Moses St. Germain, first settler at Chazy Lake

Thanks to “Debbiesaint” for sharing this picture.  Her comment on the earlier picture “Sangimaux” explains how Moses came to get his nickname.

Google Earth just posted a new set of Aerial photos of the Adirondacks.  Some of these were taken during the fall of 2008, a year with particularly lovely fall foliage.  Google can give us some very unusal view of the landscape so I thought I’d include a few on the blogs.

The view above shows Bear Mountain, known to the U. S. Geological Survey as TopKnot Mountain as seen from Chazy Lake.  To the left is Elbow Hill, further left, the slopes of Lyon Mountain; to the right is the Ellenburg Range. Its important to remember that this photo represents exactly the altitudes as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey and is computer generated from an overhead shot to represent the view you see.  It’s amazing how “real” the image is.

Mose Sagemore is supposed to have been the first settler at Chazy Lake.  Uncle Wilfred King knew him and had a picture  of him that he shared with Richard King, identifying him only as the first settler and by his local nickname of Sangimaux.   

Legend has it that there was a lead mine in the Lyon Mountain area known to the native Indians and very few others, including Mose Sagemore, according to this entry at the very nice blog about Chateaugay Lake.

Above:  Eleanor Roosevelt and Earl Miller at Chazy Lake in 1934, photo from the FDR Library http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/site.html

More pictures at the Eleanor Roosevelt at Chazy Lake page

If you were to drive from Dannemora to Lyon Mountain on a sunny day in 1900 you would have passed just a few houses clinging to a wooded and rocky hillside overlooking a lake so shockingly blue that it would be hard to look at anything else, except for the massive mountain at it’s western end, rising nearly 2000 feet from the lake shore.

Trains came here daily to drop off tourists and tuberculosis sufferers seeking to breath freely in the crisp air.  There were two large tourist houses and others took tourists in on a more informal basis, much like the bed and breakfasts of today. 

The community was almostly exclusively French speaking, with recent roots and strong ties to the relatives of the Canadian expatriots who had made their way south to an untamed wilderness in the Adirondacks.  It’s easy to paint them in the romantic glow of the turn of the 20th century because they lived the life that Currier and Ives painted… big powerful horses pulling carts and carriages, sleigh rides, huge family dinners at tables that simply groaned under food in kitchens smelling sweetly of cookies, cakes, fresh pickles and roasting pork or chicken.  A life in which music and dancing, swearing and chawing were as important as hunting, fishing and farming. 

They were, mostly, French Canadians and nearly everyone, perhaps everyone who lived along the road was related in some way to everyone else.  For  over 70 years this group of people dominated the scene and created the unique culture of Chazy Lake. 

Join us on our exploration of their roots deep in Canadian history and their progeny’s journey into the American presence on both sides of that now gated border.

This is a copy of an original picture that a number of family members have.  Thanks to all of you who have allowed me to use it. CK

Xavier Francis King and his wife Emma Colburn King built this house at Chazy Lake in front of Bear Mountain (known on the maps as TopKnot Mountain) and raised their children here.  The house was expanded following a design that was used for the Badger Hotel, located on the Badger Road which ran between Redford and Chazy Lake along the foot of Lyon Mountain.  The expanded house was built by some of the same workmen who built the Badger house, including Xavier.  The original house was built by Xavier and most likely his brothers and cousins.  All of the wood was harvested locally.

The house is buit in a north country style that has roots in the French Canadian settlements of Canada.  The log cabin is unprepossessing and simple but warm and comfortable against the cold winters.  It is a very American form, in which we take great pride as a family and as part of our national heritage.  In Europe people look to the past and marvel at beautiful structures, grand and proud, but here we look to the past and admire the hardy simplicity of modest dwellings of modest people.  The difference is that these simple dwellings were built by the hands of the men and women who lived in them, with help from neighbors and friends, and though the residents of such dwellings were immigrants on the land they made it their own by their own hard work.  The grand buildings of Europe (and the grand buildings of the Southern plantations) were built by oppressing others who could never hope to live in what they built, but our forebearers built for themselves what they would live in, that being the heart of  self reliance and pride in their independence.