Lost in the Adirondacks: The late, great Horse Shoe, N.Y.

TICONDEROGA | Amid the forests and fields of the Adirondacks are the remains of settlements that have vanished from the map during the past 155 years. Among these short-lived, "lost towns" is the commercial community of Horse Shoe located on the western shore of Horseshoe Lake, in Piercefield, New York, and extending to neighboring Colton. Built by New York businessman, inventor, and inland-empire magnate Abbot Augustus Low, Horse Shoe (also spelled Horseshoe) was built to be a company town and train stop at Horseshoe Lake in the late 1800s. Low was born in Brooklyn to a wealthy New York City family and became involved with A.A. Low Brothers, the family business. Starting as a young man, Low was a champion of the cause of social justice; he headed up the Brooklyn Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the Church Charity Foundation at St. Michael's Episcopal Church. He married Maria Ward and the couple went on to have four children. According to the website Tupper Lake, Adirondacks USA, "Rather than settling for a simple station or whistle-stop, Low built a replica of the Garden City Depot on Long Island — complete with a ticket office, telegraph machine, and facilities for freight, which he then sold to the rail line for $1. Next, he moved on to the government, petitioning them to establish a U.S. Post Office at the depot. Now that he had his lines of transportation and communication open, he was ready to build his empire." Low, and other ambitious entrepreneurs like him, helped give New York its nickname "the Empire State." Low made his 32,000-acre Adirondack holdings his new home. The huge tract would grow quickly to include a narrow-gauge railroad, a blacksmith shop, a hydro-power plant, a horse stable, carriage house, various product and equipment storehouses, maple-sugaring facilities, as well as individual and collective worker housing. Other buildings, such as a boathouse, were added. "Low developed the property with two dams to produce electricity and aid annual log drivings," Tupper Lake, Adirondacks USA reports. Now part of the Bog River Management Unit in Adirondack Park, the little hamlet exploited hydro and ice production, maple syrup, and high-quality lumber. Low's family was well known in the state during the late 19th century. Low's brother Seth was the Republican mayor of Brooklyn (1881-85) — before today's borough was absorbed by Gotham — and later the mayor of New York City (1901-02) as well as being the president of Columbia University (1890-1901). Low's father, Abiel Abbott Low, was a wealthy merchant dealing in the early China trade. The Chinese people still recognize the elder Low for building a much-needed hospital in the city of Wu-Chang. At Horse Shoe, Low started out with the construction of two dams. The dams supported the logging of vast stands of pines and hardwoods in the area, including "rock maple" (sugar maple) for fine furniture. Low's operation, known as the Horseshoe Forestry Company, was powered by dams by 1907. The dams, which created today's Low's Lake, also made floating the logs to the railhead much easier than transporting them completely overland. Low was also a maple sugar farmer and pioneer. He liked to call maple syrup "liquid gold" because of a growing appetite for the sweet stuff in New York City elsewhere. In the 1890s, Low built three large sugar houses to handle the harvest of maple sap from sugar maples in the vast sugarbush at Horse Shoe. By 1907, Low was processing 20,000 gallons of maple syrup, which even today, would be considered a massive operation on a corporate scale. "Accomplishing this feat is where some of Low's real ingenuity came into play," Tupper Lake, Adirondacks USA reports. "...Low was an inventor, at the time of his death (in 1912) he held second place for the number of U.S. patents (Thomas Edison being number one). Many of Low's patents have to do with maple. From sap pale lids to the first apparatus to granulate maple sugar, Low was at the forefront of modernizing the maple industry." Low invented the modern evaporating pan — the first maple sap evaporator — which maximized the syrup-making process. When sugaring season ended in the western Adirondacks, Low's community shifted gears to produce berry preserves and bottled Adirondack spring water, branded "Virgin Forest Water," which New York City residents gobbled up in vast quantities. Some of the elderberry, wild cherry, and grapes on the property went into Low's unusual wine products; this was long before finer, more upscale wines were produced using cold-hardy French-American hybrid grapes. Low, 68, died Sept. 25, 1912, at the former St. John's Hospital, Brooklyn, after a brief, undisclosed illness. He is buried at nearby Green-Wood Cemetery. Today, only a few signs of the late, great town of Horse Shoe remain in the 21st century. In the woods around Low's Lake, you can still find old foundations, a fireplace chimney, and the remains of the workers' cottages. A few hikers have found Horse Shoe-brand maple syrup bottles, too, which are sought after by bottle collectors. Special thanks to the folks at Adirondack.net. An occasional series on vanished communities of the Adirondacks.

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Lost in the Adirondacks: The late, great Horse Shoe, N.Y.

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