Tuscarora’s latest journey

Nearly 90 years after historic steamboat’s last journey across Blue Mountain Lake, plans are afoot to move it once again

By Tim Rowland

Like many Eastern Seaboarders-turned-Adirondackers, Donna Gingell and Peter Halsch spent years looking for that perfect piece of property. When they found it, they were charmed by its shoreline on a secluded cove of Blue Mountain Lake, accented by classic Adirondack boathouse designed by architect Robert Graham. 

The property had quite a pedigree. Previous owners include railroad tycoon Thomas Durant and industrialist Harold Hochschild, founder of the Adirondack Experience museum.

In Durant’s time, one of the few ways to access the lake was by steamboat. One of those: the elegant 75-foot, double-decker named Tuscarora. It was widely hailed as the grandest vessel to ever steam the waters of the park’s central lakes.

That was the other thing: Situated on the lot that Gingell and Halsch were eying was the great Tuscarora herself. Against all odds she had survived, fashioned into a camp by the Graham family, long after most of the storied Adirondack steamboats of the late 19th and early 20th century had been unceremoniously scuttled or burned on shore. Much the way a worn out city bus would today be unsentimentally sent to the crusher.

“They were utilitarian,” said Halsch, adding that people at the time assigned them no particular value beyond basic transportation. Except for the Grahams, who bought the steamer after it was taken out of service in 1929 and several years later, by way of an unspeakably picturesque assemblage of rafts, cradles and train rails, managed to tow the leviathan in the spring of 1938 to its current locale.

Sensing a good show, the town turned out to watch as divers assembling the submerged infrastructure slathered themselves in grease and chugged whiskey to brace against the 46-degree water. Once ashore, the Tuscarora continued functioning as a camp, and that was the state of things 35 years ago when Halsch began asking Robert Graham’s son, Al, about purchasing the property. Along the way, Gingell and Halsch became friends with Al and his family.  In 1998, Al finally agreed to sell.

Overnight, Gingell and Halsch went from being a private couple to being a private couple that just happened to own one of the greatest remaining icons of Adirondack grand-hotel-era history. Today, the couple and their supporters are developing plans to restore the Tuscarora and return it to the public domain from which it came.

Bringing it back to life

As the decades had ticked by, the Tuscarora remained well-known to residents and boaters on Blue Mountain Lake, but fell out of the greater Adirondack consciousness. After building their own camp, Gingell and Halsch turned their attention to the boat. “We had no idea what the future was, we just wanted to protect it,” Gingell said. 

There were setbacks. Shortly after purchasing the property, a caretaker called Halsch, breathlessly reporting that “the upper deck is gone.” A microburst off the lake had blown a large portion of it off into the woods. The deck was preserved and moved to another location, and Halsch built a quonset hut to protect the massive hull.

Now, nearly 90 years after its last journey across the lake, plans are afoot to move it once again. With the help of a small group of knowledgeable and passionate people who make up Friends of the Tuscarora, Gingell and Halsch are developing plans to restore the ship and return it to the public domain from which it came. 

“There were always two major obstacles,” Halsch said. “How to move it and where to put it.”

It’s a fitting mission, said Erin Tobin, executive director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), which is helping to fundraise for the relocation project.

The future location has been established, with the purchase of land on Route 30. An exhibit is being conceptualized that would shelter the ship, which would be on rails allowing it to be partially moved outside in summer to attract passing motorists.

Move logistics

But the move promises to be every bit as tricky, and much more expensive, than it was in the ’30s. Sliding it across the ice would be ideal, but is too risky. Resting the hull on floats is impractical because the cove is too shallow. And the best option — worming it through the  woods to a nearby access road is no piece of cake.

Fortunately, the American marine community is a passionate and innovative bunch, and experts have found their Tuscarora Steamboat page on Facebook and offered their help. 

A grant from the Connecticut-based 1772 Foundation paid for a feasibility study and in November a team from Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) used large-format photos and laser imaging to provide digital measured drawings of the vessel, which will be used both for the preservation project and engineering studies to help with the move.

Help on the local front is just as enthusiastic. “Everyone is very positive and it’s so exciting,” Gingell said. 

A piece of local history

Some community members trace their ancestry to the steamboat operators themselves. “It’s 124 years later, but they’re still here,” Halsch said. 

The renowned A.C. Brown & Sons on Staten Island built the Tuscarora in 1900. The Durant family put it to work as the last leg of a rail and water relay bringing wealthy urbanites to the magnificent hotel verandas overlooking Blue Mountain Lake.

Critics said the Tuscarora, which could carry 325 people, was too big for such a remote outpost, and in some ways it was. The roof of the Steamboat Landing boathouse, where it was housed in the offseason, had to be raised to accommodate its height. Turning it around at its tight western terminus involved a delicate pirouette in which the pilot barked orders to the passengers to move fore or aft depending on which end of the ship had become stuck in the mud.

The Durants dredged the shallow channels connecting Utowana, Eagle and Blue Mountain lakes, much to the consternation of the nascent environmental movement. “Even then there was an outcry,” Halsch said.

A tough, and fun ship

Understanding the delicate job of navigating these shallow lakes, the Durants brought in a hot-shot mariner from the New York ports, whose skills were beyond reproach. Or at least they were on the high seas, but in the tight nipping of the Adirondacks, not so much.

He barreled into rocks and piers and scraped the gunwales so often that, in Hochschild’s history “Township 34,” a local wag suggested that the hapless pilot should have been followed by a boat carrying a bucket of paint.

With a better pilot, Maurice Callihan, the steamboat thrived, even if William West Durant’s plan for populating the park with wealthy vacation-homeowners didn’t. “Durant thought on a grand scale and had big ideas,” Halsch said. “He was prepared to sell off these heavenly lots, but the reality never really met his vision. 

Along with its regular duties, the Tuscarora also ferried vacationers on loud, merry sightseeing adventures around the lake. A band played and passengers sang and danced, remaining, if early video is any indication, generally oblivious to the negative effect their commotion was having on the stability of the ship.

The boat was beached about the same time as construction crews completed the highway to Blue Mountain Lake. The two 75-horsepower engines were likely sold for scrap in the ’30s. Despite the conversion, the ship’s integrity remains largely intact, Halsch said. Aside from the engines and boiler, most of the parts still exist. They will be part of the refurbished boat. 

“Everything’s protected, it just needs to be put back together,” Gingell said.

Photo at top: The Tuscarora sailing on a Blue Mountain Lake outing. Photo provided by Peter Halsch and Donna Gingell