swan lake

THE SWAN IN SWAN LAKE

It was formed by damming up the Mongaup River to provide water for a large tannery operating near there in the 1840s, and it is perhaps most famous for yielding the body of a victim of a mob hit in 1937.

It is Swan Lake, and as hard as it may be to believe, its name has nothing at all to do with the balletof the same name or the notoriously beautiful long-necked water birds.

The community, as opposed to the body of water, was originally named Stevensville, in honor of the Stevens brothers, who established a tannery there. James Eldridge Quinlan tells us in his History of Sullivan County that on January 24, 1848, "a meeting of those living near the tannery was held, at which Hiram Sandford the oldest inhabitant, presided, and was requested to propose a name. He suggested Stevensville, which was unanimously approved."

The tannery burned in 1856, but was soon rebuilt, and by 1870 the community on the west branch of the Mongaup River had become "a thriving village" comprising a Methodist church, a school, a hotel, two stores, a blacksmith shop, and a wagon shop in addition to the tannery, and had a population of about 125.

The body of water about which the community was constructed, which had appeared on some early maps as Snake Lake, was expanded to over 600 acres by the damming of the Mongaup, and soon became known as Stevensville Pond. It was owned in its entirety by Daniel Stevens.

After the demise of the tanning industry in this area, Stevensville became a favorite destination of summer tourists, and continued to thrive, despite not being located on the O&W Railroad line. A number of well-known hotels and boarding houses were located there, and were heavily patronized despite being served only by stage coach from the Liberty or Liberty Falls (Ferndale) stations. The stage, which also served White Lake, would pass over the pond on a crudely built causeway.

In April of 1895, Morris Stevens of New York City, a descendant of the Stevens brothers who had built the tannery, and the owner of large tracts of land at Stevensville, traded that land to Alden S. Swan, a prominent Brooklyn businessman, in partial payment for an apartment house he had purchased of Swan.

Swan, born in Hancock, Massachusetts on December 30, 1838, had come to New York at the age of 15 to attend the City College. Upon graduating, he had entered into business in the leather district, where he no doubt made the acquaintance of tanners from Sullivan County. He subsequently made his fortune in the oil business, and was, by 1900, also the president of the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company, a $24,000,000 corporation. He was active in civic and political affairs in Brooklyn, and was a director of the Market and Fulton National Bank, as well as other financial institutions, and was instrumental in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Swan was an avid boater, who as a young man had held the single scull amateur championship for nine consecutive years, and was the founder of the prestigious Great South Bay Yacht Club of Brooklyn. The prospect of owning a lake obviously appealed to him, and he began adding to his holdings, eventually owning a significant portion of the property around the lake, including the Swan Lake Mills, Rock Spring Lodge, Horseshoe Lake Farm, and Swan’s Casino, as well as the lake itself.

By 1900 or so, Stevensville Pond had become popularly known as Swan Lake, and was most noted for the large quantities of pickerel fishermen took from it.

Alden S. Swan died on February 23, 1917; he was 79. In 1927, the post office at Stevensville, was officially renamed Swan Lake in his memory. When his wife, Mary Althea Swan, passed away in December of 1921, her estate sold a significant portion of the Sullivan County property to Henry W. Siegel of Ferndale and Jacob Kretchmer of Woodridge.

In To the Mountains† By Rail, Manville B. Wakefield writes that the local press at the time noted that the property had "great possibilities for development, having a large number of ideal sites for hotels and bungalows." Siegel and Kretchmer took full advantage of those possibilities, constructing the Stevensville and Commodore Hotels side by side on the shore of the lake. With their construction, and the subsequent emergence of the Swan Lake Hotel, the community was poised to enter Sullivan County’s Golden Age.

The lake itself became the center of media attention on July 31, 1937, when, at the peak of the summer tourist season, a body was discovered floating on the surface of the water. The dead man was soon identified as Walter Sage, a Brooklyn mobster who was running the slot machine operations at various Catskill hotels for organized crime. Sage’s murder was the subject of two spectacular trials in Sullivan County Court, and finally resulted, in 1944, in the conviction of local ne’er do well, Jack Drucker.

The hamlet is enjoying a renaissance of sorts of late, and shows signs of emerging from a decades’ long slumber.

In addition to its hotel and bungalow scene, the Borscht Belt often found itself as a hangout for Jewish (and Italian) gangsters from Murder, Inc. Murder, Inc. was notorious crew of hitmen-for-hire responsible for hundreds of killings across New York City and beyond. 

Founded in the 1930s to threaten, maim or murder designated victims for a price; Murder, Inc., (as they were dubbed by the sensationalist press of the day) was headed by Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and later by Albert Anastasia. The group accepted contracts or hits on foes, and took them out in exceptionally brutal and violent ways. Murder Inc.’s inception, activities and inner workings shocked 1930s society and made newspaper sales soar with sensational headlines and salacious details of underworld death-dealing and deceit.

Murder, Inc. were largely of Jewish or Italian origin, and they were willing to take on pretty much anyone — just as long as the price was right. Though its members were involved in a variety of illicit activities including loan sharking, prostitution, gambling, bootlegging and labor racketeering, they became infamous for their role as the New York syndicate's so-called "execution squad." Based largely in Brooklyn, New York, their reach also extended to the Borscht Belt, where the Brooklyn gangsters vacationed during the summer to escape from the heat of the city and sometimes do some business.

Towns such as Swan Lake, Loch Sheldrake, Liberty, Fallsburg, Bethel and Kiamesha Lake bore witness to this brutal and dark activity.

Swan Lake in particular attracted Italian and Jewish crime syndicates from Murder Inc. Their operational arm, periodically used the Lake as a cemetery, or dumping ground. One of the most infamous murders was that of Walter Sage, whose body was found in the lake during the summer of 1937 tied up to a slot machine.

 The Mob was eventually broken by Thomas Dewey, later the 47th Governor of New York.   

For more reading on this topic check out Carolyn Crane's book entitled Murder & Mayhem in the Catskills.