On Placid: 100 years ago this summer

Wednesday April 11, 2012 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Evans Hughes, a too-often overlooked American statesman with deep ties to the north country. Hughes was born in what was then the village of Glens Falls (population under 4,000). As a progressive Republican, Hughes defeated William Randolph Hearst in the 1906 New York gubernatorial contest, serving two two-year terms in Albany. In 1910, President William Howard Taft appointed Hughes to his first stint on the US Supreme Court. In 1916 he lost a tight race in Woodrow Wilson’s presidential reelection. Hughes subsequently served as US Secretary of State under Harding, Judge on the Court of International Justice (1928-30), and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 through 1941.

On Lake Placid one hundred years ago this summer, Hughes was merely a vacationer. 

On June 23rd 1912 The New York Times ran the following item:

LAKE PLACID. Justice Hughes Enjoys the Fishing at Camp Abenaki.
LAKE PLACID, N. Y., June 22.— Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who through the excitement of the past week over the convention at Chicago, has seemed to be the least concerned of any of the campers despite the connection of his name with the Republican nomination, is now comfortably settled with his family at Camp Abenaki on the west side of Lake Placid and is devoting his time to fishing, boating, and long walks.

Near the camp of Justice Hughes is that of the Rev. Dr. Stephen S. Wise of New York, who is here with his family for the remainder of the Summer.Victor Herbert, who is at his Camp Joyland, is busy at work on several new productions for the forthcoming season, upon which he will later have the collaboration of Mrs. Rida Johnson Young and others well known in the theatrical world. Miss Ella Herbert has as her guest, Miss Alice O’Gorman, daughter of United States Senator O’Gorman, and it is probable that later in the season the Senator and Mrs. O’Gorman will be the camp guests of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert. Mrs. Lina Abarbanell Goldbeck, the light opera singer, has arrived and leased for her use this Summer one of the Lake Placid camps of Mlle. M. de Bray Longchamps. Mr. and Mrs. David C. Waring are at the Flanders cottage, and Prof. G.B. Pegram of Columbia University has arrived at the Methodist parsonage, which he has leased for the Summer.

The distinguished Rabbi, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, mentioned in the Article is forbearer of the Wise/Tulin/Pollier family on Buck Island, and great grandfather of SOA trustee Andrea Houlihan.