A politician, a resort, and a mystery poem

An 1878 meeting of political minds, or perhaps just a social visit, at the top of Mount McGregor sparked some speculation of a literary nature.

“Can it be that our distinguished ex-governor has begun to woo at last, and that he is beginning — practicing as it were — upon the gentle muses?” The Saratogian of Saratoga Springs asked in its Sept. 16, 1878, issue, a copy of which is preserved in the Austin W. Holden scrapbooks archived at The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls.

The ex-governor was Samuel Tilden, who was weighing a second run for president.
Tilden, a Judge Marrakot of New York City and Smith M. Weed of Plattsburgh visited “the elegant Saratoga summer resort” of Mount McGregor on Sept. 11. Weed was a well-known lawyer, businessman and philanthropist of the era and a former state assemblyman.

The mountain, on the border of the towns of Moreau and Wilton, had become a popular tourist destination after Duncan McGregor built a road to the top and constructed a small hotel in the 1870s.

Some years later, investors built a railroad to the top of the mountain and constructed the grand Balmoral Hotel.

The day after Tilden’s visit, a resort guest found a piece of birch bark with a poem inscribed on it using a sharp pencil.

The writer of the poem was a mystery.

“If [New York City] Mayor [Smith] Ely had been a member of the party, all question as to the authorship would be at rest, but at it is, the subject is wrapped in mystery,” The Saratogian reported.

The poem -- “McGregor and His Mountain” — read as follows:

 

Bold Duncan McGregor climbed this mountain one day,
Seeking squirrels and pheasants and such game to slay,
And Mac had a habit, not now much in vogue.
Of observing and thinking, as onward he strode.

So, he said to himself, no one else being near,
What a glorious old mountain! the air sweet and clear!
Just then he approached the east brink of the hill,
He peered through the bushes, and said, “Duncan, be still!”

For there, far below, like a picture spread wide,
Lay the North River valley in its beauty and pride.
He could see the Green Mountains, and Washington’s peak,
While groves and fair fields lay spread at his feet.

He could count the church spires, far away from the stream,
He beheld a bright lake in a setting of green.
Far away in the distance, a train thundered along,
But no sound reached McGregor on the mountain alone.

He sat there entranced, like one in a dream,
Till the long shadows warned him to quit the full scene.
Then home he went slowly, and pondered it well,
Saying, “Who owns this fair mountain? I wonder if he’d sell?”

He has since bought the mountain and lands on its brink,
When he first spied the valley and sat down to think.
But how changed is the scene since McGregor first came,
How changed are the hunters! How changed is the game!

The valley is there, lake, mountain and river,
A view once beheld, memory holds it forever.
But what of the hunters who now throng the place,
They are not seeking squirrels, they are dressed in fine lace.
And some, who wear broadcloth, great statesmen perhaps,
Seek these wilds to consult, lest the country collapse!

 

It’s possible the poem was written by someone other than Tilden to lampoon the former governor, who was laying the groundwork to seek the Democratic presidential nomination for a second time in 1880 after losing a controversial election in 1876.

“Honest John” Kelly, a New York City political boss, was attempting to undermine a second run for Tilden, who had split from Tammany Hall in 1871.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle criticized mudslinging from Kelly and his associates without endorsing Tilden for a second presidential run.

“The Eagle is under no more obligation to Mr. Samuel J. Tilden than it is to the first John Smith in last year’s directory,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial on Sept, 16, 1878 -- coincidentally, the same day The Saratogian published its report about Tilden’s visit to Mount McGregor.

“Mr. Tilden is not now Governor, and he is not now in power, and still the Eagle has taken every fitting occasion to say, as expressive of its deliberate conviction — that the vilification of Samuel J. Tilden, the lawfully elected Chief Magistrate of the Republic, which has been indulged in by political drubs in both parties — is the meanest, the most inhuman episode in the political annals of the American people,” the editorial continued.

The phrase “lawfully elected Chief Magistrate of the Republic” refers to the result of the 1876 presidential election, in which Tilden won the popular vote. The electoral vote was contested, however, when four states — Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon – submitted two separate sets of votes.

Congress appointed a bipartisan commission, which awarded all 20 disputed electoral votes to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, giving Hayes the victory.
I could find no evidence that Tilden wrote poetry. However, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier eulogized the former New York governor in the poem “Samuel J. Tilden,” in 1886, the year of Tilden’s death.

Tilden did have an interest in literature. He left $3 million in his will — the equivalent of $96 million in today’s dollars — to establish a free library in New York City, according to a National Park Service biography.

Tilden was buried in New Lebanon, the town in Columbia County where he was born.

 

Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star of Glens Falls for 21 years before retiring in 2017. He now is a freelance writer focusing on the history of politics, labor and media in the region.