LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 29 said: "Good luck! We ate your steak and drank your health in the tea." Hughes visited the Adirondacks on many occasions, both as a public figure and private citizen, absorbing the woodlands' restorative powers after long months of extremely taxing, hard work. "The year 1894 was an inflection point in Hughes's life," Loughrey said. "He had just finished teaching at Cornell and was seeking refuge from his intense life of legal work. Hughes had previously visited Miller House at Saranac, as a newlywed in 1889." While in private practice, he often visited Europe and the Alps, but as a public servant that trip was too ex- pensive and posed logistical problems, such as commu- nicating on important issues and matters of state when the cumbersome telegraph was the primary means of correspondence. After being elected governor, Hughes met with par- ty leaders at Camp Kill Kare, the Gilded Age estate of Republican state Chairman Timothy Woodruff in Ra- quette Lake. "He began to spend his summers in the Adirondacks, in lieu of the Alps," Loughrey said. "The first summer (1907) was somewhat limited because of the birth of his daughter Elizabeth, but he did go to a forester camp with his son, Charles Jr." In 1908 and 1909, he brought his entire family to the Lady Tree Lodge at Saranac Inn where he established a summer Executive Mansion and enjoyed the site's golf course when not taking hikes in the mountains. The New York Daily Tribune (Sunday, Aug. 9, 1908) devoted a full-page feature article about Hughes with accompanying photos under the headline: "Governor's 'Day Off' – How He Varies His Work and Play in the Ad- irondacks." One picture shows him teaching his young- est daughter, Katherine, how to sail a toy boat on the upper Saranac. Others show him in a camp setting with his favorite guide, Jim Patterson. In 1910, Hughes was busy wrapping up his duties as governor and preparing to move to Washington after being named Supreme Court associate justice by Presi- dent William Howard Taft. In 1912, Hughes was touted as a Republican candidate for president to avoid a party split between the pro- gressive Theodore Roosevelt and conservative Taft. He stayed at Camp Abenaki on Lake Placid during this pe- riod and through his friend, Rabbi Stephen Wise, issued a statement that he would not accept the nomination. Hughes had an especially longstanding fondness for Lake George, where he spent summers during his col- lege years, reading serious books at the Delta Upsilon camp on Huckleberry Island near the present-day Saga- more Resort in Bolton Landing. In a 1911 issue of the Lake George Mirror, Hughes is quoted, "In those days (1880s), the development of Lake George village (then known as Caldwell) and at Bolton Landing were not dreamed of … There were only a few summer cottages and a scattering of inns along the lakeside … The noisy facilities of airplanes, sea-sleds, motor boats and outboard motors, had not yet become available and we happily got about the lake in rowboats, much to the advantage of our health…De- spite the changes in recent years, this lovely lake has never lost its charm, but I knew it as its best." Hughes's most poignant connection to the region is the YMCA conference center's beautiful stone chapel at Silver Bay on northern Lake George. It was built in memory of his eldest daughter, Helen, who died follow- ing a long, heartbreaking battle with consumption at age 28 in 1920. Hughes, center bottom row, was Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1930 - 41.

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