The North Mountain House

 

The North Mountain House was on the top of North Mountain, in the mountain lands so loved by Col. Robert Bruce Ricketts. We are going back to see what was what in 1896, to the place that was the highest inhabited place in the state in that year, to the place that was still an undisturbed wilderness, a place known even then for the picturesque stream that flowed down the mountain at the rate of 1,000 feet in a mile and a half and which had thirty-two waterfalls in just four miles of flow. All this happened at something about 2,500 feet in elevation according to records from back then. With the modern advances of Global Positioning Satellites, the figures are somewhat different today. In fact, this report, written as it was viewed a hundred and eleven years ago, may differ with some things you know about North Mountain today.

William Jennings Bryan, the silver-tongued orator from the Plains won the Democratic nomination for President in 1896, but lost to William McKinley, the former governor of Ohio. Utah joined the Union as the 45th state, and the Olympic Games, abolished in the year 394 after a 1,000 year history, resumed in Athens, Greece, and an American won the first gold medal. Gold was discovered in Klondike creek. RFD (Rural Free Delivery) was offered for the first time. The "flickers" (movies) were becoming the big thing in the entertainment industry, thanks to inventions by the Lumiere brothers in France and Thomas A. Edson in this country. For the first time, Americans could purchase a new snack known as Cracker Jack, a new breakfast called Shredded Wheat and a box purporting to contain everything a cook needed to make pancakes under the brand name Aunt Jemima's. Long-distance telephone service was becoming available in the big cities. For the first time, A delicious new chewing gum came on the market called Juicy Fruit and the top beer in the nation was appropriately named Pabst Blue Ribbon.

A large wooden building was built in 1870 and by 1883 the property consisted of "a clearing, on which there is a large and substantial two-story house, a three-story frame boarding house, barns and other buildings, the place having been improved and fitted up as a Summer Watering Place, capable of accommodating from 200 to 250 guests."

In Sullivan County in 1896, the North Mountain House, a place where when the temperature on an August day would hit the ceiling Back Home in Benton and 100° in Philadelphia, the temperature might have hit 80° "on top of the mountain." Overnight, fires may have been burning in various stoves in the building and a light overcoat and heavy woolen clothes were often seen.

If you were staying in the North Mountain House at that time, you were most likely not from Benton. You would have probably arrived from Philadelphia over the Reading and Lehigh Valley Railroad, which must have been an absolute delight. The trip would have made its way through suburban and pastoral scenery between Philadelphia and Bethlehem, then along the Lehigh River through the mountainous terrain of Mauch Chuck, into the mountains to Fairview where the riders got their first glace of the Wyoming Valley--at that time one of the most beautiful scenes in America. The train would carefully pick its way down the mountain into the station at Wilkes-Barre as the conductor told the riders of the spot where the Wyoming settlers were massacred. The scenery along the roadbed then slowly changed as the train sped through a wider valley with more rugged land. The roadbed began to climb following a mountain stream choked with logs, into a very dense forest as the train began ascending to greater and greater heights. With great anticipation and a tired bottom, the riders arrived at the top of North Mountain at a place known as Lake Ganoga. The arrival of guests began long before 1896. The Wilkes-Barre Leader from July 25, 1878, reported that "every train that arrives averages from five to six tourists en route for the Mountain House."


Arrivals at the North Mountain House were transported from the Ganoga Lake Station by "stage."

The wide-eyed riders from Philadelphia must have marveled at the lakes, the forest and the streams that surrounded them, views that are only possible from the top of a mountain.

  There were two basic views from the Far View Observatory. The first was known as "Sunset View," which was seen when looked through a gap with the valley visible through the mountain haze in the background. There was also another view, which was known as "Grand View," which looked to the south toward Columbia County.

If one looked hard enough the mountain ranges of the Schuylkill and beyond were visible, endless mountains that formed range after range as far as the eye could see.

Looking to the north from the North Mountain House, a long plateau of the Alleghenies rested unseen under a forest of great hemlock trees, many five and six hundred years old. A road passed under the canopy of trees which suited the bicycle rider. The terrain was scenic and relatively level. It passed one of the peculiarities of nature--lakes that proudly dot the mountain tops at the highest elevation, as contrasted to the White and the Adirondack Mountains where the water races to the bottom of the mountains and the lakes swell in the valleys. At night as the guests relax on the porches, they are told of the body of water fed by natural springs twenty-four miles away known as Lewis Lake at what we know today as Eagles mere.


Guests on the porch of the North Mountain House
Picture courtesy of Elizabeth Chamberlain


As attractive as these lakes were to a summer resort, they were of less interest and beauty than were the mountain streams and the natural forest that surrounded the North Mountain House.


An artist's rendering of the North Mountain House.
This was painted in 1896 by an unknown artist.

One man was solely responsible for the undisturbed beauty of the wilderness, a man who at one time owned about one hundred square miles, but by 1896 owned almost 30,000 acres. His name was Colonel R. Bruce Ricketts, a celebrated artilleryman of Gettysburg fame.

  A walk in any direction from the North Mountain House would lead through forests of impenetrable shade from hemlock trees.  Often the overhanging trees would even shield  the person from the noonday sun.

Judging from the girth of some hemlock stumps found near what I always referred to as the "Ricketts Mansion" as I was growing up, the age of these trees was mind boggling.  In looking around the North Mountain House, those early short-term residents of the North Mountain  could see the whole life process of the world of hemlock:  the birth,  new shoots, the tree at maturity, its slow demise as natural death or the heavy toll from windstorms took place.  Over a century later, there were large holes in the ground showing massive decay from rotting  roots as the remains of the tree return to mother earth from whence it came. 

Just as the Indians knew, roads and trails changed within the year.  Massive trees fell, blocking the passage of men and animals.  A year of disuse of a trail meant that the trail would disappear. 
 
There was black cherry standing on the mountain in 1896, a tree that made every attempt to grow straight to the highest levels.  The value of the wood, then as now, was well known.  Col. Ricketts took cherry wood cut from his property on North Mountain to his Wilkes-Barre home for use in his library book cases.  The Ricketts' home at 80 South River Street was acquired in 1989 by Wilkes University.  It is now known as Rifkin Hall.
 
There were other hard woods growing on the mountain, trees like beech and some birch, a little bird's eye maple, some ash and the cucumber trees--miles of them.  The flowers of the cucumber tree were small, and colored yellow-green, blooming April through June with green fruit, shaped somewhat like a cucumber.
 
Certainly many visitors prior to 1900 assumed that this enchanted land would be preserved just as it then existed for future generations.  I wonder if they recognized that the streams that made their way from the various lakes fed the different branches of the Susquehanna River, that they created a water supply for countless numbers of people.  I wonder if visitors then ever thought about the sponge effect of the decayed vegetation holding the rainfall and the huge accumulations of snow. 
 

I don't know what Col Ricketts was like as a man, but it appears to me that little was really known about him except for his Civil War experiences and what people could observe of the man both in Wilkes-Barre where he lived and at the North Mountain House where he spent time.


One of the rooms in the North Mountain House
Picture courtesy of Elizabeth Chamberlain

The first American forefather of Col. Ricketts settled in Maryland, near the present Elkton.  He became a noted Indian fighter and moved into the wilds of Pennsylvania.  I suppose that the blood of his ancestors flowed through his veins, too, since he fought a valiant fight at Gettysburg and eventually lived where he hunted as a youngster.
 
The proprietor of the 30,000 acres was no stranger to the North Mountain area.  He had come to the "mountain" since boyhood.  During his military career, he would take his furlough while the Army of the Potomac nestled in for the winter and instead of heading for the big cities or simply rest during his furlough, he would head to the top of North Mountain to hunt white-tailed deer, his favorite form of relaxation following his days of hunting with larger ammunition for the men who followed Robert E. Lee.

He loved to fish and hike the mountains.  A Philadelphia Inquirer article written in 1896 mentions a man identified only as "Adam" who was the keeper of the trout streams on Ricketts' property.  Ricketts and "old Adam" as he was called by 1896 would tramp the mountains and the steams for days on end.  Adam carried the axe, the bacon and the coffee, while the Colonel was in charge of the compass and the rifle.  According to the Inquirer story, at night they broke down some saplings, gathered up some bark and branches and made a quick shelter and a place to rest their heads for the night.  At the end of the day they would light the fire, smoke their pipes, and fall into a sleep until the first rays of dawn got them moving again.


The moss-covered walk up Kitchen Creek in the present Ricketts' Glen State Park

Most of us fully realize from our years of "traipsing" through his mountains how difficult it is to travel through those downed trees and cherry saplings and boggy swamps and  rocky ledges.  At this time of the year, it is easy to wade through the almost dry creeks and over the outcroppings of rocks, but when the rains come to the mountains it is very difficult even today to splash through the streams and mush through the snow, let alone explore the "canyon" down the mountain that today we know as Ricketts Glen.

 

This undated post card is marked as being from Ricketts' Glen, but the outcropping of rocks looks like it is from Lewis Falls, a waterfall near Grassey Hollow Road on Heberely Run, Sullivan County.

 

Journals from Ricketts' time indicated that Colonel Ricketts himself discovered Ganoga Falls, on "Ganoga Glen, a water fall 125* feet in height."  The falls was one of a series of 32 falls on the "Ganoga Glen and Glen Leigh," the two branches that unite to make Kitchen Creek.  The stream then went on to Huntington Creek, eventually emptying into what a journal in 1896 called "Fisher's Creek," a stream we all know today as Fishingcreek, eventually making its way to the Chesapeake Bay and finally to the Atlantic Ocean .  I am not sure if the Sullivan County reference to Fisher's Creek as made in 1896 was an error, since I have never seen our famous creek referred to by that name in anything I have read originating in Columbia County.

*  Today the falls are recognized as being actually 94 feet high. The difference is height is one of a number of inconsistencies in this report. In all cases, the information used is as advertised or reported in 1896.
 
Prior to 1896, the falls were declared to be about the most beautiful in the United States, although that claim was made by people who probably never had the opportunity to make the trudge from the top to the bottom.  The falls were a case of the unknown being "more better" than the known .  The stream in 1896 apparently had lots of good trout fishing, since the entire stream was leased to an "association of fishermen."  A man by the name of Matt Hirrlinger (sic) had a cabin beside the upper waters and Adam kept daily watch on the lower portion of the trail.  Only members of the association could fish the waters.
 
Matt was an experienced stone mason and recognized the value of having others view the streams at the top of the mountain.  Over a period of six years, Matt built a stone walk with stone stairways along the whole distance of Glen Leigh, Ganoga Glen and the lower levels of Kitchen Creek.  When he considered the path the most dangerous, he built handrails.  It is probable that the path was built at the specific direction of Col. Ricketts. 
 
Men like Matt and Adam were very much needed.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Colonel Ricketts alone had more than 2,000 acres of his best hardwood timber stolen and over his lifetime he prosecuted about 1,000 "timber thieves." 
 
Matt  carried the title of "game keeper and guide."  He was employed by the Wilkes-Barre Fish Association to watch the stream and mountains "so that no fish are caught nor game shot out of season, and a most devoted fellow he is to the somewhat arduous duties he has to perform.  The reporter said that there is not a "foot of ground along the creek that Matt isn't familiar with, and he is generally acknowledged to be one of the most careful guides in the country.  He's an intelligent fellow, too, and somewhat of a philosopher. "  Matt wore boots to which he strapped spikes "of his own manufacture."  He carried a hatchet. 
 
As the Lehigh Valley Railroad reached the top of North Mountain at Ganoga Lake Station the valuable timber began to disappear thanks to the arrival of the moveable saw mills that dotted the mountain lands from Painter Den to Ricketts to Ganoga Lake, extending into Wyoming County and all the valuable timber lands on top of the mountain.  The Colonel did make the promise that during his lifetime he would prohibit the timber from being cut along the streams that flowed to the bottom of the mountain.
 
Matt shook the hand of a Wilkes-Barre Times reporter in February, 1900, after "walking the falls."  As the two parted company, Matt said, "I know ye wuz purty badly scared today, but I don't want ye to hold it up agin' the glen.  No one ever gits hurt here, leastwise I never heerd o' one, an' I want ye to come up in the summer an' go up the crick with me.  They ye'll see some sights ye never dreamed on." 

Those sights still abound in the area so much loved by Robert Bruce Ricketts.  Lets always keep the memory of what once took place "on the mountain" in our minds.

In February, 1896, a Mrs. Green, 63, who lived on North Mountain died in a peculiar manner. During a storm, she went from her house to the spring house. While there, a strong gust of wind demolished the building and Mrs. Green was crushed under the ruins. She was survived by a grandson, who lived with her.

There was a succession of proprietors of the North Mountain House. In September, 1900, Harry W. Pursel, a liveryman from Wilkes-Barre, took charge of the North Mountain House, succeeding W. J. Harry, who had headed up the establishment for about a year. Pursel had stables in Wilkes-Barre for about 20 years before being hired at the North Mountain House. Frank Ricketts retired as the head in September, 1898, and returned to Orangeville where he then made his home. Manning Chilson replaced Mr. Ricketts as the head. Harry was what a Wilkes-Barre Times reporter called a "sprinter." The reporter recalled "sprinting" to "Little View where the mountains looked as if they had put in a middling hard winter but bore every indication of doing better in the spring." From the top of the observatory the reporter was told that he could look into eleven counties.

He was then told that previously a foreign tourist had stood on the same observatory and as he gazed out at the beautiful panorama before him he told his guide, "Hi say me friends, will you kindly tell what eleven 'States' hi ham looking hinto from 'ere'?"

"States," replied the guide, "you're not looking into but State, though you are lookin' into eleven counties."

"Counties," concluded the tourist," if we had that much out doors to spare on the other side of the Hatlantic we could easily make eleven States out of hit."

Going to the North Mountain House was not without danger, even back in 1878. The Wilkes-Barre Times on August 22, 1878, reported that G. Murray Reynolds, Esq., who lived on River Street, Wilkes-Barre, had his home burglarized while the family was away at North Mountain and the home was unoccupied. Mrs. Reynolds had placed her valuable silverware in a strong box in a closet where she felt it would be safe. Dresses and jewelry "were gathered up--in all about $2,000 in value--and carried off by the burglars. Reynolds was Mrs. Bruce Ricketts' brother.

An example of the advertising geared to the Philadelphia audience can be found in this advertisement from the Philadelphia Inquirer of August 15, 1899.

Pennsylvania
NORTH MOUNTAIN HOUSE
Ricketts P.O., Ganoga Lake, Pa., 2500 feet
above the sea. The highest inhabited place in
Pennsylvania. Elegant place for those afflicted
with malaria. Railroad station 1/4 mile from
hotel. Stages meet all trains. Nicely furnished
rooms for the accommodation of 95 persons.
Rates $2.00 per day, $10.00 per week. Open the
year round. M. Chilson, Prop.

Many readers may not know that in 1906, after working on the project for three years, Col. Ricketts finished an electric generating plant on North Mountain for the purpose of supplying Wilkes-Barre, Plymouth, Shickshinny and Berwick with power. His plan was to flood the plateau on North Mountain, all 12 miles of width of it, and dam up Lake Ganoga. He placed a large dam across Kitchen Creek, near what was then called the Fodson mill. Another dam went across Sickler's Creek and another near the Susquehanna-Tioga Turnpike to prevent water from Kitchen Creek going down on the lower side of the mountain. One of the reservoirs just mentioned was over 700 acres.

From the reservoir level to where the generating plants would be located there would be an approximate fall of 700 feet. Col. Ricketts felt that coupled with the large water supply the fall of the water would provide an unlimited amount of electric power. The generating plant was planned to be on Kitchen Creek about a mile from what was then known as the "Iron Bridge" near Red Rock.

To continue reading about the Ricketts' era, head to the FEATURES page. There are two articles in that location about the Ricketts family.