EDITOR’S NOTE: We return here to Schoharie’s Cave of the Tapir’s Tooth (see Nov. 1, 2023, post). This account offers numerous new details on the cave’s 1831 discovery, its rich history, and challenging exploration. We meet then-owner and namesake, Richard VeenFliet, and learn he once considered opening his cave along the banks of the Schoharie Creek to the public. VeenFliet’s Cave also figures prominently in Garden of Eden lore. See last month’s post by Bob Addis.
Originally published as “The Tale of an Ancient Tapir and His Abode in the Mysterious Caves of Schoharie,” in The Knickerbocker Press, Sunday, May 1, 1933. By Ray A. Mowers. The photographs used are from that article.
Hunting a title for this unusual story, there is one that seemed perfectly swell: “The Tale of a Tapir’s Tooth.”
There is just one discrepancy while a tapir’s tooth does figure in the tale, the tale itself is not so toothsome—which, if not gaudy, is a pretty fair pun as puns go, in this era of radio comedy.
As a matter of cold, dank fact, this story deals with the rediscovery of a cave in the age-old limestone of Schoharie County—a cave found a century ago by John Gebhard Jr. the first geologist New York state ever had1.
The tooth of a tapir was. . . But it’s a little too soon to speak of that.
Now, for at least the third time since its discovery, this cave’s almost wholly virgin area is about to be explored. And this time, perhaps, it may be prepared for public inspection. If so, it will add another to the growing string of underground curiosities in the historic Schoharie Valley2.
One sultry day in the summer of 1831, John Gebhard Jr.3, geologist extraordinaire, allowed his curiosity to get the better of him—a common fault with scientists the world over. He wanted to know where that ice-cold water came from that bubbled ceaselessly from the foot of a rocky ravine on property adjoining has own.
The investigation which he began led to a yawning cavern in the limestone rocks a few hundred feet from his home, then located on the Schoharie river shore. The opening is small but still large enough for him to penetrate within the side of the rocky surface walls.
What he saw that day caused him to take a few friends into his confidence. They accompanied him to the scene. As a consequence, Jr. Gebhard and his companions expended considerable energy in clearing away debris about the mouth of the cavern. They managed to explore back 500 feet before encountering a barrier.
Determined that someday they would blast out this barrier and see what lay beyond, the explorers of a century ago rested on their laurels and the work ended there.
EXPLORATIONS RENEWED
It seemed there had been little descriptive material dealing with the discovery prepared for posterity when Geologist Gebhard and his friends passed on. At any rate, it was not until 1867 that, according to existing records, another attempt was made to open the cavern.
Once more intervening years had clogged the opening, and it again was necessary to ply pick and shovel to provide easy entrance.
On this occasion, the cavern floor was covered with water ranging to varying depths but requiring the use of a boat to get in and about.
Again, the barrier was encountered and like their predecessor, the new set of explorers determined to blast it away and see what lay beyond. This was never done.
More than six decades have passed since this exploring party disintegrated and turned its attention to other things.
At that time, the cave was on property owned by Napoleon Clark and, what had once been locally known as Gebhard’s Cave, became Clark’s Cave for the time being.
PROPERTY CHANGES HANDS
Long before those post-bellum days, the land had been added to the property on the southerly side of the Schoharie-East Cobleskill road, owned for more than a century by a succession of Gebhards.
Several years ago, the last of the Gebhards died and the property came into the possession of Richard Veenfliet, Jr., a man with a strong geological bent who had passed many hours with members of the Gebhard family, collecting valuable paleontological exhibits.
When the old Gebhard residence overlooking the Schoharie was burned, Mr. Veenfliet built a modern home upon its site. Back of it still stands the original John Gebhard barn of the early 19th Century, held staunch by gigantic handhewn timbers.
Across the highway and back in the ravine, the new owner took his determined way one day about two years ago. There he espied the entrance to the cavern which State Geologist Gebhard had explored almost exactly a century ago.
For a third time shovels and picks were carried to the debris-choked entrance to clear away the deposits of 50 winters.
Finally forcing entrance, Mr. Veenfliet found his labor and time had been profitably spent so far as his concern in geological affairs went. He also discovered an antique lamp within the cavern portal, evidently left behind by Gebhard, the explorer of 1831. He found, too, other evidence of the work done by his successors of 1867.
Equipped with modern electric hand torches, Mr. Veenfliet was easily able to’ overcome the handicap of ineffective illumination from which his predecessors unquestionably had suffered.
What his lamps disclosed made him hold his breath in astonishment.
Not since Lester Howe took his eccentric self within the portals of his celebrated cave back in 18474 had anyone beheld such an untouched, unmarred display of limestone stalactites and stalagmites. Here, he decided, was something well worthwhile.
ENTER TAPIR’S TOOTH
Returning to the sunshine outside, the new discoverer decided in the way of his predecessor to summon at least one friend upon whom he could depend for personal interest in such a project– Charles Helma, of Schenectady. Together, they set to work to dig away the remainder of the debris at the mouth of the cavern and conduct further exploration. While engaged in this work, they came upon one of the chief discoveries of their enterprise. It was the tooth of a strange animal together with what appeared to be a portion of a vertebrae.
The tooth was without roots. It had a creamy tint of old ivory and a high polish. Dispatched to scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and later to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, the tooth was pronounced that of a tapir.
The tapir now is confined to a habitat in Central and South America. Once, ft seems, it ranged the glacier-ridden terrains farther north.
The tooth, said the scientists, must have been dropped in the cavern or deposited in one of the strata now forming it not less than 25,000 years ago in what is known as Upper Pleistocene period.
FINDS INNER CHAMBER
Five hundred feet from the entrance, Mr. Veenfliet and Mr. Helma encountered the barrier which had blocked the explorations of both 1831 and 1867. It is of beautiful flowstone, not clay as Gebhard characterized it in the uncertain light of his antique coal-oil lantern.
On either side of the barrier, the new discovers found narrow passageways leading onward. One was found to be narrow and tortuous with a treacherous quicksand floor. The other was negotiable for a slender man lying prone and pulling himself along like a serpent.
Mr. Veenfliet essayed the passage. He discovered at the end of 30 feet that a magnificent stalactite barred egress at the farther end of the rocky tube. It resisted all hie efforts to break ft.
His electric flash lamp’s rays showed he was at the end of the narrow tunnel and beyond lay a gigantic room studded with translucent glories in limestone, never before seen by man. If he could have passed the obstinate stalactite, it would have been possible to turn about and crawl back to daylight head on, just as he had come. As it was, however, he was compelled to retrace his way by laboriously pushing himself feet foremost to where Mr. Helma was waiting eagerly.
One problem had been solved—there was a way to go on regardless of the flowstone barrier. But it left unanswered the question whether the newly explored passage led to the main cavern behind the barrier or to another independent branch of the subterranean mystery.
And so, the matter rests today while Mr. Veenfliet seeks ways and means to develop this thing of an earthly beauty which lies below the surface of his rugged land.
OTHER CAVES NEARBY
This cavern—once Gebhards, then Clarks and now Veenfliets—is the only one ever discovered in West Mountain, the towering limestone tablerock that divides the watersheds of the Schoharie from the Cobleskill Valley all the way from Central Bridge westward, until it loses its identify with mountains of the northernmost Catskills.
Those who would look into this rediscovery of Gebhard’s century-old find should cross the bridge at Schoharie on the road to East Cobleskill. An ancient watering trough will be found beside the highway. It was there the farmers of Cobleskill, Barnerville, and elsewhere on the north side of the divide were wont to let their horses drink on the long ride to and from the county seat.
The water supplying this trough comes from the boiling spring of icy water which John Gebhard traced to the subterranean source within his cave 100 years ago – the cave of the tapir’s tooth.
1 Not exactly. He was the first curator of “Geological Hall” in Albany, which later became the NYS Museum. His field work before that supported the publication of the 1843 New York Geological Survey, Samples from the survey—taken from across the state—figured in the creation of the Hall, originally referred to as the state “cabinet.” See “The Gebhards of Schoharie,” Chapter 1, Section IV of my book, Underground Empires: Two Centuries of Exploration, Adventure & Enterprise in NY’s Cave Country. Available here.
2 Howe Caverns and Secret Caverns were open to the public just four years earlier, and a third cave, Schoharie Caverns, was being prepared at around this same time.
3 Born 1802, died 1889.
4 The correct date is 1842.