In the town of Black Brook, about seven miles north of Whiteface Mountain, rises a 3,168-foot peak called, simply, Catamount Mountain. The fourth highest peak in Clinton County, Catamount is remarkable for its two rocky summits, as seen from Forestdale Road, which runs along its southern foot. The summit can be reached via a short, 1.8-mile trail, which starts off as nice and flat, then becomes abundant in steep scrambles, narrow chutes, bare-rock slabs and scenic lookouts. Upon reaching the summit proper, your efforts are rewarded with extraordinary views of Taylor and Union Falls Ponds, Silver Lake, the Stephenson and Wilmington Ranges, and the gems of Wilmington – Whiteface and Esther Mountains.
The scope of this work covers the naming history of Catamount and the historical events tied to this mountain, from its use by Verplanck Colvin for his Adirondack Survey to its inclusion in the State Forest Preserve.
A History of the Name
Black Brook’s Catamount is not unique in its name. According to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, there are nine peaks in New York State officially named Catamount Mountain, Peak, Hill, or Knoll, seven of which are in the Adirondack Park.
The name for our Catamount goes as far back as 1868, with the earliest-known, written reference to it being on William Watson (W. W.) Ely’s Map of the New York Wilderness. The name appears to be of local origin, likely inspired by the existence of panthers or mountain lions, which once tread upon the mountain’s slopes.
In his 1880 report, famed Adirondack surveyor Verplanck Colvin refers to Catamount as “Thi-Pac Mountain.” In the 1894 edition of Descriptive Guide to the Adirondacks, Edwin R. Wallace clarifies that “Thi-pac” is an Indian term but does not give its translation or specific tribe of origin. No further information has been found related to this term.
Encounters in Early Land Surveys
Up until 1872, there had not been a sound, scientific, topographical survey made of the Adirondack region. The boundaries of land patents and their allotments, and the lines between counties, were laid out by 18th- and early 19th-century surveyors using a magnetic compass and marked by axe-cuts into trees (called blazes) or piles of rocks. Disturbances of the compass needle due to the magnetic ore so abundant in the Adirondacks incurred errors in the lines, drawing into question their accuracy. Furthermore, the region’s topography and the locations of lakes, ponds, rivers and streams were poorly mapped – if they were mapped at all. As a result, it was unclear what tracts of land (virtually all of which held valuable timber) belonged to the state and what belonged to neighboring private interests, and it was difficult to determine commercially viable routes for roads and waterways.
To address these issues, the state appointed a young, intrepid surveyor from Albany in 1872 by the name of Verplanck Colvin as superintendent of the Adirondack Survey. Starting from Crown Point, Colvin and his crew of assistants and guides pushed westward and southward, surveying the topography of the Adirondacks and mapping out its mountains, rivers and lakes – among these the Saranac River region.
With a desire for accuracy, Colvin used triangulation and leveling, land surveying method necessary for mapping a region. Triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from the endpoints of a fixed baseline, as opposed to measuring distances to the point directly. To map a region, the surveyor constructs a system or network of interconnected “primary” triangles, which are subdivided into secondary triangles, which may be subdivided into tertiary triangles, if necessary. Angular measurements to remote points are made with a device called a theodolite or theodolite-transit, performed at locations called triangulation stations, which were often the summits of peaks such as Lyon and Catamount. The remote points Colvin zeroed in on with the theodolite’s telescope were called signal stations, which were towers from 15 to over 60 feet high, made of timber, had three or four legs, and topped with a Stan Helio. The Stan Helio is a box-like device made of tin which spun in the wind and reflected sunlight and allowed the surveyor to achieve a line-of-sight to it from his theodolite. The legs of the tower were held down by wire or chains tied to iron eye-bolts sunk in the summit rock, many of which remain today.
For more information on triangulation and Colvin’s use of it, see Tom Thacher’s article in the Adirondack Almanack (“The Triangulation of Verplanck Colvin”), Nina Webb’s biography of Colvin (Footsteps Through the Adirondacks: The Verplanck Colvin Story) and Farhan Khan’s online article in Construction How (“Base Line Measurement in Survey”).
During his 1878 field work, one of Colvin’s goals was to obtain a thorough survey of the Saranac River. The first primary triangulation station established to this end was the broad summit of Lyon Mountain, set in mid-August after much toil by his men. But mapping out the course of the Saranac required him to extend his triangulation network southward, toward Whiteface Mountain. One of the candidate peaks in that direction which caught his eye was Catamount and with that, Colvin had a signal station erected atop its summit on Sept. 6. The iron eye-bolts of this tower are still visible on the bare summit rock. On Sept. 21, the triangulation network of the Adirondack Survey was extended to the peak when Colvin “observed the first flash from the signal on Catamount mountain” through the scope of the theodolite on Averill Peak (the southwestern sub-peak of Lyon).
On the evening of Oct. 8, the signal station on Catamount and several of the river survey stations were destroyed by a “fierce tornado” which swept through the region. The tower on Catamount was rebuilt sometime afterward, as evidenced by Colvin’s report for the field work of 1895, in which he noted making angular observations to the station on the peak.
Colvin’s survey was not the only state-wide land survey going on during the late 19th century. In the early 1880s, the federal government’s U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey was conducting work around Lake George and Lake Champlain. Like Colvin’s survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey used triangulation and signal stations; it was not unusual for one survey to make use of the signal stations of the other. Furthermore, the two surveys “connected” their triangulation networks together through their mutual survey stations, something which Colvin mentions in his survey reports. In the case of his stations on Catamount, Whiteface and Hurricane (to name a few), this is evidenced by the Coast and Geodetic Survey’s 1882 map, Triangulation Between the St. Croix and Hudson Rivers and Lake Ontario, which shows lines of sight from these stations to those east of Lake Champlain. On the NGS datasheet for the Coast and Geodetic Survey’s 1942 markers on Catamount, it notes that the station marker “is a 1-inch lead plug set in a drill hole in bedrock and is about 8 inches below the surface of the rock.”13 This plug may have been put in place by the Survey sometime in the 1880s or 1890s.
Catamount was later used by the Coast and Geodetic Survey for their triangulation survey in 1942. A careful scan of the summit rock will reveal two brass reference markers planted by the Survey. The corresponding triangulation station disk, said to be set in a boulder, appears to be missing.
A Fight with a Bear
Catamount was once the scene of a harrowing fight to the death between three hunters and a 300-pound black bear. In August 1902, Dr. A. G. Root of Albany, H. Chester Spratley of New York City and J. C. McCaffrey of Paul Smiths, were hunting on the slopes of the mountain when they came across the tracks of a large animal. Following the tracks for about 5 miles, they came upon their source: a large, full-grown black bear. Raising his rifle, Spratley fired a round, which only wounded the bruin. Enraged, the “big fellow” turned and charged at the trio. The rest of this compelling story is well-illustrated in the August 29, 1902, edition of The Plattsburgh Sentinel:
“Several shots were fired without effect and the fight soon ranged at close quarters. Dr. Root was injured by a fall and McCaffrey threw away his rifle, while he continued to fight with a knife.
“ The bear was a male, weighing about three hundred pounds, and his skin seemed to be impenetrable to knife and ball. McCaffrey, who is a mountain guide, led the hunters in their assault, and as he was in the thickest of the fight came near losing his life in the bear’s vigorous use of his teeth and jaws. The fight was finally ended by a knife thrust by Spratley, who, in discussing the struggle later, said it was of considerable danger for all of them and particular for McCaffrey.”
A Failed Explosion. A Big Scene Spoiled
The rocky slopes of Catamount once served as the backdrop for a Hollywood film. In 1915, the Metro Pictures Corporation started shooting of Sealed Valley, a movie based on the 1914 Hulbert Footner’s adventure novel, The Sealed Valley. In the novel, an Indian maiden by the name of Nahnya Crossfox lives with her family in a settlement called the Sealed Valley, a hidden pass encrusted with a wealth of gold. Seeking help for her ailing mother, Nahnya finds Doctor Cowdray and offers him a large bag of gold as a down payment for his services, provided he makes the dangerous seven-day trip to her settlement. During the trip up the rapids, the doctor falls in love with Nahnya, who rejects his marriage proposal, fearing that a mixed-blood union would not hold. After discovering Nahnya’s secret cavern of gold, he heads back home to Fort Edward, only to return with two conniving wretches named Stack and Mixer, who think he can lead them to the treasure. Seeking the gold for themselves, the two thieves toss Cowdray into the river while en route to the settlement. Left for dead, Cowdray is saved by Kitty Sholto, the pretty blonde daughter of a gold miner, who believes he is her mate sent by Divine Providence. As Stack and Mixer try and penetrate the Sealed Valley, they are repelled by Nahnya and her people, who roll stones and boulders at the two scoundrels. In the end, after Nahnya’s urging, Cowdray marries Kitty, and the maiden returns to her tribe.
In the movie version of Footner’s novel, the dramatic scene between the Indians and Stack and Mixer was played out on Catamount. Of the roles in the film, Dorothy Donnelly played Nahnya, Jack W. Johnston played Doctor Cowdray, and Rene Ditline played Kitty.
Early filming of the movie reportedly took place in Tinsbury, Canada, where most of the scenic views of the wilderness and waterways were secured (“Tinsbury” is a misspelling, as there is no locale by this name in Canada). In the late spring, production moved to Saranac Lake where the director, Lawrence B. McGill, focused on Catamount for the final scene between the Indians and the villains. To reenact the scene, 250 pounds of dynamite were strategically placed to blow off a ledge of the mountain just as the villains were entering the valley. The explosion only managed to blow apart about half the ledge, causing about 300 tons of rubble to fall. According to one report, while the camera captured a “fairly good scene,” it was not “close enough to the landslide to make the picture without making death certain for the [camera] operator.” Not rising to the “high standards” demanded by Metro Pictures, the scene would have to be redone. Where is unclear, but it was not on Catamount.
Legacy of Lumbering and Preservation
West Kiln, Middle Kiln and East Kiln – hamlets which flank the southern foot of Catamount – and two miles to the south, Cooper Kiln Pond, have named suggestive of the activity that stirred about the mountain 150 years ago. They refer to the charcoal kilns which once dotted the land, fed thousands of cords of Adirondack hardwood to produce the millions of bushels of charcoal needed to fuel the iron forges. Those charcoal kilns belonged to one of the largest iron companies in the nation: the J. & J. Rogers Company.
J& J. Rogers owned thousands of acres of land in the region and logged the hardwoods around Taylor Pond and off the slopes of Catamount to feed their kilns. By 1870, the company operated 52 kilns, 17 of which were in the town of Black Brook, six around Taylor Pond and three around Silver Lake. So hungry were these kilns that the company was cutting hardwoods at a rate of 1,000 acres per year, leaving much of the company’s woodlands bare. Around 1880, at the peak of the company’s iron production, J. & J. Rogers produced 4.5 million bushels of charcoal from 40,000 cords of wood.
When J. & J. Rogers transitioned to the pulp and paper industry in 1893, it began harvesting lumber for pulpwood. The company’s timber was decimated by wildfires which hit Catamount, Silver Lake Mountain and the Taylor Pond valley in 1903.
Other Historical Highlights
Taylor Pond and Catamount Mountain are included in the Taylor Pond Wild Forest (TPWF) unit of the State Forest Preserve. When the Department of Environmental Conservation released a draft of its unit management plan for the TPWF, it included a plan for officially establishing and marking a trail to the summit of Catamount. An unofficial trail had existed prior to this but was not maintained by the State.
Photo at top: Panorama from the summit of Catamount Mountain. Photo by John Sasso.
Great article! I see Bigelow Mtn. was used for many sight-lines.