Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1902-08-01

broad ,roomy steamboat dates from
an era of nautical splendor earlier
and richer than that which may be
called the Jim Fis..e period.
The famed craft of the Mississippi
in the days of greatest planter pros
perity were not nearly so fine. Her
saloon companionway is finer Gin the
nobleness of its dimensions) than
many ducal palace boasts, it's sa-
loon is made ornate with abundant
carving, arabesquerie, and gold its
seats are luxurious, its cabins are al
most fit to be called bedrooms, and
it could accommodate a couple of
regiments of passengers without dis
comfort.
It's engine, all brasswork and pol
ished Steel is presided over by man
in a little parlorlike room after the
fashion of thirty to fifty years ago,
and its exhaust" sounds like thhe
sleepy breathing of a giant as it's
paddle buckets beat the water with
evenly timed strokes. 1t is a thous-
and pities that such queens of the
waves must give way to the smaller,
more practical, but far less comfort
able vessels of the iron steamboat
type.
Ii we can imagine an object so
near "a thing of life having thoughts
and sensations, we may well fancy
that the old Vermont has decided
herself to be the highest consumma-
ton of mans art in boat building.
The lake craft she sees and passes
every day would warrant this conceit.
| do not know what was the shape
and style of the great oar boat"
which was borrowed from Fort Fred
eric to take Ethan Aliens victorious
band over to the assault upon Ticon-
deroga, but it could not have been
more primitive than many of the fer
ryboats we saw in passing down the
lake. They were mere scows-fat-
bottomed boxes with sides a foot
high, with a sail on one gunwale for
use when there is wind enough and
with tremendous oars for rowing in
calm weather and for steering at all
times.
At Larabees Point where there
has been a tavern for 140 years, and
is to-day one of the prettiest hotels
in the North, an aged "Canuck'
Frenchman has built one of these
scows and put in a primitive engine
warrant there is no more quaint or
queerer ferryboat in the country.
once heard of a pair of friends
who came down to the lake in a two
horse rig and found one Of these scow
ferryboats, but no ferryman. They
picked up his horn and blew it to
wake the dead, but the ferryman did
not come.
Never mind" said one man to the
other, Il have often seen the thing
done; | will get the boat across"
They drove the carriage on board
and pushed off into the lake. On that
same instant. the stiff breeze that
was blowing filled the great sail and
the steering oar went overheard and
foated away. Up the lake went the
ferryboat. churning the water into
acres of foam. The man who had of
ten seen the thing done" went help.
less with fright, but the other man
got a plank and used it as rudder
with such effect that in the course
of a long time the boat was turned
and ran ashore.
They led the team ashore. abandon
ed the ferryboat and started to find
road. The nearest road was miles
away, and the land between them
and it was all laid out in farm fields.
They vow that they let down the bars
of more than 400 fences and spent I'M
til daylight-a matter of seven hours
in getting to that road.
! But even of primitive prerevolution-
airy craft there are SO few on the
lake their absence is impressive. Per
haps once a day and once in each
night a powerful tug will steam along
towing two dozen or forty canalboats
, to or from Whitehall-large, fine can
alboats. on which you see the life
of a floating town.
Yachts and Launches.
Eight or ten steam yachts and
launches were as many as | saw, pion-
eering the beautiful pleasure navy
that will ride these waters when
the rich and luxurious come to spy
out the views from the now farm-lined
Vermont shore and build their camps
and homes upon its capes and bluffs.
Our fellow-New Yorker, Dr. w. Sew
ard Webb, has led the way with the
most beautiful home in the region
and one of the most ambitious and
costly country seats in America He
has bought the whole of Shelburne
Point, containing more than 1000
acres. and has erected there palace
in which he spends eight months of
each year.
Whether we regard Lake Cham
plain and the valley in which it lies
as a cradle of liberty, an ancient
cockpit of war, or an ampitheater of
history, its chief interest long lay in
| its past One may drench himself
with moving tales of a heroic past
if he stays, as | did at the end of my
voyage, at Larrabee's Point. The
British used to row over to the no.
tel on this point Git was a log house
them years before the colonies rose
| in rebellion. The struggle over the
rival rights of New York and New
Hampshire to make grants of land
in Vermont waged all over this vicin-
| ity. The Green Mountain Boys, from
| fighting New Workers came to fight
ing the British only a mile away,
at Fort TicOnderOga