Voices Beneath the Plank Road: Mordecai Vilecreek’s Forgotten Journal

An Annotated Chronicle of Lyon Mountain Iron Ore: Collected Pages, Redacted Letters, and the Pitch-Stained Plank Road Chronicles

by Ignatius Mosswind

⚠️ Warning: Text may induce auditory hallucinations of lake-bottom mechanisms and cognitive iron leeching. If symptoms of rusted identity or dream-watching rocks persist, consult your nearest Unearthly Exegesis Fellow.

VOLUME I: THE OUTLET CROSSING

Collected and edited by Ignatius Mosswind, Naturalist in the Art of Unearthly Exegesis, Syracuse University

🗒️ Page 1: Frontispiece

A torn page from Grimsap Vilecreek’s schoolbook, dated 1894
(retrieved from crawlspace above rafters of the Lower Chateaugay Lake outlet schoolhouse by Mosswind, 1909)

Form of instruction: third declension, Latin.

Metallum: metal, ore
Conscendo: to climb, to mount
Memini: to remember
Ferrum: iron

(beneath these: a drawing in red pencil—half a wheel, half a human eye)

Annotation – Mosswind: No curriculum in Clinton County employed Latin instruction after 1882. The glyph bears resemblance to the “Sawtooth Iris” symbols found in trapper carvings along the east shore near Devil’s Elbow. This image recurs throughout Volume I.

📓 Mordecai’s Journal – 17 August 1897

Written in iron gall ink, margins clipped by rodents. Found in a wooden keepsake box sealed with spruce pitch.

The ore at Lyon Mountain does not “spark” correctly when struck. It gives off no scent, not even that dull chemical tang of magnetite dust I’ve come to expect. My father claimed it was “burnt long before we found it.”

This year, shipments from the separator increased threefold. The plank road has softened beneath the ore-haulers. Old Shuttrick reports his fenceposts go crooked overnight.

I walked again to the shaft behind Indian Point. There is no shaft. There is only a swale where water collects in the shape of a ribcage.

I saw a figure on the water. Just floating, face down.
I am told no one is missing.

(entry ends mid-line; the word “face” is repeated seven times in smaller and smaller script)

📁 Property Ledger Fragment – Bluff Point Tract, Owner: H.G. Gardner

Stamped 1901, but later crossed out in thick ink. Partial restoration by Mosswind using iodine wash and lantern transcopy.
(✳ means redacted)

10 June 1901 – Cabin complete. Good airflow. Spring steady.
14 June – Noted local boys beneath the ridge. Unsure if watching or simply idle.
15 June – Engine heard again. Same chuff, same stroke as Nellie Tupper, but I watched her moored. Engine sound came from below. No echo from above.
17 June – Cabin walls sweating. Chalk growth under windowsill.

✳✳✳ Muffled moaning through furnace vent. Have no furnace.
✳✳✳ Applied for removal to Saranac Clubhouse. Denied.

Above entry smeared in pitch or dried fish glue. Several slashes drawn into the paper in the shape of a plank road.

🖋 Correspondence – Mildred Vilecreek to Eugene “Old Veritas” Miller

Unmailed letter found in cigar box beneath floorboards at the Indian Point House, ca. 1904

My dear Mr. Miller,

I write you not as a lady of science, but as a daughter half-drowned. Mordecai has gone inland again, pacing the plank road as if it were a measure of time and not timber. He speaks less now. The blackboards are covered in false alphabets.

He drew a map of the lake in soot. It has no islands. It is ringed with something he will not name.

He asked me, in all earnestness, what language the iron speaks when no one is listening.

Please visit us soon. Bring vinegar.

—Mildred

🔍 Field Annotation – “Occurrence at Split Rock Point”

Transcribed from the field journal of Dr. W.J. Bowditch, dated 29 July 1902
(Margin note in child’s hand: “Mother says it watches the girls when they’re sleeping.”)

Sound noted at 3:07 a.m.—not wind, not owl, not aquatic. A continuous vrrr-tchhh rhythm resembling bellows plus diaphragm. Entire shoreline covered in a black crust—some algaic, some mineral. I attempted collection; tongs refused to close.

Smoke seen rising straight from lake center at 3:14 a.m.

Child student Mary P. now blind in left eye. No injury visible.

Split Rock vibrates beneath bare feet. Strongest at its southern notch. I suspect an exhalation vent.

(inkblot over final line)

🔐 Redacted Page – Shutts Family Bible, Indian Point House

Only legible line found on page before leaf was cut out with pinking shears.

“…And though the lake giveth, the iron taketh, and the names we knew were drowned in the order of rust.”

CHATEAUGAY LAKE STEAMBOAT GAZETTE CO.