 | Saratoga in 1901 |  |
MEYERS AND THE CEDAR BLUFF.
Congress Hall, August 10th.
This morning at seven, in company with Joseph Mills, Banker
Davis of Memphis, and Colonel Bridgeland, I made the circuit of
Saratoga lake. Passing Moon's,
the sulphur spring at the head
of the Lake, and Snake Island,
we reached the objective point,
Meyer's Cedar Bluff Hotel,
where the President dined last
summer, and where many distingués
dinner parties are celebrated.
The big, honest, sun-burned
face of Mr. Meyers welcomed
us on the porch. His busy wife
was in a great “stew” about a
projected dinner for a party,
consisting of Commodore Vanderbilt
and wife, Mr. and Mrs
Boody, Mr. and Mrs. Harker,
and Mr. and Mrs. Marvin.
The “tavern” occupies the
sloping east side of Saratoga
Lake, overlooking it, like the
Gregory House at Lake Mahopac.
The view is as enchanting as at Geneva. To the left is
Snake Island, covered with God's tapestry, the waving trees,
the rocks. The trees—the towering hemlocks, the shell-bark
hickories, and the weeping ashes—stand in all their native
grandeur. One old hemlock, with its great dead top, stood like
a silent sentinel over the lake, the west wind moaning a sad,
sad requiem through its leafless boughs.
“Why don't you trim off the dead limbs?” asked a spruce
bystander.
“Trim off the dead limbs!” exclaimed old Meyers. “Why,
you might as well ask me to drown old Ponto. Seventeen years
ago that dog and I hunted together when those dry limbs were
green and growing twigs. There ain't a knot there that I hav'nt
shot a squirrel from,” said Meyers proudly as he stooped down
to pet old Ponto, a veteran Scotch pointer. “He's deaf and
dumb,” continued Meyers, as he pulled up the dog's ears, “but
just let old Ponto get a scent of anything, from a quail to a coon,
even now, and he'll cover it if it takes a week.”
George Crum, one of Meyers' half-Indian, half-negro hunters,
now came up the bank with a basket of birds.
“How do these look?” asked the old fellow, counting out a
handful of cock, until he came down to a large bird, which he
instantly covered up.
“Splendid!” said Colonel B—; “but what is that big bird
you just covered up?”
“O, that's like all the rest,” said Meyers, somewhat puzzled.
But the Colonel thrust his hand to the bottom of the basket, and
held the new bird up by the leg.
“Say, what is it?” he asked.
“Sh—! that's—T-H-A-T-'S a KILMAROO.”
“A what—maroo?” asked the Colonel.
“A Kil—ma—roo,” said Meyers, in a whisper.
“What's that?” asked the Colonel, who thought he knew
every bird in the catalogue.
“Well,” said Meyers—and he leaned forward to whisper it—
“that will be a partridge after the first of September!” You
laws, and I give my boys orders to kill nothing but woodcock
and kilmaroo till the first of September.”
“Are your own boys here with you?” I asked.
“Yes. Do you see those two cottages?” said Meyers pointing
to the right. “There's where my boys live with their wives.
You see they help me tend bar, and, with my wife, we tend to
everything ourselves. Then if there is any stealing we know it
is all in the family.”
“How long do you expect to stay here?”
“Well, fifty years more at least,” said Meyers. But if he does
he'll be one hundred and ten years old, for the good old man
must be sixty now.
The breakfast was a wonderful triumph of cookery—black bass,
brook trout, and woodcock. The Saratoga Lake black bass are
the best fish in the civilized world—they even surpass in flavor
brook-trout from the New Hampshire mountains, or the Red
snapper from New Orleans.
Mr. Meyers, who was formerly Deputy Sheriff here, as well as
his wife, was born around the lake. He has recently stocked
the following ponds and lakes with black bass from Saratoga
Lake: Joseph Godwin's pond, Yonkers; Lake Mahopac, for
Samuel T. Tisdell; Sand Lake, Poughkeepsie; and the ponds
at Flushing. Black bass are to be found in Lake George and
Niagara River in a wild state, but nowhere are they so delightful
as in Saratoga Lake.
| Saratoga in 1901 | |