The Harvey Mountain State Forest in Austerlitz, NY, was created in 1999 through a purchase from the Millay Society, and lies along the Taconic Ridge on the New York-Massachusetts line near Steepletop, the country home of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The 2065
foot summit of Harvey Mountain, easily
accessible by a 1.5 mile trail from East Hill Road off route 22, affords beautiful views of the Green Mountains
to the north and the Catskill Mountains to the west. But this woodland was once
far more populous and the scene of considerable commercial activity. And one
particularly notorious murder.
The connecting
trail from East Hill Road, reaches the main trail from the fire tower on Beebe Hill, 4.5 miles to the west, which then
continues through gradually ascending forest.
Meadows border the trail
Walking eastward, an open meadow is to your right and stone walls can be seen marking old roads and enclosures, clear indications that this
now forested area was once heavily
farmed.
The trail passes through gaps in old stone walls
Such walls – for those unfamiliar with them – go back to early New England farmers and are at least 150 years old.
Mine, quarry or charcoal pit?
After
about ¾ mile, a mine or possibly charcoal pit can be seen. This seems to have been a fairly small
operation and may not be related to what was once a major bridge across a
ravine. Why such a strong bridge abutment
was needed is unclear but it seems that fairly heavy loads must have been
anticipated, perhaps lumber or ore.
After
the trail crosses the stream near the old bridge site, the grade gradually
increases.
The stream can easily be crossed on stepping stones
Stone walls can still be
seen, but it is hard to believe any farming could occur on such slopes. Perhaps
these walls mark old pastures more than cultivated fields.
Stone walls date back at least 150 years
Views
from the summit are ample reward for an hour’s climb. And it appears that a roadway from the north
offers another way to access the summit. (Although ATVs are prohibited in the state
forest)
This
remarkably peaceful country, however, was the scene of a murder that attracted
national and international attention in the 1880s – and which raises the
intriguing possibility of a secret gold mine in these hills.
From Hudson Evening Register, March 1, 1888
On January
10, 1882 Simon Vandercook went to the shanty of 71 year old Oscar Beckwith, who
had recently returned to these hills from years of wandering and prospecting in
the West. Although the various newspaper
reports of the time differ somewhat, it does seem clear that the two men were
partners in a gold mine company. According to Nick Bigg, who wrote a 2003
article for the Columbia County History and Heritage magazine, Beckwith believed
there was gold on land he owned in this forest. He sold the land to a newly formed corporation
in return for a third interest, while Vandercook became manager of mining
operations. 1900 tons of rock were mined and carried out by wagon to the
Chatham rail station, where they were sent out for assay. The ore was
reportedly not rich enough to justify mining, thereby rendering Beckwith’s stock worthless – and Vandercook proceeded to sell off timber on the land and to
pocket the proceeds. Then came the murder.
When Vandercook failed to come back from his morning visit, his landlord Harrison Calkins came up from Alford, on the Massachusetts side, inquiring and thought he smelled burning flesh. When old Oscar disappeared that night, neighbors broke into his cabin and found Vandercook’s remains, minus a hand, two feet and a head. Although cannibalism was not mentioned in the initial newspaper account in the Hudson Evening Register of January 13, the legend of “the Austerlitz Cannibal” soon became part of local folklore.
When Vandercook failed to come back from his morning visit, his landlord Harrison Calkins came up from Alford, on the Massachusetts side, inquiring and thought he smelled burning flesh. When old Oscar disappeared that night, neighbors broke into his cabin and found Vandercook’s remains, minus a hand, two feet and a head. Although cannibalism was not mentioned in the initial newspaper account in the Hudson Evening Register of January 13, the legend of “the Austerlitz Cannibal” soon became part of local folklore.
Amazingly,
Beckwith remained free for three years and was finally arrested in 1885 some
200 miles north of Toronto. How a man of his age and apparent poverty managed
what the newspapers reported as a flight across the continent and back is not
clear. Nor is the role of a mysterious figure identified in reports of the time
as the detective J.P. Gildersleeve of Kinderhook who is said to have pursued
Beckwith. (What could have motivated this Gildersleeve or who would have paid
for such a lengthy pursuit is not clear. Could gold have somehow been the driving force for both men?)
Identical
descriptions of the detective’s success appeared in the Long Island Star and other
papers when Beckwith was apprehended:
Bracebridge,
Ont. February 25, 1885: Detective J.P. Gildersleeve, of Kinderhook, Columbia
county, N.Y., went to work on the case and followed the criminal to the Pacific
ocean, and thence through Canada along the Canadian Pacific railway. He put
himself in communication with Detective Rodgers, of Barrie, and D.F. McDonald,
a government woodranger, and these, with the assistance of Chief Constable
Perkins, of Gravenhurst, accompanied by Detective Gildersleeve and Sherif
Hamor, of Columbia county, N.Y., succeeded in arresting the murderer Beckwith
at South River, in the district of Parry Sound. The party passed through here
with the murderer, en route to Toronto.
The
conviction of Beckwith was no easy matter for prosecutors in Hudson. According
to Biggs’ article, the records of the first trial and appeals are missing, possibly destroyed
in the 1907 fire at the Columbia County Courthouse. A new witness testified during the motion
hearings for a second trial: a Dr. Giles S. Hulett of Great Barrington said
that Vandercook and his landlord had spoken of “getting rid of Beckwith” as an
obstacle to their mining plans. Beckwith
himself testified that he only killed Vandercook in self-defense after the man
attacked him.
The
transcripts of the second trial are also incomplete and no record has been
found of defense testimony. Beckwith was again convicted and again sentenced to
death. A sanity hearing reported some delusional thinking but he was ruled sane
enough to be executed. On March 1, 1888
he was finally hung in Hudson, reportedly the last public execution in New York
state.
Could this have been Oscar Beckwith's cabin?
And now,
amid the state forest lands where mines and farms once flourished, a hiker may
come upon an old stone foundation here and there, and wonder if this is the
place where Simon Vandercook was struck down.
And the
same hiker may wonder if there is any truth at all to the secret of a lost goldmine that old Oscar Beckwith took with him to the grave:
While awaiting the sentence to be
carried out, he told some of his visitors about the discovery of a new gold
vein, much richer than the first, which he discovered just before he eliminated
his partner. No coaxing would get him to reveal the location of the new site,
for he hoped the governor of New York would commute his sentence.
This 1962 historical novel by David Buckman was inspired the Beckwith case, but names and details have been changed. Even so, it offers an interesting imaginative look at life in the Taconic Hills in the 1880s. The book is long out of print but there is a reference copy at the Roeliff-Jansen Library in Hillsdale.
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