Junction with State 14—Penn Yan—Hammondsport—Bath; 34.4 m. State 54.
Two-lane concrete or macadam.
New York Central R.R. parallels road between Dresden and Bath.
Swinging over the hills from Seneca Lake, State 54 joins the two long arms of Keuka Lake, curves down its west shore, and runs on through Pleasant Valley to Bath. All along the route, on the valley floors and over the hilltops, are patches of vineyards; the principal varieties of grapes grown are Catawbas, Isabellas, Ives, Delawares, Dianas, Elviras, and Ionas. The high natural sugar content of local grapes makes them among the best in the world for wine. In the villages and along the road are the wineries, their cellars pushing into the hillsides, though low temperatures are now in most cases maintained by air conditioning. On Labor Day their representatives meet with the growers to arrange the annual ‘grape deal’—that is, to fix the prices for the year’s crop. A few weeks later picking begins.
West of the junction with State 14, 0 m. (see Tour 27), State 54 passes through a region of tumbling hills checkered with vineyards.
PENN YAN, 5 m. (767 alt., 5,273 pop.), is guarded on three sides by hills and on the fourth faces the long eastern arm of Keuka Lake. The village wineries, canneries, and mills process and market the grapes, grain, fruits, and vegetables of the countryside, and small factories make grape baskets, boats, store fixtures, and bus bodies. A large tourist trade provides an additional source of income. Controversy between the settlers from Pennsylvania and New England over a name for the place was compromised by combining the first syllables of Pennsylvania and Yankee.
Southwest of Penn Yan the road hugs the eastern arm (L) of Y-shaped KEUKA LAKE (bathing, boating, fishing), the only one of the Finger Lakes with an irregular outline. Its waters flow from the main inlet at the base of the Y into one of its branches, and out again around a dividing bluff to its outlet at the tip of the other branch.
At 9.3 m. is the junction with the Keuka road and the Bluff Point road.
1. Sharp left on the Keuka road, 0.6 m. to KEUKA PARK, home of KEUKA COLLEGE (swimming, fishing, tennis). The campus has a half-mile lake front and the adjoining college farm rises up the vine-clad hillsides. First incorporated in 1888, Keuka has been a chartered college for women since 1924; the student body numbers about 200.
2. Left on the macadam Bluff Point road, along the ridge which separates the two arms of the lake, to the GARRETT MEMORIAL CHAPEL (L), 5 m., called ‘the little chapel on the mount.’ It is a memorial erected by his parents to Charles Garrett, who begged to be taken back to Bluff Point before his death from tuberculosis in 1930. The building is of seam-faced granite in the Gothic style; the sculptured ornaments and stained glass windows symbolize the interests and aspirations of childhood and youth. The view from BLUFF POINT, 7 m., embraces the main body of Keuka Lake stretching south from where it splits into its east and west arms.
In BRANCHPORT, 12.6 m. (740 alt., 300 pop.), is the junction with State 273.
Right on this road 4.1 m. to an uphill dirt road; left here to the FRIEND’S HOME (R) 0.3 m., a large white clapboard frame house built about 1790. This was the home of Jemima Wilkinson, the Universal Friend. On an upper floor was her boudoir, elaborately furnished with her elegant mirror—the monogram ‘U.F.’ carved in the frame, her medicine case of wood inlay, her silver salver, her warming pan, and her perfume bottles. On the first floor she held religious meetings, appearing in a silk purple robe over a fine white muslin dress and a man’s shirt and cravat bordered with lace, so that her costume was ‘made to correspond neither with that of a man nor a woman’; her black eyes were brilliant, and her dark hair hung in curls over her shoulders. Her sermons were long and almost unintelligible, delivered in the illiterate speech of the New England back country. But her followers were devoted to her, performing menial tasks and parting with their possessions at her word that ‘The Lord hath need of this.’
Jemima Wilkinson (1758–1819) was born the daughter of a respectable Rhode Island farmer. Aroused by the highly emotional revivals of the New Light Baptists, and probably in imitation of Mother Ann Lee of the Shakers, at the age of about 20, arising from a severe attack of fever she asserted that she had been dead, her carnal existence had ended, her body had been reanimated by the Divine Spirit, and she had returned as the ‘Public Universal Friend’ to warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come. For several years she preached in New England and gathered converts, among them well-to-do citizens, preaching celibacy and breaking up families by setting loyalty to sect above loyalty to spouse or parents. When opposition arose there, and later in Pennsylvania, she sent her followers to prepare a home for her in the wilderness. They settled in 1788 on the west shore of Seneca Lake.
As the tide of migration caught up with the settlement, the young people broke away to marry and live like their neighbors; her grasping after her followers’ property alienated many; as she grew older her beauty faded and she lost her magnetic pull. After she ‘left time’ in 1819, the sect rapidly disintegrated. Descendants of the Jemimakins live in the country roundabout.
On KEUKA LAKE, opposite the highway at about 23.5 m., on March 12, 1908, one of the world’s first flying machines was carefully set up on the ice. Its official name was Drome No.1, but its familiar name was Red Wing, because its two long kitelike wings were covered with red silk. A 24-horsepower, eight-cylinder motorcycle motor, built by Glenn Curtiss in his Hammondsport shop, was installed between these flimsy wings. Casey Baldwin, John McCurdy, and Glenn Curtiss drew lots to see who would pilot the craft. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, who had helped to design the ‘aerodrome,’ was not present, having been forced to leave Hammondsport because of his wife’s illness. Casey Baldwin won the drawing and climbed into the pilot’s seat. His assistants cranked the motor. Baldwin yelled ‘Let go!’ The Red Wing skimmed along on its runners for 250 feet, rose into the air six or eight feet, flew 318 feet and 11 inches, then crashed. Baldwin crawled out of the wreckage with a few bruises.
HAMMONDSPORT, 26.8 m. (718 alt., 1,102 pop.), at the head of Keuka Lake, is a center of the New York State champagne industry. In the early 1900’s it was the aviation center of the Nation and it is proud of the title, ‘Cradle of American Aviation.’
Glenn Hammond Curtiss was born here in 1878. As a builder of motors, he was sought out by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell to build a motor for a kite. Bell, Curtiss, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge of the U.S. Army, and others began their work of building ‘a practical aerodrome driven by its own motive power and carrying a man’ (see above). On July 4, 1908, on Stony Brook Farm (see below), Curtiss flew the June Bug 2,000 yards. In 1910 he flew an airplane from Albany to New York, with two stops. In 1917 he joined with John N. Willis, automobile manufacturer, to supply airplanes for the World War. Later he designed and manufactured the Wasp, which established records for speed, climbing, and altitude.
At STONY BROOK FARM (L), 28.3 m., in the spring of 1908, Dr. Bell, Glenn Curtiss, Lieutenant Selfridge, and their associates assembled their second ‘aerodrome,’ called White Wings, and lodged it in a circus tent attached to the side of the barn. Selfridge took off for the first time, hopped a fence, and landed with slight damage to the machine. Later Curtiss flew 1,000 feet and landed in a plowed field.
On July 4 all Hammondsport as well as citizens of near-by towns gathered at the race track on Stony Brook Farm to witness a great test. About 30 visitors came from New York City, including representatives of the Aero Club of America. The Scientific American had offered a silver trophy valued at $2,500 for the first flight of one kilometer (3,280 feet) by a heavier-than-air machine propelled by its own power. The new aerodrome, June Bug, which the group had built, was hauled out of its tent. Curtiss took the pilot’s seat. On the first trial the machine stopped before it reached the line marked as the starting point. The wind was not right. At 7:30, just before sundown, a second attempt was made. This time the plane rose slowly to a height of 20 feet, crossed the finish line, banked to a half turn and landed safely. The crowd had followed, running and yelling. The official distance was 5,090 feet.
Clinging to the slope of the steep hill (L), the PLEASANT VALLEY WINERY (open), 29.6 m., holder of U.S. winery license No.1, is one of the oldest champagne cellars in the United States. In 1860, C.B. Champlin, who had emigrated from France, organized the company and built the dank cellars running back under the hill; a head wine maker was brought from Rheims, France—his descendants still live in the valley—and the production of champagne from local grapes was begun. Today more than 3,000,000 bottles of champagne are being aged in these cellars.
After being sorted and cleaned, the grapes are dumped into giant evaporation casks; six months later the juice, called ‘must,’ is poured into 4,800-gallon aging casks in which fermentation goes on for two years, controlled by low temperature and the addition of yeast. Then a blend, or cuvée, is made of six or seven different grape wines according to a secret formula; rock candy for sweetening and a selected champagne yeast for fermentation are added; and the mixture is bottled in heavy champagne bottles, which are corked and placed neck downward in tiers of racks at a temperature of 50 degrees. During the second fermentation the carbonic acid is imprisoned in the bottles, giving champagne its sparkle; the pressure is so great that some of the bottles blow up. Twice a day, for six weeks or more, a worker lifts each bottle, shakes it slightly, and replaces it—this to force the sediment to settle on the cork. After fermentation is completed, the bottlenecks are inserted in brine to freeze about an inch of wine at the cork. Then the cork and the piece of ice, containing the sediment, are removed, a spoonful of syrup is injected slowly, a Spanish cork is mushroomed down the bottle mouth, and the champagne is ready for storage until used.
The COLD SPRINGS STATE FISH HATCHERY (open), 31.2 m., raises fingerlings to stock the many trout streams of the State; the water is taken from an artesian well.
BATH, 34.4 m. (1,104 alt., 4,656 pop.), is at the junction with US 15 (see Tour 31).