Tag Archives: Howe Caverns

FACT OR FICTION: LESTER HOWE’S ‘GARDEN OF EDEN’

Editor’s Note: I’m happy to share our first “guest blog,” written by an old friend and caving mentor, Bob Addis. He shares his thoughts on one of caving’s greatest folk tales, that of the Howe “Garden of Eden.” (Incidentally, both Bob and I have put in time searching for the lost cave. We’ll keep it a secret. Photo by Art Palmer.)

By BOB ADDIS

The best and most often told tale-yarn-legend in northeastern caving circles is that of Lester Howe’s long-sought “Garden of Eden Cave” and the “Finger of Geology” that points to its location.

Learning the tale is a prerequisite for every new adventurer who takes an interest in NY’s Cave Country. The Garden of Eden legend has encouraged more cave hunting activity—ridge walking, digging, and hard pushing in the most dismal low, wet and muddy crawls and impossibly tight crevices—than anyone could imagine. It’s also been good for the advancement of NE cave science and “building the character” of the cavers who move on to states with more, and larger, caves.

How it All Began

The story begins like this: On his death bed in July 1888, Lester Howe is rumored to have sat up and said, “I have discovered a cave larger and more beautiful than Howe’s Cave, but I will reveal its location to no man.” He flopped back and died. Good one, heh?

A lesser repeated subset rumor, but without an exact quote, is that two men learned of the location from Howe at this time. The pact they made was that after one of them died, another new man would be entrusted with the secret. In that way, at least two men would always know the cave’s location.

Of course, both men died without passing along the secret of the Garden of Eden.

**YOUNG BOB AFTER HIS FIRST TRIP TO HOWE CAVERNS**

Lester was a rascal, self-promoter, and well known for blowing smoke.

For example, Lester guided many of the early tours through Howe’s Cave and numerous newspaper accounts varied on the details given them by Howe. He may have simply “made it up as he went along!” (I won’t attempt to prove this point here since both Thom Engel’s book and two by Dana Cudmore do an excellent job on the subject.)

From about 1928-31, Arthur Van Voris, a Cobleskill merchant, led a group of young men around the cave country and recorded their underground adventures in a series called The Lesser Caves of Schoharie County. Separate editions were held in five loose-leaf, three-ring notebooks. Some articles also appeared in the local papers.

The five notebooks were continuously updated and expanded by Van Voris and given to what he considered reference facilities. As a result of his updating habit, the notebooks didn’t all have the same content and by 1980 they all had been lost or stolen. Fortunately, the regional Mohawk-Hudson Grotto of the National Speleological Society borrowed one notebook in 1970, retyped it, and put out a limited edition of the publication, thus saving its important contents.

Van Voris’s brother-in-law, Edward Rew, was one of those early cavers and most likely no stranger to smoke blowing. One or more of the notebooks had Rew’s account of a solo trip he took one night during a dry season when water levels were extremely low. He explored Veen Fliet’s Cave on the Schoharie Creek near the village of the same name, and he claimed he went on and on a great distance only to turn back when he realized he was alone with only one flashlight, or some such. He never could get back to the cave and delayed telling the story for years. (More about this later.)

Was Lester’s deathbed description of finding a “larger and more beautiful” cave his own? Interestingly, Howe’s last utterance only first appears in Van Voris’s newspaper articles in the 1930s and hadn’t been found previously. But remember, Lester was a rascal and could have said it only to perplex future generations!

And now, the Finger of Geology

The northeast has raised many speleologists who have gone on to national and international acclaim. Geologists are quick to note the lineal nature of the fractures and fissures in the area’s bedrock limestones, and how cave passages were often created from them. That they “lined up” hints the passages might continue beyond any obstacle that blocked them along these major and minor joint patterns. Could new cave passages—maybe even the Garden of Eden—be found by following the joint patterns?

The most obvious case was roughly a mile of large trunk passage in McFail’s Cave, collectively the NW and SE passages, lining up closely with about a mile of similar passage in Howe Caverns, i.e., Lester Howe’s Cave.

**LARGE PASSAGE IN McFAIL’S CAVE.** *Cave photos for this article by Art Palmer, Oneonta.*

On a bearing of N47W, these two large passages are truncated by a valley cut by glaciers 100,000 years ago.

Extend that bearing to S47E and it points at a geological feature called Terrace Mountain. This a plateau of mostly limestone left after twoseparate streams cut around it. The south is bound by the Schoharie Creek and the geologically younger east side is bound by the Cobleskill Creek.

Terrace Mountain has another important link to our story. It was home to Lester Howe’s Garden of Eden farm, where he settled sometime around 1870 after selling his beloved (first?) cave, and the site became an epicenter of Lester weirdness and other tall tales and rumors we won’t get into here.

Extending that compass bearing from McFail’s through the trunk of Howe’s Cave through Terrace Mountain, with some imagination and a slightly flexible straightedge, it leads to Rew’s findings in Veen Fliet’s Cave. And it comes close to some smaller caves and pits on Terrace Mountain as well.

So naturally, one could assume this is the Finger of Geology pointing out where cavers should go to look for the fabled cave! Rew, also known for some good-natured prevarication, hinted that it was.

By the 1950s, a group of enthusiastic cavers in the Tri-County Grotto from Oneonta in neighboring Otsego County, worked the Schoharie County caves hard and produced amazing and strange discoveries. A young Cliff Foreman was making a name for himself as part of that group. Again, I refer to Cudmore’s books documenting this.

Forward to the “Golden Caving Age” of the 1960s in the northeast and the presence of three brilliant pranksters: Dave Beiter, Steve Egemeirer and again, Cliff Foreman. To the urban, sophisticated new cavers coming out of New York City and New Jersey, these rural “Super Cavers” appeared to be easy sources of information on the caves and geology of Schoharie County. The newcomers assumed they could simply flatter their rural experts and pump them with questions to find their way around the cave country.

The game wasn’t going to be that easy.

Dave would pull out his topographic maps and Steve, a professional geologist with the USGS, would run his finger from McFail’s to Howe and on to Terrace Mountain and Veen Fliet’s, all the time chattering on about “the Finger of Geology” and tapping along the line on the map. (I witnessed this procedure several times and apparently none of the newer cavers ever got the joke or the information. I was 22 at the time.)

And the fun part of this “game” was for Dave, Steve, and Cliff to take on different roles in the farce. Any one of them was capable of spinning the yarn or asking leading questions to hint at the fabled cave’s possible location. Dave went so far one year as to indicate a fabricated location for the Garden of Eden on a map, and then leave the rolled-up map where the other group might find it. Sure enough, next year a dig was underway at the very spot.

Dave, Steve and Cliff have passed, but the rumor they helped spread persists 135 years after Howe’s death. True or not, it certainly has been a driving force in caving the northeast. I think Cudmore in his book, Underground Empires, expressed the dream and drive best. “There, in a vast room miles into the hillside, set among abundant crystal-like formations, the explorers may find chiseled in the limestone wall or written in soot from an oil-burning lamp: “Garden of Eden Cave. Discovered 1855 by L. Howe.

Bob Addis, a retired engineer living is Scotia, New York, is a long-time northeastern caver, former Howe Caverns tour guide, and past member of the board of governors of the National Speleological Society. His MBA thesis on the management of Knox Cave in Albany County led to the creation of the Northeastern Cave Conservancy in 1978. One of the conservancy’s three founding members, he served as president of that organization for 38 years.

He has managed several caves open to the public, and explored wild caves across the US, and in Germany, Mexico, and South Africa.

AN UNSUNG HERO OF THE HOWE CAVERNS TRAGEDY

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Calls for Help Nearly Overwhelmed Small Bramanville Telephone Exchange

Thursday, April 24, 1930, was a dark day in the long history of Howe Caverns, Inc. The cave’s chief electrician Owen Wallis and caverns’ corporation secretary John Sagendorf died in the cave under baffling circumstances. They collapsed in the early morning hours near the postcard-worthy formation, “The Bell of Moscow.”

When the two men failed to return that morning, a third was sent into the cave to find why. This 25-year-old tour guide returned alone minutes later, warning of “poisonous gases,” fell out of the elevator, and then collapsed, later recovering in an Albany hospital.

That warning set off a chaotic series of efforts to rescue and revive the men. Those efforts, as well as the investigation and court case that followed, are captured in my April 2024 book, The Cave electrician’s Widow: The Tragedy at Howe Caverns and Dramatic Courtroom Fight for Justice.

The local emergency squads were unequipped to handle the response, and calls for help went out across the region. The news quickly spread.

One of the first to hear of the growing emergency was 37-year-old Elizabeth “Louise” Millspaugh, the operator at the Bramanville Telephone Exchange, operating from the switchboard in her home nearby. Except for the 200-plus subscribers at the 20-year-old telephone exchange, all calls were long distance, and required Louise—her friends called her “Eliza” —to patch forward the desperate calls from the caverns’ lodge to the long-distance operator. There was no guarantee the number would go through; it may take several attempts.

As the news spread, the Bramanville Exchange was deluged with calls from friends and neighbors of Wallis and Sagendorf. “Newspaper men” from the Capital Region and beyond were also calling, and repeatedly, for updates.

They all went through Eliza’s line.

Eliza would have been 37 at the time. With her husband Earl, they purchased the Bramanville Telephone Exchange in 1923 from its founder, Palmer Slingerland, a Town of Cobleskill supervisor and well-known Bramanville business owner.

The switchboard was in her home in the small hamlet (pop. less than a 1,000) on the road to the cave. Eliza not only knew the victims and their families but must have also heard every siren racing by. She could anxiously count the minutes from the time of her call to the time the ambulance passed.

The day began just before the 5 a.m. sunrise when a planned blast at the North American Cement Plant in Howes Cave knocked 60,000 tons of limestone from the hillside southeast of the cave. It ended as the sun was setting, after hours of resuscitation efforts and Wallis and Sagendorf were declared dead. “Unknown causes” were cited by the medical professionals at the scene.

In its extensive front-page coverage of the tragedy, The Schoharie Republican, gave pause to recognize Eliza Millspaugh as an “unsung heroine,” the telephone operator through whose exchange all calls to and from the caverns lodge had to pass that day.

“Exhausted, Mrs. Millspaugh sat for hours through a torrent of calls which would have overwhelmed an exchange of thrice the capacity of the one she manned. Her aged father cared for her little granddaughter during the tremendous strain under which she labored in doing her bit in the effort to save the lives of two men.”

Parts taken from The Cave electrician’s Widow: The Tragedy at Howe Caverns and Dramatic Courtroom Fight for Justice.

FIVE DAYS & A CAVE TOUR – UNDER $17!

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This website’s blog post, “Howe’s Cave & The Railroad,” (Sept. 2023 archive) offers readers a brief history of the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad, its impact on the cave, and a few insights on traveling the rail-line in the second half of the 19^th Century to arrive at Howe’s Cave. (The steamboat image was likely typical of those that served NY’s Hudson River.)

**A flier for the A&S, circa 1875, showing stops and fares, at 3 cents per mile.**

Getting to Howe’s Cave was an adventure in and of itself, one that few travelers of today might be willing to undertake.

Here are two newspaper accounts from that period describing the journey by Hudson River steamboat and then rail.

“The New Yorker reaches it by traversing a lovely route if he takes the steamer Albany or C. Vibbard, enjoys the scenery of the peerless Hudson by daylight, a night’s rest in our capital city, and a morning ride to the cave over the line of the Albany and Susquehanna railroad.

“There are few railroads in our country that possess for so many miles such interest and variety as this, extending to Binghamton,142 miles from Albany, and following the valleys of three streams —the Schoharie, the Cobleskill, and the Susquehanna.

“During the first thirty-one miles we pass through the pleasing Villages of Adamsville¹, Slingerlands, New Scotland, Knowersville², Duanesburgh, Quaker Street (formerly a Quaker settlement) and Esperance, the site of which village was purchased in 1800 by Gen. William North and named by him from a French word signifying hope. It was incorporated April 1832.

“At Central Bridge, five miles farther on, is the junction with the branch road for Schoharie Court House and Middleburgh. and a quarter of an hour later the “Howe’s Cave!” of the brakeman causes a scramble for baggage and a hasty exit from the car to the little station near the mouth of the Wonderous Caverns.”

—The Albany Argus August 29, 1881

**One of Albany’s finest hotels of the late 1800s, *The Delevan* sat across from the busy train depot and Hudson River port in the state’s capitol.**

And an Oneida County newspaper describes what it’s like at the journey’s end.

“Directly in the front of the station, on a rising ground with an easy grade, stands the beautiful Pavilion Hotel, with an open lawn in front and lovely flowers and shady groves to the right, improved by walks, seats, swings and recreation ground inviting to pleasure. The house is first-class in every particular, provided with all the modern improvements, and nothing is left undone that would render guests comfortable and happy.

“The manager, C. H. Ramsey, is a gentleman of rare ability, sociable, easy in his manners and well calculated to please his patrons. Still added to all these attractions there is a natural curiosity—the wonderful Howe’ s Cave.” —The Clinton Courier, June 15, 1887

Five Days for Under $17

As the first writer suggests, the steamboat ride from New York City to Albany took enough of the day to require an overnight stay in the Capitol. The steamer ticket was likely between $2 and $2.50, which would also be about to the cost of an overnight stay in one of Albany’s finer hotels near the train station.

The next morning, a jostling, 39-mile ride on the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad—with water stops about every 10 miles—took travelers to the Howes Cave depot. From Albany, the price of a one-way trip was $1.17; from the other end of the line, Harpersfield in Broome County, an 81-mile trip cost $2.67.

If a traveler was lucky, he or she could catch an early-morning cave tour and be back above ground in time for a late evening train back to Albany. That was uncommon, and most visitors would have opted for a stay at the Pavilion Hotel at $2.50 per night, leaving early the next day to catch the NYC-bound steamer at the Port of Albany.

For a New York City resident of the late 1800s, a visit to Howe’s Cave was at least a four-day affair, more likely five or six. The estimated cost, not including meals or taxes, would be for the Steamboat, round-trip from NYC, $4.50; Rail fare, round-trip, Albany to Howes Cave, $2.40; Overnight hotel stay in Albany, $2.50; Cave tour, $1.00; Two nights at the Pavilion Hotel in Howes Cave, $5.00, for a total of $16.40.

¹A small community in the northeastern section of what is today Lansingburgh.

²Altamont

CAVE COUNTRY SHORTS

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HULDAH ANN HOWE AND HENRY NORTHRUP WED IN CAVE

Another Marriage in Howe’s Cave—Howe’s Cave, in Schoharie Country, was recently the scene of a marriage ceremony.

On the 9^th last, at 10 o’clock at night, Henry M. Northrup, of New York, and Huldah A. Howe, daughter of the proprietor of the cave, were joined in wedlock by Rev. Dr. Wells of Schoharie.

The cave was brilliantly illuminated. After the ceremony, there was a display of fireworks in the cave which was at once pleasing and grand.

This, we believe, is the second ceremony performed by Dr. Wells in Howe’s Cave. The first was determined upon the moment; the second had been previously arranged – hence the illumination, fireworks, and other “fixings.”—The Buffalo Daily News, Aug. 28, 1854

CONTRACTOR LEADS IN RESCUE OF HOWES CAVE WORKERS, TRAPPED BY FLOOD

Howes Cave, April 21—When the stream running from the subterranean lake in Howes Cave here rose suddenly, fourteen men engaged in laying out paths through the cavern were almost cut off from the exit through a temporary shaft late yesterday.

They were aid[ed] to safety by Roger Mallery, contractor in charge.

The men were at work in a passage but four feet high and seventy-five feet from the surface when the rising water threatened to bar their way out. Two of the party reached the shaft and informed Mallery of their fears that their comrades would not be able to get out.

Mallery, seizing a handline and descending through the swirling waters to the higher level where his men were at work, and one by one, they were guided to the shaft.

None was reported any worse for this experience.

Howes Cave, which was once one of the wonders of the eastern United States, and was visited annually by thousands of tourists, has been closed for more than a score of years.

An organization of capitalists was recently formed under the name Howe Caverns, Inc. to seek a new way to the cave about a mile north of the original entrance and to again invite the attention of tourists.

Two shifts of workers have been engaged for several weeks in sinking the main shaft to the cave on the farm of John Sagendorf and the work of restoring the paths through the cave is practically completed.

To facility the work, a temporary shaft was sunk a few hundred feet north of the original entrance. —The Schoharie Republican, April 28, 1928

THE ORCHESTRA STARTS AT 9

During the first two years of business for Howe Caverns, Inc., owners supplemented the $1.50 cave tours by opening the new, picturesque lodge overlooking the valley for ballroom dancing most Friday nights during the off-season. 50 cents for ladies, 75 cents for gentlemen.

The dances were likely meant to be a class affair, initiated by the Syracuse men who organized the caverns’ corporation, held lots of stock, and managed the day-to-day operations.

The “opening dance at the lodge was Friday July 26, 1929, with respectable hours of from 9 p.m. to midnight.

Ladies and gentlemen could dance to the music of Loren Cross and his orchestra, nnder the direction of Leo M. Snell, all of Syracuse. The director’s ballroom, said the caverns’ publicity, “is the finest private ballroom in the state.”

Of course, music at the cave, or rather in the cave, was nothing new. Lester Howe was known for his occasional subterranean violin playing, and the Howes Cave Association hosted performances in the cave’s “Music Room.” —The Cobleskill Index, July 28, 1929

1928 WEDDING CHRISTENS NEW OWNERS’ NEW BRIDAL ALTAR

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The first wedding underground in Howe’s Cave may have taken place as early as 1852, as noted in my book, Underground Empires. The Howe children—Huldah, Harriet, and Halsey—were all married in the cave around that time, and weddings undoubtedly continued on a sporadic basis right up until about 1900, when the cave’s owners at the time discouraged the day-long tours.

Howe Caverns, Inc. was formed in 1927 and developed the back half of the cave as a tourist destination with an elevator entrance, electric lights, brick baths and handrails. The bridal chamber opened by the Howes was near the cave’s old entrance and not owned by the caverns’ corporation, so the new cave owners went about creating their own, naming it the “Bridal Altar.”

**Howe Caverns’ Bridal Altar – an artist’s rendition from a 1950s brochure.**

This new Bridal Altar’s key feature is a heart of pure white, translucent calcite illuminated from below, and intended for couples to stand on while taking their vows.

The first wedding in the new Howe Caverns took place before the cave was open to the public in 1929. The story, written for the press by the corporation’s boastfully eloquent publicist, follows. Here it is still referred to as the “bridal chamber,” not altar.

From The Cobleskill Index, Thursday, May 24, 1928

Bridal Chamber in Howe Cavern Again Scene of Wedding Ceremony

The marriage of Roger Henry Mallery of Owego, N.Y., to Margaret May Provost of Howes Cave, was solemnized in the Bridal Chamber of Howe Caverns on Thursday night. May 10th, 1928, at 11:30 o’clock.

The beautiful ring service was performed i by the Rev. Fred M. Hagadorn, pastor of the Cobleskill Methodist Church, in the presence of Mrs. Louise Provost, mother of ‘the bride; Francis Provost, brother of the bride, and John J. Sagendorf. of Howes Cave.

It was one of the most unique romantic weddings which has ever taken place in this section of the state.

Deep within the silent vaults of this second largest cavern in the world; far beyond all sound of the familiar world above: where the mighty grandeur of the World’s Supreme Architect dwindles the efforts of man into insignificance: here where He first saw the pattern of nave and groined ceiling; there the column, pedestal and capital were reared countless ages e’er man came to be; here where earth’s mightiest Cathedral—in contrast grows small, the clergyman’s voice broke the awful silence as he spoke the marriage ritual.

**A picturesque view from the Bridal altar, looking into Titan’s Temple**

The bridal party stood in the great balcony of Titan’s mighty Temple. Before them was the exquisitely beautiful “Lake of the Fairies” where stalactite formations are inverted in perfect reflections. Just at the left of the groom was the “Fountain of Somnus” glowing in its sleep. Back of them stretched the vast reaches of the Temple of this giant of the gods of mythology whose unbroken ceiling is probably the largest in existence. Here, great masses of calcite crystallization witnessed for the first time the sparkle of the queen of their kind as the nuptial ring glistened when placed on the finger of the bride. All of the lesser crystals must have blushed at the presence of their perfected sisterhood of gems, shining forth from the tremulous finger of she who was promising.

Vows plighted and promises made in the presence of such might and majesty; witnessed thus by symbols of eternity, cannot be broken or forgotten.

The bride who has spent her life near the great cavern is a graduate of Cobleskill High school, class of 1922, followed by a post-graduate course in the same school. Graduated from the New York State College for Teachers at Albany in 1927. specializing in French and English.

During the past year she has been a student in The American Academy of Dramatic Art, Carnegie Hall building in New York, the oldest institution of its kind in America. Later she specialized in dramatic art under the special instruction of Helen B. Carey. She also studied piano under J. Austin Springer.

Roger Henry Mallery is a member of Signi Pi Fraternity of Cornell University and is a civil engineer of marked ability. Among the great engineering feats of his career has been the re-conditioning of Howe Caverns.

The bridal couple spent their honeymoon in Albany, Philadelphia, Atlantic City.

Immediately upon their return, Mr. Mallery received the contract for the construction of the bridge at Schoharie, to replace the one which collapsed a few weeks ago.

The bride was the recipient of many valuable gifts while the groom was remembered by the employees of the cavern with a service of solid silver.

Their wedding was of outstanding interest and the prospects of a long, happy, and useful life stretch out before them through the vistas of the coming years.

—Chauncey Rickard

CARVED HEART OF CALCITE MARKS THE SPOT

On page 84 of Underground Empires is the version which ran in The Cobleskill Times, a competitor to the newspaper who carried the above. I’m sure the editor thought “I’m not running this gibberish” when Chauncey handed him his account of the wedding.

Also, it sounds as if Mallery’s no longer works at the cave, although construction underground continued, often in two shifts, for all of 1928 and early 1929.

The Mallery descendants say that Roger, Sr. was responsible for carving the calcite heart in the new Bridal Altar, as a symbol of his love for his young bride. Tour guides at Secret Caverns say the sizeable chunk of calcite for the heart was broken from a formation at their cave, known as ‘frozen Niagara.” That seems unlikely, as Mallery, Sr. was making plans to show Secret Caverns to the public around that same time.

For more information/recommended reading: UNDERGROUND EMPIRES: Two Centuries of Exploration, Adventure & enterprise in NY’s Cave Country

A CENTURY LATER, PROF. COOK’S ‘MYSTERY CAVER’ IS REVEALED

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Author Clay Perry, a light bulb moment, and a quick Google search solved cavers’ decades-old mystery, “Who is Professor Cook’s mystery man in several of his 1905 photos?”

19 LIMESTONE CAVES IN EASTERN NY STUDIED

Professor John C. Cook produced “Limestone Caverns of Eastern New York” for the 60th annual report of the New York State Museum. published in 1906. His report documents the karst development of the Onondaga, Becraft and the Manlius limestones in Schoharie and Albany counties. He produced nine maps with surveyor James. F. Loughran, and 40 photos on 4×5” glass-plate negatives¹, with his brother, Harry C. Cook.

In all, Prof. Cook mentions 19 caves, most of them familiar to cavers of the northeast.

“The work was prosecuted with vigor though it was arduous and venturesome, involving risks to persons which few would care to take,” wrote Museum Director John M. Clarke. He was evidently pleased with the work of the Cook team: “The results have been entirely satisfactory. . .”

Cook’s work in old Howe’s Cave is particularly noteworthy. His map of the cave’s portions that were lost to quarrying is all historians have to help recreate the famous cave in its entirely. With the report are several photos of the cave’s outstanding features prior to its 1929 development and reopening as Howe Caverns, Inc.

Perhaps the most well-known photo from Cook’s report is of a solitary young man in muddy duck-bibbed coveralls and beaten pork-pie hat, his eyes closed, resting next to a huge and beautiful stalagmite. Twenty-plus years later, Howe Caverns’ developers placed this formation—nearly 12 feet high—upright on a solid base and named it “The Chinese Pagoda.”

The photo has been well used. I’ve used it in both my books on the cave, and it was turned into an historic souvenir postcard sold in the caverns’ gift shop.

The mystery caver has always been described as “unidentified.” His image shows up in several of the younger Cook’s photos in the report (some with his eyes open). At various times, it’s been suggested this mystery man was a hired laborer mentioned in a 1906 newspaper account or a knowledgeable local caver acting as a guide, or maybe even a young D.C. Robinson of Knox Cave fame. But who is he?

AHA!

Surveyor James. F. Loughran rests against the ‘Chinese Pagoda’ in Howe Caverns during a surveying trip in 1905. The name of this caver who accompanied Prof. John C. Cook for the State Museum was lost to history, until recently.

I was reading again through Clay Perry’s 1948 Underground Empire², chapter 10, page 98, and he credits (and names) Prof. Cook, his surveyor Loughran, and photographer Harry Cook.

THE LIGHTBULB MOMENT: The lightbulb went on over my head: The photographer is not taking pictures of himself! My palm hit my face.

And so, a five-minute Google search found James F. Loughran (1884-1954) on the history page of the New York Bridge Authority, here: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=164465

Loughran’s bio notes he was chairman of the state Bridge Authority from 1949 until his death. He was a civil engineering graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a master’s degree in highway engineering from Columbia University.

His bio confirms: “after a brief stint surveying caves for the New York Geologist’s office,” he was appointed Ulster County superintendent of Highways. Loughran held the job for 44 years and became “widely known as an expert on rural roads.”

Our “mystery caver” would have been 21 years old at time of Cook’s survey. There’s a photo of the older Loughran on the website, and although hard to reproduce, it is clearly one and the same man.

# # #

¹Specials thanks to Chuck Porter of Troy for his work with the Cook photos and invaluable help with this article. Porter and the late Jack Middleton saved the photos from Cook’s work from relative obscurity in the bowels of the NYS Museum and painstakingly reproduced them for the 21st Century. In the mid-1990s, Jack was working with the museum’s Geological Survey and had access to the original 4 x 5-inch glass plate negatives.

Writes Chuck: “Jack and I placed these glass plates on a light table at the museum and took close-up photos with 35mm SLR cameras held on tripods. Attempts to print from these closeups with film techniques at that time were very disappointing, but years later, digitally scanning the filmstrips—and then adjusting with Photoshop—made a huge difference. I processed 40 plates in all.”

²Not to be confused with my book, titled in homage, Underground Empires: (plural) Two Centuries of Exploration, Adventure & Enterprise in NY’s Cave Country.

FDR’s 1930 CAVE VISIT SPARKS LIFETIME MEMORY FOR YOUNG BOY

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Town of Esperance Historian Ken Jones shares a story from his files from the Dale Family, whose father, retired USMC Major Frederick H. Dale, cherishes a boyhood memory of serving then-Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt an ice cream cone at a 1930 Farm Bureau picnic at Howe Caverns. Dale was 12 at the time.

Born in 1917 in Albany to the late Frederick Sheldon Dale, Jr. and Mildred (Hunter), the younger Dale spent his youth in Esperance with his mother and stepfather, William Montanye, and graduated Cobleskill High School in 1936.

Gov. Roosevelt drew a huge crowd to the August 22, 1930, Farm Bureau picnic in the Howe Caverns’ parking lot. Frederick—he often went by F. H.—got the job selling ice cream cones through his Aunt Blanche, then the Schoharie County Clerk, the first woman to hold the job, elected in 1919.

**The 1930 Farm Bureau Picnic at Howe Caverns. The guest speaker was then-governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. The lodge is in the background, left.**

Meeting the governor and future president became a lifetime memory for Major Dale. And while a career in the Marines took him around the world, he often returned to Esperance throughout his lifetime for the Memorial Day parade, and services at the church and cemetery.

Dale’s path crossed with FDR again. He was with the Marine Corps’ detachment that in April 1945, marched in the funeral procession through the nation’s Capital for the late President Roosevelt—the man the young Dale had sold an ice cream cone to 15 years earlier.

Dale enlisted in the Marines in February 1942 and participated in both the Guadalcanal and Bougainville Island campaigns, followed by a tour of duty in Japan as part of the Marine occupation force. Following WWII, Major Dale served briefly in Korea and later on an extended tour of duty in Vietnam.

Major Dale died in February 2009, in Charlotte, NC, predeceased by his wife Olga. His two sons, Thomas Hunter Dale and William Jessen Dale and their families live in Florida and North Carolina, respectively.

Major F. H. Dale is buried in the Esperance Cemetery.

Included in Esperance Historian Jones files on the Dale family was a transcript of the Aug. 23 news article on Gov. Roosevelt’s appearance at Howe Caverns. The article is attributed to a “special” correspondent. In this case, it was Virgil Clymer, then the general manager at the cave. Minor edits have been made for clarity.

From The Albany Evening News:

Aid to Farms Cited by Roosevelt

Governor at Howe Cavern Picnic Tells of Lower Taxation

Special to the Albany Evening News

COBLESKILL, Aug. 22 —The government of New York state is “farm minded,” Governor Roosevelt declared in an address before 5.000 farmers gathered yesterday at Howe Caverns for the fourteenth annual picnic of the Schoharie County Farm Bureau.

This attitude of the state government, he attributed in a large measure, [is due] to the study and work of the agricultural advisory committee appointed just prior to his inauguration.

Some political significance was given by Republican leaders to the Governor’s address by the presence of Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., a member the Governor’s Advisory Committee and Democratic candidate for the Schoharie seat in the Assembly. Mr. Van Wagenen introduced the Governor.

The Governor said that as the result of the committee’s work, the state no longer receives support from taxes on the farmer’s property. These go to local governments only.

“It is a simple but interesting fact that it was not until the appointment of by me of the Agricultural Advisory Committee before I was inaugurated that any definite study of farm conditions or any definite program of relief and improvement of existing conditions had been undertaken in a generation,” [said Roosevelt].

The committee found that the tax burden in this state bore unfairly and unequally on the farmer.

The result was recommendations by the Governor which the Legislature carried through under which the burden of farm taxes was reduced approximately $30,000,000 a year.

Another part of the program consists in increased appropriations by the state for what is best described as the functions of government in improving agricultural conditions.

During each of the past two years apportionment of appropriations to agricultural fairs has been increased from $250,000 to $375,000.

Special thanks to Esperance Historian Jones for his contribution to this Cave Country blog post.

MEMORIES OF A CAVE COUNTRY BOYHOOD

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Editor’s Note: Jim Muller spent his formative years in the heart of NY’s Cave Country. Born in 1953, he grew up on his family’s dairy farm adjacent to the Howe Caverns estate and its well-manicured quarter-mile drive up the hill to its picturesque lodge overlooking the valley to the west.

Like other kids in the Howes Cave area, the cave’s history and tales of the lost Garden of Eden cave became part of their school-age play. Jim knew there were plenty of other caves in the area as well and explored several while attending Schoharie Central High School.

Jim lived adjacent to Howe Caverns during its heyday as a tourist attraction, when more than 2,000 visitors (often more) came daily during the summer months. Then open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. a steady stream of vehicles wound along the two-lane road from the main highway, past the Muller farm and up the hill to the cave entrance. (Jim wasn’t allowed to learn to ride a bike until into his late teens; his mother fearful of the out-of-town traffic.)

Dave Reynolds and Jim Muller riding “Nip” and “Tuck” in this slightly blurry photo from 1961. The photo at the top of the page is 13-year-old Jim atop “Duke,” at right. At left is an unidentified college friend of Jim’s older sister, seated on “Tuck” – during her first visit to a farm and to ride a horse.

Fortunately for the reader, Underground Empires: Two Centuries of Exploration, Adventure, and Enterprise in NY’s Cave Country brought back many fond memories for Jim, and he shared them with the author.

By JIM MULLER (From jimmuller.com, Oct. 29, 2021)

I just finished reading Underground Empires about Howe Caverns and I have enjoyed it immensely. I don’t know if the feeling of nostalgia is due to my recent 50th year Schoharie Central High School reunion or that I could relate to so many of the people and places described in the book.

It has been a splendid read and I wrote a letter to the author. Dana Cudmore, who was a year behind me at Schoharie Central and worked as a guide at Howe Caverns with my brother Robert. I wrote a letter to Dana about all my memories which Dana labelled as a “Cave Country Boyhood.”

From the early 1950s until the mid-1960s my family owned a dairy farm which abutted Howe Caverns’ property. Surrounding our farm was land owned by the Nethaway, VanNatten and Sagendorf families. As a pre-teen I drove a team of horses for the Nethaways; I learned to ice skate on Jimmy VanNatten’s pond, My sister Barbara was (and still is) best friends with Hope Sagendorf, and my other sister Jeanne, attended school prom with John Sagendorf.

My dad used to cut hay from Howe Caverns’ land. Each Spring, when my father would till new fields, we would pick rock and joke that moving the really big ones would lead us to the lost Garden of Eden cave. In 1958, the Caverns made a promotional film which used some of our family farm and four cows. [I have an old picture that] shows an actor and cameraman setting up along a stone fence line for some “farmer wisdom” describing the 1842 discovery of Howe’s Cave.

Locally, us kids had a horse posse that included Bobby Beavers, Joyce Nethaway, Hope Sagendorf and occasionally Carolyn Rehberg. When my ponies escaped, we would frequently find them at the Caverns. mooching treats and affection from the tourists. One of the reasons I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 18 was due to proximity to Howe Caverns. With no shoulders along the country roads, my parents were certain if I was riding a bike I would get hit by a tourist. So, from age 5 on they entrusted my fate to “Nip,” my pony. I guess they figured his sense of self-preservation would extend to me as well.

My parents played cards with ‘Bud’ Tillison, owner of the Luncheonette and Grocery Store in the Howes Cave hamlet. I recall it only having three small tables. I remember Bud giving me ice cream while he and my dad visited and as a youngster, I felt it couldn’t get any better. Carolyn (Rehberg) Schlegel says she could recall that Bud designated a spot to tie a horse while the kids went into the store to buy a treat.

I see Carolyn often, playing senior’s volleyball and was telling her of Dana’s Underground Empires. The Rehberg family was active in Yo-Sco-Haro Riding Club and served as 4-H leaders, The Rehberg farm was located at (or near) the site of Lester Howe’s farm and the suspected Garden of Eden. Carolyn relayed a story told by her father Albert (Al), that when blasting was done for I-88, one of the blasts sounded a different ‘thump’ associated with settling earth. [Could it have been collapsing into a large cave? – ed.]

When I was 13 my family sold the farm to Lester Hay and built a house across the Schoharie Creek from Terrace Mountain. Bill Dodge, the Schoharie biology teacher, sponsored our informal outing club, –the Schoharie Pit-Plunging and Cliff-Climbing Club. We undertook activities on Terrace Mountain and Partridge Run and canoed Schoharie Creek and raced canoes on the Susquehanna.

Lester Hay later married my sister, Jeanne and fathered Mark and Matthew Hay who worked as tour guides at the caverns. In fact, many of us worked at the cavern. My sisters, Barbara and Jeanne worked at the snack bar. My cousin Karen Muller worked there as well. It was during my sophomore year in high school that I joined the largest guides’ class ever assembled at the caverns and was trained by Don Reynolds.

As a junior and senior (SCS Class of 1971) I went caving with Bill Dodge and other friends, exploring Ball’s, Knox, Veen Fliet’s, Spider, Benson, and Przysiecki caves.

Somewhere in the late 1970s my brother Robert, father Clifford and brother-in-law Lester Hay salvaged an engine and winch which was used to clear the sinkhole known as the “Sinks by the Sugarbush.” Fifty-gallon drums, punctured to allow water to drain, were lowered for men and gear as well as to pull out the collapsed rock as they tried to clean it out. We were always told they found some of Lester Howe’s items in a grotto near or at the sink. We believe the engine and winch that were there dated back to late 20s or early ’30s as the engine was a ’20s vintage. It was a six horsepower “Novo” with a capstan for rope and drum for cable.

Underground Empires has been a real joy to read. I feel blessed that I was able to grow up in the prosperous heydays of Howe Caverns and the book enabled many pleasant memories for me.

Jim Muller retired in 2021 after careers in GIS management and in information technology systems and management. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geography from SUNY Oneonta and a master’s degree in planning from the University of Washington in Seattle.

He and his wife, Kathryn, raised three children and reside in Holland Patent, New York, just outside the boundaries of the Adirondack Park. They have three grandchildren.

Jim has several lifelong interests and now shares them with his family. They include “back country” canoeing, winter camping, and raising Quarter horses. He also enjoys basketball, volleyball, and pickleball.

MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

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How Two Early Show Cave Promoters Pitched Potential Investors

Two of Schoharie County’s hardest-working cave entrepreneurs had bigger dreams than they were able to realize in the early days of the area’s show cave boom.

**SHhhhhh, , , ,It’s a Secret! The Elves promoted Secret Caverns in the 1930s on billboards and in brochures. There were three caves open to the public until the 1950s, and compeition was tough.**

Roger H. Mallery, Sr., the owner of Secret Caverns, and Delevan Clarke—”D.C.” or “Dellie” — Robinson, owner of Knox Cave, both boldly announced plans that, if brought to fruition, would have changed forever the business of touring caves in upstate New York.

Competition was tough. They faced Howe Caverns, famous for almost a century, and a bigger, more decorative cave, run by a well-heeled corporation with a big advertising budget.

The opening of Secret Caverns in August 1929 (late in the tourist season) wasn’t greeted with a lot of fanfare. About 100 people toured the cave, most likely family, and friends of the owner.

Mallery’s operating budget for Secret Caverns for the following season was probably as strained as any first-year business. Undaunted, he wrote “In spite of the fact that lack of capital has permitted little advertising, ground improvements, building construction, or conveniences for public comfort, Secret Caverns were visited during the season of 1930 by several thousands of people who were astonished to find that there existed in this section of the county such a truly merited natural wonder.”

That was the opening pitch in a sizeable ad that ran in January 1931 to announce the sale of $200,000 worth of stock in Secret Caverns. The ad ran several times in the Schoharie Republican and Cobleskill Index, the two local weekly newspapers.

In comparison, Howe Caverns, Inc. (in which Mallery owned about five percent of the stock) was capitalized at $225,000.

Mallery offered 5,000 shares of stock in Secret Caverns to raise funds for ambitious plans that included:

**ROGER MALLERY,** Developer of Secret Caverns

Opening “recently-discovered, large, beautiful chambers”
Creating a second entrance at the end of the cave, “so that several thousands of people can be handled orderly and efficiently each day”
Enlarging and completing the entrance lodge, including a “large new pavilion.” (An artist’s sketch of the “Cavern Cabin” is included in a 1930 brochure.)
Landscaping the grounds to “made as attractive as possible.”

“But by far the biggest undertaking,” Mallery continued, “will be an advertising campaign handled by experts that is certain to attract many tens of thousands of visitors annually.”

It is easy to admire some of the bravado of a show cave showman. Mallery adds: “It was the general opinion among those familiar with the more important caverns of the country, that Secret Caverns is without exception one of the finest and most interesting attractions of its kind in the north.

Then humbly, and without mentioning the competition by name, Mallery closes the pitch: “We have faith in and believe that the people of this community are broadminded and big enough to give their support to more than one of their caverns, providing they are satisfied that it is worthy.”

History doesn’t publicly record how well stock in Secret Caverns sold. The cave today is still a Mallery-family company, now it its third generation.

Mallery also tried to open Schoharie Caverns, off Shutters Corners Road between Schoharie and Gallupville. He announced the opening in September 1935, but a severe storm and flooding closed the cave almost immediately after and the project was abandoned. The story is told in my book, “Underground Empires: Two Centuries of Exploration, Adventure, and Enterprise in NY’s Cave Country.”

Gambler Wanted

“Wanted – A Gambler,” announced Dellie Robinson in late January 1947 in the Cobleskill Index.

Robinson had run Knox Cave nearby in Albany County for the dozen years prior and must have felt it was time to expand his empire. He too had his eyes on Schoharie Caverns.

/A young **DELEVAN CLARKE ROBINSON**, developer of Knox Cave, Albany County

Robinson started by convincing the owner to sell the cave, cave [surface] rights and 20 surrounding acres. The owners (likely the Cook Family at that time), agreed to the sale for $3,500 cash. That’s about $46,500 today.

“I have studied this cave and its floods for 17 years and believe that I can develop it.” Robinson’s ad read.

He described the deal: “I will give any person, or group, who will buy and own and permit me to develop and operate, a royalty of 10 cents each on the first 100,000 admissions,” adding a caveat: “if they will agree to deed the property to me when they receive the $10,000 [the total of royalties on 100,000 admissions] in full.”

In exchange, Robinson would develop the cave, and pay all operating and advertising costs. He didn’t provide an estimate of what those costs might be.

Royalties would be paid monthly, Robinson stipulated, and closed, “Your only gamble is in time it takes to draw 100,000 paid admissions to that cave.”

Robinson never found his gambler. About eight years later Attorney James Gage purchased the well-known wild cave, developed it, and may have opened it in July 1958. It closed almost immediately. That story is also told in “Underground Empires.”

Today the property is the Schoharie Caverns Nature Preserve of the National Speleological Society.”

POSTED SEPT. 29, 2023