chenango Valley. Here and there can be traced the towpath of the Chenango Canal, opened in 1837 to connect the Susquehanna River at Binghamton with the Erie Canal; tolls failed to cover cost of upkeep, and the canal was abandoned in 1878.
Up to about 1900 this was a hop-producing area; as hop prices declined, dairying became the principal source of income; as marketing of milk developed price difficulties and transportation by truck improved, the region turned to growing vegetables, especially peas and beans, though dairying retains first rank.
South of UTICA, 0 m., State 12 crosses a potato-growing region; the long, low barns built into the side hills are for potato storage. In PARIS, 9.7 m. (1,481 alt., 85 pop.), the cemetery (R) contains the grave of Isaac Paris, Jr. In 1789, when local crops failed, he sent settlers provisions from Fort Plain, taking his pay in ginseng, a medicinal root that abounded in this region. In 1792 the township was named for him, and in 1880 his remains were exhumed at Fort Plain and reinterred here with elaborate ceremonies.
WATERVILLE, 15.8 m. (1,231 alt., 1,298 pop.), settled before 1800 by emigrants from Waterville, Maine, was a hop-raising center until the close of the past century. With power available, industries were established and Waterville acquired a reputation for wealth and gentility. George Eastman (see Rochester) was born at 29 Stafford Avenue and went to school here; Charlemagne Tower, a prominent resident, served as United States Minister to Austria-Hungary and Ambassador to Russia and Germany.
Small hop yards have reappeared in recent years, and the natives take heart when they hear again the cheery voices of the hop-pickers in the late summer; the growers still search the vines for the bright-colored larvae called ‘hop-merchants,’ which they examine for the gold or silver spots by which they prognosticate the price they will get for the crop.
Summer mornings and evenings the road is alive with large stake-body trucks packed with Italian women and children being transported between Utica and the pea and bean fields in this region; they harvest the crops at so much a bushel, large families working co-operatively and building up a credit of several hundred dollars, which they receive in a lump sum at the end of the season. Some families prefer to accept the meager accommodations that the farmers provide in the low, one-story connected cells that straggle on the roadside and which the temporary inhabitants humorously christen ‘Blue Heaven,’ ‘Never Rest,’ and ‘Bean Manor.’
South of SANGERFIELD, 17.8 m. (1,246 alt., 225 pop.), at the junction with US 20 (see Tour 8), the scraggly evergreens in the shallow valley (R) mark the northern tip of the one-time sinister NINE MILE SWAMP, headquarters of the notorious Loomis gang, which terrorized the countryside from 1848 to 1866. The father, George Washington Loomis, was a fugitive from Vermont; the mother was the daughter of a Frenchman who had fled France to escape embezzlement charges. They raised their brood of six sons and four daughters on a 385-acre farm in the swamp; the children grew up well educated, well mannered, and adept at stealing; the girls were the acknowledged beauties of the region. Accounts of their depredations have become colored by tradition: one time they attended a hop-pickers’ dance and when young ladies’ muffs began to disappear a daring young man lifted the voluminous drapery of a Loomis girl’s hoop skirts, and there were the muffs encircling the Loomis limbs from ankle to knee.
In 1849, as horses and clothing disappeared from vicinity farms and all clues led to the Loomises, neighbors organized a search of the Loomis farm and found the stolen goods; one son, William, was arrested and suffered a short jail term—the only time a Loomis was convicted, although they were repeatedly indicted. Anyone who dared testify against them was likely to find his barn burned or his horses and cattle missing. By 1864, 38 indictments against them had accumulated. One September night the brothers broke into the firehouse at Morrisville, Madison County seat, cut the firehose, and burned the courthouse; learning that the records had been removed to the county clerk’s office, they broke into his safe a few nights later and burned them. About a year later a posse shot and killed ‘Wash,’ the oldest son and leader after his father’s death, and tried to kill Grove by rolling him in kerosene-soaked blankets and setting fire to them—but he was saved by his sister Cornelia. In 1866 a vigilance committee surrounded the farm, forced the family to surrender, but failed to extract a confession from Plumb Loomis, even by stringing him from a tree. But that marked the end of the gang: the girls married well; Plumb and Grove settled down; and the only evidences of the days of terror are the cellar ruins of the Loomis home and the crooked arm of an old tree, which Plumb used to point to in his later years and drawl, ‘See that limb? Well, b’God, they hung me to that.’
Land in this region was purchased in 1788 by Governor George Clinton in a treaty signed with the Indians at Fort Schuyler (Utica). After the sale an Indian sat down on a log next to the Governor and crowded him. As the Governor politely moved away, the Indian continued to slide up and crowd him. When Clinton found himself at the edge of the log he demanded an explanation. The Indian explained: ‘Just so white man crowd poor Indian. Keep crowding; keep crowding. By and by him clear off. Where poor Indian then?’
In SHERBURNE, 37.1 m. (1,071 alt., 1,077 Pop.), textile and dairy center, is the junction with State 80.
Right on State 80 to the SHERBURNE STATE FARM, 1.2 m. a 275-acre game refuge for the propagation of pheasants, ducks, and geese.
Lewis Anath Muller, believed by many to have been Count Artois, erected a large dwelling on (R) MULLER HILL, 13 m., soon after 1808. When Bonaparte abdicated, he returned to France, leaving the place to fall in ruins.
NORWICH, 48.8 m. (1,015 alt., 8,378 pop.), is the seat of Chenango County. The NORWICH PHARMACAL PLANT (open, one-hour guide-conducted tours), Piano St., manufactures patent medicine products.
OXFORD, 56.9 m. (982 alt., 1,601 pop.), has two village greens: a round one in the center of town circled by country stores, and an oblong one in the old residential section, where some of the fine white clapboard houses with deep lawns and large elms are now the summer homes of New York City descendants of the early settlers.
The OXFORD ACADEMY, across the bridge, is a three-story Georgian Colonial brick building erected in 1924. The school goes back to 1794, when it was one of four chartered west of the Hudson River.
At 85 m. is the junction with US 11 (see Tour 18), with which State 12 runs in common to BINGHAMTON, 90 m. (845 alt., 78,242 pop.) (see Binghamton), which is at the junction with State 17 (see Tour 3) and State 7 (see Tour 10).