Editor’s note: This column was first published in The Freeman’s Journal on April 7, 1976.
The Steamboat Mohican went down more than 40 years ago, but bits and pieces of information about the boat and its times keep surfacing. Some are pertinent, some impertinent.
The rudder of the Mohican was turned into a coffee table; the propeller shaft is still part of a lawn roller; and the wheel now decorates “someone’s” wall. The lake north of Three Mile was dragged sometime in the late 30s or early 40s, and most of the remains of the Mohican were removed from the bottom. But two other steamers, the Natty Bumppo and the Deerslayer, are supposedly still out there somewhere.
The Otsego Lake Transportation Company leased its lakefront property to the village in September 1934, reserving the pavilion which was already under lease to Bill Smalley.
That same summer also saw, “Mrs. George Hyde Clarke of Hyde Hall treated for a wound inflicted by a stray 22-calibre bullet, which pierced her leg as she was sitting with her husband on the grounds of the Wilcox estate in Pierstown.”
John Logan, inexperienced woodchuck hunter, was thought to be the cause. Over in Oneonta, the “Wild Man of Borneo,” from a travelling circus, was arrested on an S.P.C.A. complaint for eating live chickens. The first sailboat to capsize that season belonged to Spotswood Bowers Jr. It was tied to the dock at the time.
Dr. Davis Kydd joined the hospital staff.
The Blue Anchor Inn, the last house on the right before the golf course, on the way out of town, was featuring a “special quick luncheon for golfers” on its terrace overlooking the golf grounds. (The sign straps still hang from the house).
The winner of…
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