From Farmland to Mature Forest: The Changing Landscape of Crumhorn Mountain

Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

While working on a recent blog ("See It Now in 3-D! Hi-tech imagery of the 1880s"), I came across another stereograph made by Cooperstown photographer Washington Smith that caught my eye because I had recently been at the same location—Crumhorn Mountain in the Town of Maryland, New York, about 15 miles south of Cooperstown.

Lake on Crumhorn Mountain

Stereographic print on cardboard

Washington G. Smith, mid-late 19th century

NM-48.69(14)

Smith’s caption added that Crumhorn Mountain was 2000 feet above sea level and someone else penciled in “Highest water in the state.” I don’t know whether that’s true, but today Crumhorn Mountain is home to Boy Scout Camp Henderson. My son’s troop spent a week there in July. According to the camp’s website, Henderson “is situated on 630 acres of rolling hills and mature forest on Crumhorn Mountain in upstate New York. Its’ reservation is home to a superb lake and miles of hiking trails that meet all ability levels.”

Lake on Crumhorn Mountain

Digital photograph

Douglas Kendall, July 15, 2010

As the description suggests, the area is heavily forested today. Entering “Crumhorn Lake, NY” into a Google Maps search and viewing the satellite image confirms that the trees come nearly to the water’s edge all around Crumhorn Mountain’s lake.

But look at Smith’s stereograph of the lake. Although there are trees around the far side of the lake, the entire foreground (apparently including about half the lake shore) is devoid of trees. Instead, the landscape is one of cleared fields with barns near the lakeshore.

Even 2000 feet above sea level, the scene recorded by Smith was typical of the landscape of upstate New York and New England in the mid to late 19th century. Land was relentlessly cleared for agriculture and mining throughout the region. By the end of the 19th century, many farmers had moved further west where the land was flatter and farms were larger. Marginal farmland, such as that atop Crumhorn Mountain, began to give way once again to forest—so much so that today the area appears to be a “mature forest” inhabited mainly by deer, small animals and the occasional bear, except for 6 weeks every summer (and other occasions throughout the year) when Camp Henderson is home to Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts from central New York and beyond. I doubt many of them suspect that their campsites were cleared farmland 150 years ago…but Wash Smith has left us the proof.

See It Now in 3-D! Hi-tech imagery of the 1880s.

Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

If you’ve been to the movies lately, you know that “3-D” is back in a big way. More and more movies must be viewed using plastic glasses provided by the theatre in return for a premium ticket price. I recently saw Despicable Me which was shown using “Real D 3D” TM technology. The movie was amusing, though I’m not convinced the illusion of three dimensions added much to it.

Of course, this isn’t the first wave of “3-D” image technology. 3-D goes way back—much further than Bwana Devil (1952) starring Robert Stack, considered the first color, American 3-D movie. As early as the 1860s, photographers were capturing images that could be viewed as if they were 3-dimensional. The last half of the 19th century was the first golden age of stereoscopic still images, usually known as stereographs or stereopticons.

It is necessary to take two photographs for a stereoscopic image. In the 19th century, photographers such as Cooperstown’s Washington G. Smith did this with two cameras or with one camera moved quickly to two positions.

In the Cooperstown area, Smith and his rival A. A. Cooley provided tourists with 3-D mementoes of their holidays on Otsego Lake. Cooley took this image of Kingfisher Tower, Edward Clark’s “folly” on the eastern shore of the lake, shortly after it was built in 1876. Smith recorded the journeys of the steamboat Natty Bumppo up and down the waters of the Glimmerglass.

Point Judith with Kingfisher Tower
Stereographic print on cardboard.
A. A. Cooley, Cooperstown, after 1876.
N0003.1995(PH46703)

Then again, stereoscopy also lent itself well to images of extraordinary events, such as “Professor Maillefert’s Sub-Marine Exhibition,” photographed by Smith in August 1871. Benjamin Maillefert, a Spanish-born engineer, pioneered methods of underwater blasting that helped make New York’s Hell Gate safe for shipping. Evidently he also travelled the country to demonstrate his methods. His performance on Otsego Lake was “witnessed by a large number of highly interested spectators” according to S. M. Shaw’s Chronicles of Cooperstown. Wash Smith undoubtedly believed that those spectators—as well as those who didn’t see the explosions first-hand—would want a 3-dimensional record of the event.

Professor Maillefert’s Sub-Marine Exhibition
Stereographic print on cardboard.
Washington G. Smith, 1871.
N1289.1946

Stereoscopy has faded in and out of popularity in the years since these images were created. With the reboot of cinematic 3-D and the advent of 3-D televisions and digital cameras, perhaps we are seeing its latest boom—will 3-D last this time?

Steamboat Landing-Rose Lawn
Stereographic print on cardboard.
Washington G. Smith, 1872-1898.
F0147.1959(38)