Historic Saranac Lake

		"There stands our greatest victory of T.B. Matty’s remarkable recovery has been responsible for more patient’s getting up from a sick bed and out in the open than all medicine which we could ever prescribe.”
		NEW YORK TIMES: Saranac Lake physician, December 13, 1922. At left: Christy Mathewson with unidentified Saranac Lake ball player, June 28, 1922

A BRIEF HISTORY►

Famous Visitors and Health Seekers

• During the summers of 1943 & 1944, Hungarian composer and refugee from World War II Béla Bela Bartók, ill with leukemia, rested at the Sageman Cottage, 32 Park Avenue, where he wrote his Concerto for Orchestra in 1943. In the summer of 1945, he and his wife Ditta rented a cabin behind the house at 89½ Riverside Drive.

• Norman Bethune, M.D., Canadian surgeon, patient at Trudeau Sanatorium & worked at Ray Brook Hospital, became a hero of the Chinese revolution, commended by Mao Tse-tung. In 2009, the McCord Museum in Montreal featured the exhibit, "Norman Bethune - Trail of Solidarity - La huella solidaria."

• Two works by Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mt. Rushmore, are installed in Saranac Lake: his memorial plaque (1915) at the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage, and the heroic portrait, a fine likeness, of Dr. E. L. Trudeau (1918) now at Trudeau Institute on Algonquin Avenue.

• President Calvin Coolidge, summer of 1926, stayed at White Pine Camp near Paul Smiths and regularly attended the Presbyterian Church in Saranac Lake. White Pine Camp is open for 2-hour public tours during the summer.

• Albert Einstein, physicist, summer visitor rented 75 Glenwood Road; a guest at Knollwood; sailed on Lower Saranac Lake.

• President Benjamin Harrison, dedicated the first high school, on site of Hotel Saranac. His wife was ill, at Loon Lake.

• Novelist Ernest Hemingway visited Sara and Gerald Murphy's young son, Patrick, a patient, in their rented house in Glenwood Estates, now St. Joseph's Rehabilitation Center.

• Hazel Martyn, Lady Lavery (1880-1935), married Dr. E. L. Trudeau's son Ned; widowed; married the painter Sir John Lavery. As Lady Lavery, posed for the figure of Irish womanhood used on Irish Free State banknotes. Visited Trudeaus at Little Rapids, their camp along the rail line, in the fall of 1903 before their marriage.

• Norwegian explorer Carl Sofus Lumholtz (1851-1922) cured at 50 Baker Street for four months as the patient of Dr. Francis Trudeau; died there of pulmonary tuberculosis on May 4, 1922; and was buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery.

• New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson cured at Santanoni Apartments, at 90 Park Avenue & at 21 Old Military Road, where he died.

• President William McKinley, visited by train in August 1897 while a guest at the Champlain Hotel, south of Plattsburgh (now Clinton Community College).

• Gerald & Sara Murphy, with son Patrick, a patient, who died January 1937. Four domiciles: Church Street, Steel Camp on Lower Saranac Lake, camp on Lower St. Regis & St. Joseph's.

• Norwegian seafarers buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery: Hilda E. Aass 1913-1943, Otto Eriksen 1906-1942, Birger Olsen 1903-1942, Torvald Rongved 1910-1942, Rasmus Brakstad 1920-1943, John Svendsen 1916-1943, Karl Forsberg 1911-1944, Anker Halvorsen 1921-1944, Alfred Abrahamsen 1920-1945, Trygve Magnussen 1897-1945, Haakon Engh 1914-1945, Olaf Berge 1920-1945, Elias Harkestad 1910-1945, William Paulsen 1922-1945, Harry J. Bohler 1921-1944, John L. Nyberg 1917-1944, Alfred L. Larsen 1913-1988. Their memorial reads: "TIL MINNE OM NORSKE SJOFOLK SOM DODE I KAMPEN FOR SITT LANDS FRIJORING, 1940-45 (In memory of Norwegian seafarers who died fighting for the liberation of their country, 1940-45)."

• Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines, in exile during World War II, cured in the village and at a rented camp on Lower Saranac Lake, died here. He was accompanied by his staff, including Carlos Romulo.

• Theodore Roosevelt stayed at Paul Smith's Hotel & Martin’s hotel as a boy; wrote "Birds of Franklin County, New York."

• Saranac Lake's most famous patient, Robert Louis Stevenson, stayed in Andrew Baker's cottage at 11 Stevenson Lane from October 3, 1887, to April 16, 1888. Today it is a house museum with a fine collection of artifacts.

• Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, enjoyed camp life on Lower Saranac Lake from June 21 to September 19, 1901. The camp, rented from real estate dealer George V. W. Duryee, is now a private home, still called Mark Twain Camp.

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