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.
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 19th 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.
The article that follows captures a transformative moment in the 150-plus year history of the cement industry in Howes Cave. It documents the creation of the Helderberg Cement Company and the company’s plans to end production of Rosendale, or “natural” cement, to move to the preferred “Portland” cement. Doing so allowed the company to close the underground mines and move above ground to quarry the high-level, calcium rich limestone strata.
This adds considerable detail to the story told in “Unearthing Howes Cave: A Community and a Quarry from 1842 on,” which appears as Section II of Underground Empires.
PHOTO SHOWS ENTRANCE TO NATURAL CEMENT MINE AT HOWES CAVE, BOTTOM CENTER.
Reproduced here is the article as it appeared in The Cobleskill Index, March 8, 1898. as well as the Albany Argus, Feb. 27, 1898.
NEW CEMENT CO. ■ Howes Cave Booming
Two Cement Companies Consolidated. Important Discovery of Clay and Limestone Deposits.
The Sunday Argus presents the following relative to the proposed Cement Works at Bowes Cave: The organization of a new cement Co., in which Albany capitalists hold the majority of the stock was consummated last week.
The new concern is to be operated under the charter of the Howes Cave association, and will have a capital stock of $300,000, divided into shares of $100 each. [This was soon soon to become Helderberg Cement Co.]
The new Howes Cave association is a consolidation of the Howes Cave Lime and Cement company and the former Howes Cave association.
The Howes Cave Lime and Cement company had a capital of $100,000 and was the owner of 100 acres of mining and mineral lands at Howes Cave. The former Howes Cave association had a capital ci $200,000. It was the owner ot the celebrated cave, the beauties of which are familiar to many Albanians; conducted a large Summer hotel at Howes Cave and was also engaged in the manufacture of lime and cement.
The association owned 103 acres of mining and mineral lands in the same vicinity.
Last Summer, Mr. Sheldon Norton of Hokendauqua, Pa., while visiting at the cave as a guest of the hotel there discovered that the clay and limestone deposits in that vicinity contained just the right properties to make the best kind of Portland cement.
Be analyzed the deposits and had other chemists do the same, and their results corresponded with the analyses of the best German cement. This surprising and valuable discovery was communicated by Mr. Norton to a few of his friends, and experiments were conducted which satisfied them that they had on hand tn easy, available, and abundant supply of raw material for the manfacture of one of the best grades of cement in the world.
A syndicate of Capitalists was next formed to cany out the manufacturing at Howes Cave Prominent among those forming the syndicate were well-known Albanians and a few prominent residents of Binghamton.
A WORKER IN THE HOWES CAVE QUARRY CLAY PIT, MID-1940S. CLAY WAS A CRUCIAL PART OF THE PORTLAND CMENT MIX. THE NORTH AMERICAN CEMTN COMPANY WAS A LATER OWNER.
The new company formed bought all the stock of the Howes Cave Lime and Cement company and of the Howes Cave association. It also purchased about 200 acres more land in that vicinity, including the farm of Eli Rose and a portion of the farms of Richard Richards and Myron Fellows.
This gave . . . the ownership. . . over 400 acres of land having a frontage of over a mile of the tracks of the Albany and Susquehanna railroad.
The purpose of the new owners of the Howes Cart association is to manufacture the Portland cement, and to continue making natural cement, which latter work it has already entered up. The present natural cement beds are to be remodeled and new and improved machinery substituted.
The large Portland cement plant to be erected is to have a capacity of 1,000 barrels per day.
No costly plants where Portland cement is made will be required at Howes Cave. The floor of j j be cave proper is covered with clay already prepared by nature for just such purposes.
The removal of this clay from the cave will add to its beauties and open many more spacious new rooms for the inspection of visitors. The company, which now owns all the property at Howes Cave except five buildings, the schoolhouse and railroad property, is to continue to operate the handsome big summer hotel.
It is believed that Howes Cave will become even more popular in the near future In the estimation of the summer tourist and pleasure seekers.
The officers of the new company are T. Henry Drumary, of Albany, president; Charles E. Lee, of Binghamton, vice president and general manager; Charles H. Ramsey. of Howes Cave, secretary and treasurer; Sheldon Norton of Hokendauqua, Pa., superintendent.
Besides Mr. T. Henry Dumary, the list of the Albany stockholders includes the names of ex Judge John McNamara, Thomas E. Murray, Charles H. Armatage, and Miss Julia Merrick. Former assemblyman John J. Cassin of Rensselaer, and Messrs. Lee, Norton and Armatage are other prominent stockholders.
The company expects to open a sales office in the Benson building in this city and Mr. Lee. the generaI manager, expects to become a resident Albanian.
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
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 NYSTUDIED
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.”
JAMES LOUGHRAN, about 1950
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.
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1 Specials 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.
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.
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Special thanks to Esperance Historian Jones for his contribution to this Cave Country blog post.
The Klondike Quarry, three miles east of Cobleskill along the D&H Railroad line, was the largest of the Schoharie County quarries during the stone boom. It held a contract with the City of New York to provide stone for the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge, a contract today worth more than $65 million. Run by the NYC-based Cobleskill Quarry Company, the Klondike employed nearly 500, many of them recent Italian immigrants.
The abandoned Klondike Quarry on a Fall Day in 2022.
The full story is told in Farming With Dynamite: The Forgotten Stone boom in Schoharie County, available here and at local bookstore.
We add to the remarkable story of the Klondike with two reports which appeared separately, yet on the same page of the May 18, 1898, Cobleskill Index. We can’t help but consider them somehow related. Let us know your thoughts on the deadly incident.
The first story, headlined simply, ‘Cobleskill Quarry Co.’ describes a NYC policy that created financial challenges for the Klondike and its employees:
“Mingled surprise and regrets were everywhere manifest Monday morning. when the Cobleskill Quarry Co. paid 378 hands and shut down the works.
“Eleven thousand dollars was paid. A state law prohibits any city from creating debt over a certain per cent of assessed valuation. There is a dispute among N Y. City officials as to whether or not the city has reached the debt limit, and as a consequence work on all public works has been suspended and 60,000 laborers are thrown out of employment.
“The Cobleskill Quarry Co. has the contract from the city for foundations for the East River bridge. They have received no money from the city for labor and material furnished in the past eight months, and their dues now, on contract, is said to be $250,000.00. Hence the “shut down” of the Cobleskill Quarry.
“The company, which now has the contract to furnish stone for the D&H, formerly supplied bv Reilly & Weiting, intends to run the quarry with about fifty hands, on smaller outside orders.
“The company says they may start at any time on full force—any time the entanglement in N. Y. City is unraveled.
“There are rumors that the company will be running within a few days with over 100 hands.
“Since putting the above in type it is stated that the Quarry Co. has received $200,000 on indebtedness from the City of New York.” (Italics added. – ed.)
The second item in that day’s paper was headlined “Injured by the Cars,” tells of a tragedy at the Cobleskill train depot that apparently followed a scuffle the day before with the Klondike’s paymaster. We can only guess the cause.
The paper reported:
“Yesterday noon an Italian, about 20 years of age, employed by the Cobleskill Quarry Co., attempted to catch on a freight going east, intending to go to Klondike.
“He swung under the cars and both legs were horribly injured. Dr. Frasier was quickly on hand, and he decided to send the man to the Albany Hospital, and he was placed on the next train east.
One and possibly both legs will have to be amputated above the knee. It is rumored that the young man had trouble at the quarry and drew a knife on the paymaster.
The name of the Italian is Guiseppe Ophallete of New York. The wheels passed over his left ankle, crushing the bones. There are two fractures, one below the knee and one at the hip, The right leg is badly crushed, He is bruised all over his body. There may be internal injuries.
(Editor’s Note; In the same issue, the paper later reports Mr. Ophallete died of his injuries.)
Artwork from a 1920s brochure on the caves of Schoharie County depicts a big-city artist’s bias. The young explorers are barefoot and their sleeves are rolled up in the 50-degree cave!
Field trips to Howe Caverns for students of all ages, and from around the region, are common in the last few weeks before summer vacation. There were no such luxuries for children attending any of the one-room schoolhouses more than a century ago – unless you lived in the Cave Country.
In my book, “Underground Empires: Two Centuries of Exploration, Adventure & Enterprise in NY’s Cave County,” I suggested the rural, sparsely populated Sagendorf Corners hamlet was the nexus of NY’s Cave Country.
Near the hamlet’s old one-room schoolhouse, “there are quite a large number of rock holes1,” reported the Greene County Windham Journal on Sept. 18, 1876. “. . in which the children often play at noon and recess.”
The article headlined, “Schoharie County: Its Cavernous Character,” was picked up from The Albany Argus and gave a good description of the known caves of that period.
While it didn’t identify which caves Sagendorf Corners school children spent their recess or lunch breaks in, there are several they could have chosen from, including one that later became Secret Caverns. Others nearby were later found to connect to Howe’s Cave, nearly an underground mile away.
1 The author likely means “sinkhole.” A “rock hole,” as any farmer in the cave country can tell you, is a sinkhole where rocks unearthed during plowing are thrown.
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.
In 1865, the A & S Brought Change —for Better or Worse
“It chanced that the writer, while in a half somnolent condition, induced by a long night’s ride in a railroad car, overheard snatches of conversation which ran somewhat thus:
‘Yes sir: three miles right into the bowels of the earth—nothing like it in the whole country, sir, aside from Mammoth Cave.’
‘Pooh! A mere dripping crevice in the rocks, I presume, or a dirty hole in the ground.’
‘No sir, wide and high, with waterfalls, galleries, and halls for three miles and the end not reached yet’.”
While the account above is imagined, taken from an old advertising pamphlet1, the conversation is probably not unlike other idle chit-chat that took place among passengers on the railroads of New York in the second half of the 19th century.
The Albany & Susquehanna Railroad, from the Hudson River at Albany to Binghamton.
The cave in the conversation is Howe’s Cave, long promoted in that era as a rival of Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. The train was certainly the Albany and Susquehanna, the Albany-to-Binghamton line that first reached the tiny community adjacent to the cave in 1865.
Things were never the same after that. The histories of the cave and the railroad are inextricably, and forever, linked.
The cave Lester Howe discovered in 1842 was a popular, well-known destination decades before the A&S arrived. The cave, one of the few opened to visitors at that time, attracted guests—mostly educated and well-to-do—who were thrilled by the novel, muddy, daylong underground adventure by torchlight. At the cave entrance, Howe built his “Cave House,” a rather plain three-story hotel of about 26 rooms. Guests were attended to by the Howe family: Lester and his wife, Lucinda; daughters Huldah and Harriet, and son Halsey, the youngest.
LESTER HOWE, 1810-1888
Construction of the A&S began on April 19, 1851, from what is today downtown Albany (near Pearl Street) to Schoharie Junction2. This initial effort, a 35-mile stretch along a mostly flat grade, took the train south, then west through communities that are today, Delmar, Slingerlands, and New Scotland before heading south-westerly along a gradual, miles-long easy bend towards the picturesque Schoharie Valley.
Surveyors spread out through the countryside west and southwest of Albany to plot a rail line that served communities, manufacturers, farms, and travel destinations along the route that, of necessity for the steam locomotives that pulled the train, had to be over relatively level ground.
Marking their route along the picturesque valley carved by the Cobleskill Creek, the surveying team likely stayed at the Howe family’s Cave House. They would have made note of the limestone hillside and documented the limestone outcroppings that would need to be removed from the proposed route of the train.
And at least one A&S surveyor made note of Lester Howe’s teenage daughter, Harriet.
Hiram Shipman Dewey won the heart of 18-year-old Harriet Elgiva Howe, described by an heir as “small and retiring with blue eyes and (an) abundance of light brown hair.” Hiram, then in his mid-20s, was described as a good-looking, fun-loving young man, six feet tall, with dark brown hair and blue eyes.
Hiram and Harriet were married in the Bridal Chamber of the Howe family’s cave on Sept. 11, 1854 (There were several weddings in the cave around that time; they made for great publicity). Later settling in Jefferson City, Mo., the couple had five children.
As money was raised, the rail line moved forward west from Albany. It took 12 years to complete the first phase of the A&S, the line reaching Schoharie Junction in 1863. Three years later, a separate 4.2-mile line, the Schoharie Valley Railroad, connected Schoharie village to the A&S at Schoharie Junction.
There was a change of management of the A&S in 1863 as well. Joseph H. Ramsey, a state senator from Lawyersville, Schoharie County, was named president of the railroad. He had been the railroad board’s vice president since 1856 and was instrumental in raising cash and selling railroad bonds.
Continuing west from Schoharie Junction, the lowest spot on the line was the crossing of Schoharie Creek at Central Bridge. As the line climbed out of the valley, the tracks followed the north bank of Cobleskill Creek up to a point around West Richmondville, and then started a down grade that continued to Oneonta and beyond.
An uphill grade and sharp curve are an unwanted combination in railroad construction, not always avoided. One railroad afficianado3 explained: “If you were going to stall a train on the A&S line, it would either happen at Howes Cave or behind (north) of what’s now the Cobleskill-Richmondville High School on Route 7 west of Warnerville. That’s where the combination of grade and curvature are the worst.” Accidents at both locations have proved the point.
On an 1854 map intended to show the relation of the A&S with other trains in New York at that time, Howes Cave is not marked. There were manufacturing concerns in Central Bridge and Cobleskill worthy of a depot for freight and passengers. While the cave and Cave House were well-known, there just wasn’t much else there.
But that would soon change. The railroad’s progress was closely watched by its stockholders, property owners along the line, and investors looking to profit from the train’s arrival. Speculators saw potential in the limestone that had been exposed around the cave; samples of it found their way to the office of the state geologist in Albany. After testing, it was found comparable to the limestone in Rosendale, Ulster County, that was then being used to profitably make natural cement.
It was not by coincidence that three members of the Albany & Susquehanna’s board of directors were the first to learn of the money-making opportunity from Howes Cave limestone. (This would have been before 1863, as plans were being made for the second half of the A&S, from Central Bridge/Schoharie Junction to Binghamton.)
Construction of a depot in Howes Cave began in 1864, it opened the following year. It would be needed to ship stone and cement—should such an enterprise be created nearby.
Richmondville Town Justice John Westover—later founder of the Band of Richmondville—and Jared Goodyear of Oneonta both sat on the A&S board. Along with two others from Otsego County, they were the first to profit from the natural resources around the rail line near the cave. They formed the Howes Cave Lime and Cement Company in 1867.
Two years later, on Dec. 31, 1868, the A&S line’s 142 miles to Binghamton were completed and a gala excursion train from Albany officially opened the new railroad on Jan. 12, 18694.
And later that year, A&S President Ramsey created the second company to exploit the limestone of Howes Cave. His plans for the Howes Cave Association included much more than just making cement.
Ramsey eventually took control of the famous cave itself, in a transaction that history records as being of dubious ethics. The date (it’s not definitive) may have been as early as April 1869 and the exact method is not clear, but Howe accepted $12,000 of stock in the Howes Cave Association after turning down a $10,000 cash offer. Ramsey had declared the Association’s stock to be worth $100,000 – a meaningless amount to everyone but Howe, who became a minority shareholder with little to say about company affairs.
Regardless, Ramsey added to the property, and expanded both the quarry and the caverns’ tour business. In 1872-73, he completed a new version of the Cave House, made of limestone from his quarry. To that, he added the huge, three-story Pavilion Hotel, completed in 1881, envisioned as a summer resort with amenities to rival those of the famous Catskills’ resorts of that era. The imaginary conversation that leads this article was taken from the Pavilion Hotel’s advertising material.
The Pavilion Hotel was destroyed by fire in February 1900.
Working together in 1866, the A&S and Delaware & Hudson extended the A&S rails south of Binghamton to the Pennsylvania rail lines freighting coal. Then, in February 1870. the D&H perpetually leased the A&S for $490,000 per year. Passengers and others continued using “Albany & Susquehanna” as the line’s name for many years.
While interest in the cave waned in the early 1900s, the quarry business boomed. Historical photos from the early-to mid-20th century show six or more railroad sidings going into the cement works, and old news articles document from 15 to 20 freight cars being loaded with barrels and bags of cement each day. With each car having a capacity of from 160 to 300 barrels, each weighing about 365 pounds, a fully loaded freight car would have been carrying 55 tons of Howes Cave cement.
In about 1910, new owners of the cement quarry accidentally blasted into Howe’s Cave, eventually destroying about three hundred feet of it. The cave was closed for nearly 20 years after that. New owners, Howe Caverns, Inc. opened in 1929.
Lester Howe died in 1888. Railroad President Joseph H. Ramsey died in 1894, and the train freight shipped to and from the Howes Cave quarry declined after the second half of the 20th Century and the quarry went to a smaller, bagged system, and shipped by tractor-trailer in the 1970s. Cement manufacturing in Howes Cave ended in 1976.
The A&S played an important role in the success of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad in the second half of the 19th Century. In a commemorative publication, “A Century of Progress, 1823-1923,” prepared by the D&H, the authors noted: “This progress in building the Albany and Susquehanna was by far the most important that affected the later history of the company during this period.
“[The A&S was] part of a larger general plan of affecting rail communication between Albany and the coal fields of northern Pennsylvania.”
The D&H ran independently from 1823 to 1991, when it was purchased by Canadian-Pacific Railway.
Riding the A&S Line to Old Howe’s Cave
The jostling, 39-mile train ride from downtown Albany to Howe’s Cave5 took a little more than two hours, including 10 stops along the way to pick up passengers or make water stops for the steam locomotive. (The water stops were strategically located about every 10 miles through what are now the suburbs of Albany. There were stations with water stops in Central Bridge and Cobleskill.)
According to a January 1868 schedule in Jim Shaughnessy’s 1967 book, Delaware & Hudson, an A&S train left the Albany station about every four hours.
From the other end of the line, Howe’s Cave was 81 miles east of Harpersville, near Binghamton, with 17 stops along the way. If you left on the first A&S train at 5 a.m., you’d arrive at the cave just before noon.
In either direction, it is unlikely the noisy steam locomotive ever reached its top speed of about 50 mph, or if it did, it wasn’t for long.
The ride from Albany—one way—likely cost between three and four cents per mile; affordable to the upper and middle class of that period, but a luxury reserved for special occasions for the tradesmen and other working class New Yorkers. From Albany, then, a round-trip ticket to Howe’s Cave on the A&S likely cost between $1.50 and $2.25. That’s around $30 today. “Parlor Cars” for those needing more luxurious amenities and/or privacy were available at an additional cost.
The Howes Cave depot was built following a common design used during that Civil War-era and was about 200 yards south of the hotel(s) that welcomed visitors to the famous cave. A small country station like Howes Cave would have a station agent living in the building itself, or at least close by. It was not uncommon for married couples to live and work together at a station serving a small population.
The station agent’s responsibilities were many. He served as a dispatcher for trains coming and going, taking, giving, and sharing traffic and freight guidance from the central station. The agent would also handle the paperwork for incoming and outgoing baggage, freight, and mail. Passenger trains often carried the “Railway Post Office,” or RPO designation. Such cars picked up and dropped mail enroute and sorted it inside the car while the train was moving.
The train arrived in Howes Cave before a Post Office did and the few residents there relied on the A&S Depot for their postal needs until the PO was established Nov. 18, 1867.
Passenger traffic on the line increased steadily and by the early 1890s, as many as three passenger trains ran daily to and from the Albany area from Cobleskill, according to the 1895 Grips’ Historical Souvenir of Cobleskill, NY.” Trains also left daily for New York City and Boston.
Also, by that time, between 800 and 1,000 freight cars were leaving each month from the busy cement plant in Howes Cave and the stone quarries in Cobleskill, which produced cut stone blocks for projects such as the Brooklyn Bridge and New York Barge Canal system.
# # #
1 From “Nature’s Wonder: Howe’s Cave,” the second chapter of the Howes Cave Association’s 1885 promotional brochure, “A Summer Home: The Pavilion Hotel, Howe’s Cave, Schoharie County, N.Y.”
2 This is today the intersection of Route 7 and Junction Road, Central Bridge. A Historical Marker indicates the location.
3 Personal e-mail from Gardner Cross, July 20, 2022
4 “The Rail in the Trail” by Susan E. Leath, Bethlehem Town Historian, 2012. Railroad buffs will appreciate that the historian included this: “The line was built with 60-pound iron, and a six-foot gauge enabling it to connect freely with the Erie Railroad in Binghamton. One of the goals was to connect to the southern-tier trains serving Pennsylvania coal country.”
5 “A Summer Home: The Pavilion Hotel, Howe’s Cave, Schoharie County, N.Y.” ibid.
