Editor's Note: During the mid-1800's, there were iron forges up and down the Boquet River and its tributaries. Morris F. Glenn gave BRASS permission to quote passages from his book (below) Glenn's History of the Adirondacks, Vol. 3, Chapter 4, about a single forge near Coon Mountain.
"Today, there are few visible remains to suggest that there was once a prosperous little industrial community called Merriams Forge. . . it was once a thriving, bustling settlement with a store, forge, blacksmith shop, sawmill and thirteen or more houses for workers. When there was a head of water behind the dam, the ring of the blacksmiths hammers on their anvils, the deep thud of the bloomery trip hammer, and the high pitched scream of a water-driven saw must have been music to the residents' ears. It meant jobs and money in a countryside otherwise engaged in almost subsistence agriculture . . .
"The 1855 NYS Census of Westport . . . has entries for the forge of W.P. and P.D. Merriam as follows:
Capital Invested:
Real Estate = $5000
Tools and Machinery = $1000
Raw Materials:
Quantity = 1200 tons
Kind = Iron ore
Value = $7000
Annual Product:
Quantity = 600 tons
Kind = Bloom iron
Value = $30000
Motive Power = Water
Persons Employed = 14 men
Wages Exclusive of Board:
Average Monthly Wages of Men = $25
(note: that looks like $1 per day) . . .
"All of [W.P.] Merriams iron during the 1860's was sent to the Hudson Valley for fabrication into horse shoes for the U.S. Army, military supplies and armaments. I have excerpts from an old dock record book for the wharf in Essex, and there are several listings wherein some iron from Merriams Forge was shipped to David Mann and other of Troy, New York. Entries are:
[Merriams' ore beds were around Nichols Pond in Westport.] "The Merriams were faced with almost insurmountable problems to utilize the Nichols Pond ore. The mountain was too steep for a road and not steep enough for gravity feed of the crushed ore. They used some of their surplus cash from the peak years to build a tramway down to Moriah stage road. Traces of this unique device were seen to zig-zag down the mountain on the first topographic map of the area. . .
"Winslow Watson in his 1869 history of Essex County . . . notes that . . . charcoal was burned all over Coon Mt. and as far away as the Merriam's Nichols Pond property once called Merriams Mountain. Winslow Watson also noted that ore was brought in overland from a mine owned by the Merriams. Most of the land on Merriams Mountain was timbered to provide the forge with 80,000 bushels of charcoal per year. The kilns could have been anything from complex brick structures like the ones down in Westport at the Sisco Furnace or they could have been primitive dirt-covered stacks of wood.
"The Merriams also owned the schoolhouse lot where a small school was run for families of charcoal burners and workers on Merriams Mountain . . ."
Editor's Note: Below is a piece of quoted folklore from Morris Glenn's book, Chapter 8, about Coon Mountain.
"These mountains were wild, unknown expanses filled with danger for our forefathers. Tales of monstrous bears, panthers and wolves were plentiful . . .
"A strange wild animal which has lately roved at large in the Coon Mountain district, Westport, has caused widespread alarm. At night, it has prowled the countryside, its screams which can be hearad for more than a mile, are terrifying–sometimes almost blood-curling. Small stock has been killed and devoured ever since the animal has been in the district.
"John Van Ornam, a lumberman of Westport, had the most thrilling experience of any of those hunting the animal although he was not intentionally hunting it. A few night ago, he was returning to camp from cutting logs and, passing through a cedar swamp, he heard what he thought to be the scream of a woman in a thick wood near the road he was traveling and thought some woman had become lost. As he walked, however, the cries becoming somewhat more subdued, seemed to retreat further into the woods. Van Ornam had no thought of danger and continued to follow the screams until he had traveled possibly a quarter of a miles, when he was suddenly seized with the idea that he was being lured into danger and, at that very instant, two balls of fire gleamed upon him through the bushes. They were the eyes of a giant cat. For a moment, Van Ornam was transfixed and was powerless to move; he thought every second the cat would leap upon him . . . Finally, after what seemed to him like ages, he managed to draw his trusty automatic pistol and opened fire. There was a snarl and the animal dashed away. Van Ornam hurried to camp. The next morning he hastily organized a posse of the oldest hunters, and with a pack made up of every and all kinds of dogs, they took the trail of the cat. All day the hunters climbed among the remote fastnesses of Coon Mountain, and toward evening, the dogs gave tongue and raced ahead of the posse. Breathless, the foremost hunters hurried to reach the scene of battle; but long before they had scaled the precipitous side of the mountain, Will Decker's lone cur, with one ear torn off and his tail between his legs, passed them like a streak, upon his way back home.
"Then, far upon the mountainside, the pack, and huge tracks showed where the beast had stood with his back to the cliff. In the top of a low scraggly pine, some twenty feet from where the cat had stood, hung the body of Old Bill, the leader of the pack, and the hunters swore without reserve as each in turn recognized some cherished pet.
"By that time, the sun was almost gone and the hunters realized the utter futility of following the trail that night . . . days passed and no further signs of the giant cat could they find.
"The majority of the hunters, busy with other matters, gave up on the search but John Van Ornam, Gordon Sherman and Albert Howard felt that in order to maintain their reputation as trappers and hunters, it was necessary tht they should bring in the pelt of the big cat. With that end in view, they engaged Earl Phinney, the great hunter who has killed big game in all parts of the world, with his mountain dog which was sent to him from Colorado.
"A week later just as the sun was rising over the crest of Coon Mountain, the cat arose from a soft padded lair where he had spent a part of the night. After shaking himself, he stood for a few minutes basking in the rising sun, but suddenly he stopped and lifted his head to a listening position for plainly wafted upon the morning breeze came the baying of hounds. Straight way he broke into a stumbling lpe; before long, he came to a level place upon the side of a canyon, it was a bench overlooking Quicksand Pond. Phinney, although a very large man, was far ahead of the rest of the posse when he reached the canyon beach. The great cat was fighting the dogs with both front feet, the while making the woods ring with his roars as he rolled among the mass of dying dogs. Unnerved by the terrible sight, Phinney unconsciously raised his rifle and fired. Phinney aimed too high. The thirty-thirty bullet merely tore off one of the huge cat's ears and, with a terrible roar, the beast made a leap through the air straight at Phinney's head. Phinney fired when the beast was in the air, and saw it soar far out over the brush and down an almost perpendicular wall far over one hundred feet into Quicksand Pond, where the treacherous sands soon had sucked it down out of sight.
"Phinney said the great cat, while passing through the air over his head, looked to be thirty feet long. (signed) W.W.H."