William West Durant
Encyclopedia
Adirondack
__notoc__Adirondack may refer to:*Adirondack Mountains, *Adirondack County, New York, a proposed county in New York...
Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas
Camp Uncas
Camp Uncas, begun in 1890, was the second Adirondack Great Camp built by William West Durant for his own use, after Camp Pine Knot, which he sold to industrialist Collis P. Huntington, due to financial difficulties. It was built on the shore of Lake Mohegan, near Sagamore Camp...
, Camp Pine Knot
Camp Pine Knot
Camp Pine Knot, also known as Huntington Memorial Camp, on Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, was built by William West Durant. Begun in 1877, it was the first of the "Adirondack Great Camps" and epitomizes the "Great Camp" architectural style...
and Sagamore Camp which are National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
s. He was the son of Thomas C. Durant
Thomas C. Durant
Thomas Clark Durant, was an American financier and railroad promoter. He was vice-president of the Union Pacific in 1869 when it met with the Central Pacific railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory...
, the financier and railroad promoter who was behind the Crédit Mobilier scandal.
William West Durant was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1850. He attended Twickenham School in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Bonn University in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and traveled extensively as a youth in Europe and Africa. At 24, his father summoned him home from Egypt to help develop the central Adirondacks for tourism.
While working to complete the eastern half of the First Transcontinental Railroad
First Transcontinental Railroad
The First Transcontinental Railroad was a railroad line built in the United States of America between 1863 and 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad of California and the Union Pacific Railroad that connected its statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska The First...
in 1869 as vice-president of the Union Pacific, Dr. Thomas C. Durant formed the Adirondack Company in 1863 from the remains of the Sackets Harbor and Saratoga Railroad Company
Sackets Harbor and Saratoga Railroad Company
Sackets Harbor and Saratoga Railroad Company is a predecessor railroad to the D&H's Tahawus Branch. It was not completed, although sixty miles of it was eventually built from Saratoga to North Creek. It was chartered in 1848, incorporated 1852 and surveyed in 1853. Approximately of disconnected...
, which owned 500000 acres (2,023.4 km²) of the central Adirondacks. His goal was to cross the Adirondacks to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the Saint Lawrence River
Saint Lawrence River
The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...
. By 1871, tracks had been laid from Saratoga to North Creek, New York
North Creek, New York
North Creek is a hamlet in the Adirondack Park, in the town of Johnsburg, in Warren County, New York, United States. It is an area known for skiing , hiking and other outdoor recreational activities. It is located at ....
, at which point, financial problems caused the project to stall.
In 1876, Durant built a rustic compound on Long Point in Raquette Lake
Raquette Lake
Raquette Lake is the source of the Raquette River in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, USA. It is near the community of Raquette Lake, New York. The lake has 99 miles of shoreline with pines and mountains bordering the lake. It is located in the towns of Long Lake and Arietta,...
in the center of the Adirondacks to entertain potential investors in the railroad and in his land development schemes. William had first seen Raquette Lake the summer before, and spent the following winter living there in a tent. This group of simple cabins would become Camp Pine Knot, which would be hugely influential in the development of the Great Camp style. William had a hand in its development from the start, but especially after 1879, when tourism to the area exploded following the publication of WHH Murray's Adventures in the Wilderness. William opened a stagecoach line from North Creek to Raquette Lake, dammed the Marion River
Marion River
The Marion River is a river that connects Blue Mountain Lake via Utowana Lake and Eagle Lake to Raquette Lake in Hamilton County in the central Adirondacks. New York State has classified the Marion as a Scenic River....
to allow steamboat travel from Blue Mountain Lake through to Eagle and Utowana Lakes, and built steamboats Killoquah and Toowahloondah on Raquette and Blue Mountain Lakes, respectively. He also arranged for the construction of the Church of the Good Shepherd
Church of the Good Shepherd (Raquette Lake, New York)
The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd is a church built by William West Durant in 1880 on Saint Hubert's Isle in the hamlet of Raquette Lake in the town of Long Lake, New York. Along with St. William's Roman Catholic Church on Long Point, it was built to serve the owners, guests and...
on St. Hubert's Isle, and created a telegraph company to provide service through to Raquette Lake.
In 1884, William married Janet Lathrop Stott, 19, the only surviving daughter of the Stotts of Bluff Point and Stottville, New York
Stottville, New York
Stottville is a hamlet in Columbia County, New York, United States. The population was 1,375 at the 2010 census.Stottville is in the south part of the Town of Stockport, south of Stockport Creek.-Geography:...
, a family with which the Durants had had business and family relationships for several generations. They settled in Saratoga Springs
Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs, also known as simply Saratoga, is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 26,586 at the 2010 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area. While the word "Saratoga" is known to be a corruption of a Native American name, ...
, conveniently located between Raquette Lake and Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
where many of William's dealings took him.
Dr. Durant became ill in 1883, and died, intestate, in 1885. William took control of the family finances, although not without discord with his elder sister, Ella. William promptly set out to raise capital by selling land and timber, and sought a buyer for the Adirondack Railway, finally succeeding in 1899 with a sale to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. He also started work on a new camp, Camp Uncas
Camp Uncas
Camp Uncas, begun in 1890, was the second Adirondack Great Camp built by William West Durant for his own use, after Camp Pine Knot, which he sold to industrialist Collis P. Huntington, due to financial difficulties. It was built on the shore of Lake Mohegan, near Sagamore Camp...
. At about this time, William befriended industrialist Collis P. Huntington
Collis P. Huntington
Collis Potter Huntington was one of the Big Four of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad...
, who would prove instrumental in advancing William's fortunes. In 1895, William and his wife initiated divorce proceedings against one another. William sold Pine Knot to Huntington and J.P. Morgan bought Uncas.
William started work on a new camp complex on Shedd Lake, renamed Sagamore. It was to be the largest and most expensive of Durant's camps, centered on a three-story, 27- by 62 feet (18.9 m) main lodge, with a raised stone cellar adding to the height, and verandah
Verandah
A veranda or verandah is a roofed opened gallery or porch. It is also described as an open pillared gallery, generally roofed, built around a central structure...
s on three levels. No sooner was the work completed on Sagamore Camp than he was forced sell it, along with 1526 acres (6.2 km²), to Alfred G. Vanderbilt, in 1900. As with each of William's great camps, there was little or no profit.
In 1890, William had granted his sister a monthly $200 allowance. She had doubts about whether she was receiving her fair share of their father's estate, especially when, in 1890, William bought a $200,000, 191 feet (58.2 m) ocean-going luxury yacht, Utowana. In 1893, Ella brought suit to attempt to force her brother to render a public accounting of the estate; William's legal stratagems would delay the trial for six years. When the case finally came to trial, it generated a substantial public interest. The court ruled against William, and he was ordered to pay Ella $753,931. William appealed, and lost again.
Ella's victory, however, proved largely pyrrhic
Pyrrhic victory
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory with such a devastating cost to the victor that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately cause defeat.-Origin:...
. William had been living beyond his means for several years, and Collis Huntington had bailed him out as needed, but in 1900, Huntington died unexpectedly at Pine Knot. Between his divorce, his creditors and his sister's suit, William's financial position deteriorated rapidly, and by 1904, he declared bankruptcy.
He married a Canadian woman 23 years his junior (apparently happily) who kept a boardinghouse in New York City and dabbled in real estate. He tried a number of modest ventures, and then returned to the Adirondacks to manage a hotel on Long Lake, and then another on Lake Harris. This was followed, in 1910 by an attempt at mushroom farming in Maine that went nowhere. He worked for three years for a development on Long Island, and then worked doing title searches for Adirondack land sales.
William West Durant died at Mount Sinai Hospital
Mount Sinai Hospital, New York
Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in the United States. In 2011-2012, Mount Sinai Hospital was ranked as one of America's best hospitals by U.S...
on June 1, 1934, age 83.
Sources
- Donaldson, Alfred L., A History of the Adirondacks. New York: Century, 1921. ISBN 0-916346-26-8. (reprint)
- Gilborn, Craig. Durant: Fortunes and Woodland Camps of a Family in the Adirondacks. Utica, NY: North Country Books, 1981.
- Timm, Ruth, Raquette Lake, A Time to Remember, Utica, North Country Books, 1989, ISBN 0-032052-63-0.