In 1890, pioneer settlers here, convinced that the new railroad and the untapped timber lands held enough potential to support a thriving community, petitioned for — and got — their own local government. Map lines were redrawn and reformed from the Waverly Township and the result was the Town of Altamont.
In 1899, a dramatic fire occurred which, according to newspaper accounts, left 169 buildings destroyed and the business section in total ruin.
Following initial indecisions of whether to rebuild or abandon the uptown site and moving to Faust, the town fathers rolled up their sleeves and started rebuilding even before the ashes had cooled.
By 1902, what had been a rough frontier town emerged as a larger, more substantial, and far more attractive place. Thus, in twelve years’ time since its birth as a lumbering hamlet of less than 300 inhabitants, in what was then almost dense forest, Tupper Lake had grown to have a population of more than 2,000 people.
Personal note: Part of that population growth included my maternal grandparents and their seven children. My grandfather, William Simmons, an engineer on the New York Central Railroad and who was based in Syracuse, found his work taking him on runs over the Adirondack Division, which had only been in operation a few years.
He apparently liked what he saw here — a new village being born with excited and industrious people and a small town in which to raise a family, surrounded by mountains not unlike those of his ancestral home in Dusseldorf, Germany.
My grandmother, Mary Jane Flanagan, was born in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, and she came to America at age 14 with her mother, brother and sisters after her father had preceded the family and got a toe-hold in this country. This week, as you read this column, I should be tent-camping on the site of the former Flanagan homestead.
Matt O’Malley, an aged but ebullient gentleman who is a direct descendent of the former Flanagan neighbors, now owns the property and has promised a rousing Irish welcome for his American “cousins.”
Let’s return to the subject at hand. With the rapid growth came a great debate: “Should Tupper Lake become incorporated as a village under the laws governing the state of New York?” Many people were against it, saying that it would “increase taxes,” that it “was unnecessary,” that “no benefits could be gained,” and beside, “the place was going to go down as soon as lumbering was finished in the immediate vicinity and the town could never succeed as a summer resort or tourist center.”
Fortunately, there were others who held a stronger vision of the settlement’s future. Their enthusiasm and their confident and forceful convictions won the debate, and the petition to the state went forward. Thus in 1902 Tupper Lake became an incorporated village, organized under the laws of the State of New York. The coming of the railroad had brought with it a new era, a revolution in transportation, and the tiny sawmill settlement located at the “junction” of two railroad lines would grow and thrive, justifying the confidence of those “strong men” who pushed for incorporation. Those early settlers must have been tough, and we can only imagine how difficult clearing and hewing out homes for themselves with nothing more than a broadax must have been.
If the majority of them were unlettered and unlearned, yet certainly they were also resourceful.
“One thing is peculiar on this wilderness,” writes an early missionary to Northern New York. “Every countenance indicates pleasure and satisfaction. The equality of circumstances cuts off a great proportion of the evils which render men unhappy in improved societies, and the influence of hope is very apparent.”
Once the village was incorporated, residents then elected themselves a mayor or village president, as mayors were then known. The first mayor to head the village board was Charles Sisson, whose family members were prominent in the paper-manufacturing industry and were owners of the Racquette River Paper Co., one of the best-known paper mills in Northern New York.
Mr. Sisson came to Tupper as general manager of the A. Sherman Lumber Co. Mill. Older readers will remember “Sissonville,” the cluster of homes located midway between uptown and downtown Tupper Lake along Demars Boulevard, which was named after the Sisson family.
One of Mayor Sisson’s first responsibilities was laying out and mapping the dividing lines that would become the corporate limits. He was aided in this by Dr. Eugene Austin, who was at the time the town supervisor. Those original lines remained until 1928 when the village corporate limits were extended as found today.
One-hundred years ago, the streets in this community, as in other villages, were of dirt and for the most part just paths. Improving those paths with crushed stone, which was often sunk deep in the mud and rain washout and lacked lights, became the next item for Mayor Sisson and his board of trustees.
Sears Hill, for example, was almost solid woodland, and a good-sized brook came down the hill and crossed the road near the present site of Day Wholesale and then ran into a gully that paralleled today’s Hill Street. The hill was much steeper than it is today and the top needed to be cut down and the bottom filled in to ease the grade. Before that it often required four horses to haul a heavy load over the top. In the winter, if the brook overflowed the steep grade, it became a solid mass of ice.
As this work progressed, Tupper Village built its own generating plant (1903) for an electric system. One of the first Adirondack communities to do so. It was steam-powered and fueled by waste wood from the Brooklyn Cooperage stave mill plant located east of LeBoeuf Street. Profits from this village-owned electric system helped pay for the street and road work and there was no bond indebtedness needed.