THE PLATTSBURGH SENTINEL
September 12, 1874
BLOOD & WHISKY IN THE WILDERNESS
Desperadoes of the Adirondacks Terrorize Chateaugay Lake—A Tale of Fish, Firewater, and Fury
By JASPER McCREADY, Special Correspondent
CHATEAUGAY LAKE, N.Y.—The tranquil waters of Chateaugay Lake, long celebrated as a haven for weary souls seeking communion with God’s unspoiled creation, have been defiled by a band of cutthroat marauders whose deeds would shame even the devil’s own bookkeeper. This correspondent has learned, through gritted teeth and greased palms, of a gang of six roughnecks—self-dubbed “The Pine Tar Boys”—who descended upon these sacred woods like locusts clad in flannel and vice.
The fiends arrived via the Ogdensburg Railroad on the 5th instant, their breath reeking of rotgut whisky and their pockets clinking with stolen silver. Led by a hulking brute answering to “Black Bill” Harkness—a man whose face resembles a half-carved ham left too long in the sun—the gang set up camp near Rock Island, a spot hitherto reserved for poets and Presbyterian picnics. Their purpose? To poach, pillage, and paint the pines red with their misdeeds.
A TRAIL OF CARNAGE
No trout nor temperance man was safe. The Pine Tar Boys commenced their reign by dynamiting a school of perch near Fifield’s Hotel, blasting a crater in the lakebed that sent Mrs. Tormey’s prize bass skyward in a grisly rain. They then turned their attentions to the nets of Old Man Ripley, a septuagenarian fisherman whose only sin was trusting in the Lord’s mercy. By dawn, Ripley’s nets hung in tatters, his catch gutted and strewn across the shoreline like pagan offerings.
“They left a note,” Ripley growled, thrusting a whiskey-stained scrap at this correspondent. Scrawled in what appeared to be bear’s blood were the words: “Gone to steal God’s air. Catch us if yer able.—P.T.B.”
The devils did not stop at fish. They raided icehouses, torched a trapper’s cabin near Lyon Mountain, and—in a act of singular blasphemy—used a church hymnal to kindle a bonfire while howling a vulgar parody of Shall We Gather at the River. Their libations were legendary: 14 cases of Schenley’s Pure Rye vanished from Bromley’s Livery, alongside a draft horse named “Bessie” who was later found wandering the woods, her mane braided with musket balls.
THE LAW STRIKES BACK
By the 8th, the good citizens of Dannemora and Ellenburg Depot had endured enough. Sheriff Elias “Ironjaw” Cobb—a man who once wrestled a cougar to death using only his teeth—mobilized a posse of 20 rifles, including Burt Hungerford, the famed guide, and Rev. Hiram Shaw, who brought a Bible in one hand and a double-barreled shotgun in the other.
The hunt reached its crescendo at Merrill House, where Black Bill and his cohorts had holed up, using Mrs. Shepard’s linen closets as target practice. What followed was a 10-hour siege punctuated by gunfire, flying bottles, and a great deal of un-Christian language.
“They’d fortified the place like Geronimo,” snarled Sheriff Cobb, nursing a split lip. “But we flushed ’em out with smoke and a jug of kerosene.”
The gang scattered into the woods, their drunken bravado evaporating like morning mist. Two were nabbed in a bog, knee-deep in mud and hubris. Another, a wiry pickpocket called “Splinter” O’Dell, was found asleep in a canoe, clutching a stolen musket and a jar of pickled eggs.
BLACK BILL’S LAST STAND
Only Harkness remained at large. The brute was cornered at dawn on the 10th near Chazy Lake, where he’d attempted to commandeer a steamboat. In a final act of defiance, he leapt into the frigid waters, bellowing, “Y’ain’t takin’ me alive, ye psalm-singin’ buzzards!”
He was wrong.
Hungerford, ever resourceful, lassoed the villain mid-plunge and dragged him ashore like a brook trout. Black Bill now rots in the Plattsburgh Gaol, awaiting trial—and likely a date with the hangman. His sole comment to this correspondent? “Worth every damn drop.”
EPILOGUE
The Pine Tar Boys’ spree has left scars on the land and the soul of this community. Yet there is poetry in their downfall: The same wilderness they sought to defile became their judge, jury, and—for one—their coffin.
As Rev. Shaw remarked while reloading his shotgun: “Even the devil respects the Adirondacks. Pity these fools didn’t learn the same.”
Next Week: The Trial of Black Bill—Will Justice Prevail, or Will the Gallows Dance?
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?