Heed this diverting report: from deck-rubbish and shore-bog arise a power of sound both tempestuous and affecting—Chateaugay’s rare music, lest it steal thy peace with its rolling grandeur.
A Singular Lake Concert: Chateaugay’s ‘Steamboat Pirates’ Make Rare Music from Drift, Bog, and Iron
POPEVILLE, N.Y., 17 JULY 1894.—We have had many queer matters reported from the lake in our time, and some that would hardly be credited beyond the sound of our own church bell, yet a circumstance lately related concerning the Steamboat Pirates of Chateaugay is of so odd and diverting a nature that we venture to set it down for the benefit of such as take an interest in the uncommon accomplishments sometimes developed in out-of-the-way places.—It appears that on a recent evening, after one of those mishaps by which lake-faring gentlemen are at times separated from property more useful than ornamental, a company of these roving musicians, finding themselves recently suddenly deprived without their ordinary means of employment, undertook to make music from such articles as could be gathered from shore and deck, and in this wise produced what has since been called by some “Pirate Improvisation,” though whether the name will stand remains to be seen.
—Among the instruments employed were certain water-soaked planks beaten with old oars, a row of bottles partly filled from the bog and made to yield no unpleasing variety of notes, several rusty anchors hung so as to chime together when struck, a great shell said to have come from no common voyage, and a hollow stick or log which gave forth so strange and solemn a tone that some of the hearers declared it sounded as if the woods themselves had taken to droning.—The result, though at first regarded as no more than a frolic of men in high spirits, soon drew the attention of several who were near by, and one gentleman of musical turn, stopping at a lodge in that quarter, is said to have listened with much seriousness and pronounced the affair something quite new under the sun, observing that these rude contrivances, in untrained hands, had nevertheless brought out a power and confusion of sound not soon forgotten.—There are those who insist the lake lends a singular quality to every noise made upon it after nightfall, whether by paddle, chain, horn, or human voice, and perhaps this may explain in part why the performance seemed greater than the means employed would warrant, for more than one respectable person describes it as a very tempest of sound rolling over the water and among the hills in a manner both wild and curiously affecting.—We do not pretend to say what place such music may finally hold among the more settled forms of art, but it is pleasant to know that our northern region, which has furnished timber, iron, and honest labor to so many markets, can also, when occasion requires, furnish a novelty for the ear.—If these lake gentlemen continue their experiments, and can keep better account of their instruments than of some other possessions entrusted to them, they may yet make Chateaugay noted for another product besides fish, ice, and good scenery.—At all events, the occurrence has afforded much amusement, and shows that even among driftwood, bottles, scrap iron, and the common rubbish of shore life, there may lie the beginnings of a concert.—BELZORAM.
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What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?