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JOHN BLACK ROOM |
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“… this room … will be a center from which will go more appreciation of what the doctors are to Saranac Lake and of what Saranac Lake [has been] to the people who had tuberculosis.”Jessie Baxter Black, 1917 |
The oldest of four brothers, John Baxter Black attended Andover Academy and Princeton University. According to a Princeton publication of 1917, this son of privilege planned to follow a rather conventional career path, expecting “to engage in manufacturing with the Ohio Brass Company,” of which his father was president. Then came the Great War, and lives were turned upside down. Leaving perhaps even before graduation, John Black “first went to France in his Senior year in May, 1917.”
“He sailed for France with the Princeton Unit to enter the American Field Service,” which was providing ambulance drivers. “Finding drivers much more plentiful than ambulances he instead entered the French camion service” (50th class reunion) “with several other Princeton men ... and spent the summer on the Aisne front (Obit. Princeton Alumni Weekly).”
On “October 3rd ... he joined the American army at Paris,” (Frank Black letter), was commissioned Second Lieutenant, Field Artillery, ... and was sent to the French Artillery School at Valdahon ... He spent the winter ... assigned to the 17th F.A. 2nd Division ... in active service on the Meuse during the early spring of 1918 and in May was transferred to the Champagne sector near Chateau-Thierry (Obit. Princeton Alumni Weekly).”
“In June 1918, when he returned to this country as an instructor, the tuberculosis was discovered and he was sent to Saranac Lake in July,” staying first in the Riverside Inn. Dr. Baldwin signed the “Report of a Case of Tuberculosis” when he arrived on the 19th, age 22, and noted that his case was already “far advanced.” John Black was a patient in Saranac Lake for five years. He and his mother, who accompanied him, rented the house at 112 Park Avenue later owned by Dr. Fritz and Janet Decker. John Black died on May 16, 1923, in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, where he had gone for surgery (Obit. Princeton Alumni Weekly).
One of his close friends wrote: “I wish it could be emphasized very strongly how much of an impression he has left in Saranac from his years there. The first summer that I was there ... 1919 ... his physician’s wife, Mrs. Patterson [sic Paterson], said that Dr. Patterson [sic] had never been so deeply attached to any patient and that John’s marvelous patience and fortitude were already known to friends and strangers alike ... Far greater than John’s war service, wholehearted and utterly regardless of self as it was, was his fight for five years at Saranac, and those years were a victory of steadfast courage and a faith that never wavered (Obit Princeton Alumni Weekly)."
After his doctor’s death, John Black founded the Paterson Memorial Fund for the assistance of needy patient (JBB Memorial Dedication).
Frank Blymer Black and his wife, Jessie Baxter, of Mansfield, Ohio gave this room—and the later second story addition in memory of their son, John Baxter Black. Among the most permanent impressions that John Black left in Saranac Lake are this room and this wing of the Saranac Laboratory.
Well-known architect, Robert W. McLaughlin, Jr., designed the addition. McLaughlin graduated from Princeton in 1921, after serving with the U.S. Navy during the World War. Diagnosed with TB, he was sent to Saranac Lake in 1922. Working with G. G. Symes, McLaughlin completed the John Black room in 1928. In 1934, he added the second floor offices and labs under the auspices of Holden McLaughlin Associates, also as a gift of the Black family. Robert McLaughlin went on to a distinguished post as director of the School of Architecture at Princeton University from 1952-1965.
One perceptive visitor to the John Baxter Black Memorial Room remarked that the room “looks like Princeton.” Indeed, the stylistic similarities are no accident. John Black was a Princeton graduate, as was his friend, the architect Robert McLaughlin, who designed the building in his honor. Other Princeton contemporaries who volunteered for service in France include writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, and John Peale Bishop.
In 2007, after many years of restoration, Historic Saranac Lake reopened the John Black Room for use as a community meeting space. The second floor is now occupied by commercial office space, the former laboratory.
In 2008, HSL published a brochure on John Black and the John Black Memorial Room. The brochure is available at no charge through the office. Click here to view the John Black Brochure.
To Reserve the John Black Room for your gathering, download our Room Use Policy and Form. Please Contact Us with any questions.
©2008 Historic Saranac Lake. All rights reserved. |
Historic photographs courtesy of the Adirondack Room, Saranac Lake Free Library, unless otherwise noted. Copy and reuse restrictions apply. |
Historic Saranac Lake