Name/Title
Adventures on the Kalamazoo, c1930sEntry/Object ID
2023.50.48Scope and Content
Adventures on the Kalamazoo by Helen Gage DeSoto
When William Harbert divided his Saugatuck hilltop property into building lots, he provided a 10-foot wide easement to give the future owners access to the river. As Edith Ryder Barron and the Gage family were the only residents of Oxbow Hill, the 10-foot right-of-way was totally ours. A zig-zag track ran steeply down the slope directly in front of the Gage cottage, crossed the road, and descended the eight or ten feet to the water's edge.
Pulled up on the narrow beach and tied to a tree was the rowboat we always rented for the season from Charley's boat livery. Two sets of oars were stashed in the undergrowth because my cousin and I -- about 12 or 13 at the time (the early 1930s) -- considered ourselves a four-oar power rowing crew. Both good swimmers, though sworn to stay out of the water except in the direst emergency, we spent many hours getting to know the many faces of the Kalamazoo River.
I should mention that the cousin who shared these adventures was Dorothy Light, who grew to love Saugatuck so much that, as an adult, she convinced her husband, Courtney D. Osborn, to buy and renovate the other Oxbow Hill cottage which had belong to Mrs. Barron. The Osborns were for many years well-known summer residents and yacht owners.
As youngsters she and I considered the river our own waterway. One of our shorter excursions was upstream to Lake Kalamazoo, where we would row to the boats anchored out in the middle. We would point out to each other all the finer aspects of design and rigging and try to distinguish between a ketch and a yawl. Most of these craft were in the neighborhood of 30 feet in length, but once we were awed by the appearance of a huge three-masted schooner.
Our next step was to tie up at the shaky slips next to the Pavilion so that we could walk along the dock and critique the handsome Chris-Craft yachts (and I suppose there were other models) which were tied up there. We used to pick out which boat would be "ours" if we had our druthers. I still remember a few of the creative names gilded on the sterns. NanSu, Lively Lady, Silver Heels, Wanderer, Spindrift. (Dottie and Co's own boat in the years to come would be named Decibel, creatively connected to his work as an audiologist.) In those early days the names of visiting yachts were often "immortalized" on the wall of the Pavilion's lower level. Today we would call the bold paint and carving, graffiti, but to us it was an interesting historical record, and we had fun matching up the names on the wall with the boats that had returned for the third or fourth summer.
The Ferry Store when it was owned by Jean Palmer and Mary Kay Betties and still sold gasoline. Note the two dogs sitting primly on the fenders of Mary Kay's convertible Chloe, at left.
Other days we turned downstream where we had several favorite things to see and places to visit. A few hundred yards past the Ferry landing and the Mt. Baldhead Hotel there was tied up what seemed to us a kind of pseudo-yacht. It was fairly large and the color scheme was right, white hull and reddish-brown superstructure, but it lacked the smooth lines and glossy elegance of the boats we admired so much upstream. We had been told that this vessel belonged to a retired gangster, a really dangerous man named Red Barker. I think now that someone was pulling our leg, but we took the tale seriously and always rowed past this boat very quietly and very fast. Although curious and constantly hoping to lay eyes on this desperado (at a distance!), we never saw a sign of life aboard.
A little father downstream there was a wonderful old tree whose branches extended over the water. We would sometimes take sandwiches, a thermos of milk, some fruit, and whatever books we were currently reading. It seemed very romantic to tie up there in leafy concealment where we could relax, eat lunch, and read. In reality, it wasn't terribly satisfactory as the rowboat interior was all bumps and angles, and the wakes of the frequently passing traffic kept us rocking unevenly, but we stuck it out because we imagined it a storybook thing to do.
Continuing downstream we discovered a wide clearing on the shore of our own side of the river which contained traces of a house or serious campsite. Exploring, we found some stones from a tumble-down chimney, a rusty grill, and, strangely, a sturdy wooden rocking chair. This was a place which inspired us to one of our favorite and often repeated adventures: a breakfast hike. We were not ordinarily allowed to build a fire unsupervised, but when we showed this open waterside spot to my mother, she agreed that we could safely cook breakfast there on our own. Our routine was to collect our supplies the night before, rise early and make our way on foot through the forest. The menu consisted of an orange apiece, bacon, and "one-eyed sandwiches" prepared by dropping a slice of bread with a hole in the center into hot bacon fat and breaking an egg into the hole. As we sat next to our fire in the early morning, enjoying this feast, a regular parade of Saugatuck's fishing fleet passed by on their way to Lake Michigan. The men waved and called to us, surely astonished to see two children alone in this apparently isolated place, far from any cottages. We were always thrilled to call out cheery answers to their questions.
On days when we felt especially energetic, we would row all the way to the mouth of the river. We knew better than to venture into the channel itself, with its unpredictable crosscurrents and undertow, but we liked to beach the rowboat and walk out on the concrete breakwater. We felt quite daring going all the way to the end where the lighthouse/foghorn structure stood like a giant red Tinkertoy.
One day when we had rowed to the end of our world, curiosity overcame discretion, and we decided to explore around the magnificent white mansion that crowned the hill on the north bank of the river. Anyone entering the channel and heading upstream was bound to be impressed by the sight of the classic facade and Doric columns of this antebellum-style house. It had been built and was still owned at that time by David C. Cook, a Chicago publisher of Sunday School papers, devotional tracts, Bible study guides, etc. As we knew that it was empty and completely closed up, we thought it would be exciting to walk around the grounds. enjoy the view from the verandah, and peek in the windows to see the layout of the building so alien to most Saugatuck architecture.
As luck would have it, a flapping basement window provided us with an excuse to enter "in order to lock up." Dorothy, being the skinny, agile one, slipped through the opening, lowered herself to the floor and in minutes had bolted the window and opened the front door for me. Awed, we crept around the dark and shuttered first floor and tiptoed up the enclosed staircase, a far cry from the romantically sweeping descent I had envisioned. There was nothing to see but the still-pretty paper in the sunny bedrooms and our own footprints in the dust on the hardwood floors. We both felt relieved when we stood once more on the porch, with the front door closed and locked behind us. Our "noble purpose" might have been hard to explain had we been discovered.
The river gave us many roles to play that summer. Besides our games and imaginings, we made useful trips to the Ferry Store to pick up and deliver to the cottage the heavy quart bottles of milk that were needed daily. almost unnoticed as a side effect was the muscle building intrinsic to all that rowing, and when I got back to school in the fall my fellow students were shocked to feel my heavily callused hands and commiserated with me on the "hard labor" I must have been forced to do all summer.
-- Helen Gage DeSotoContext
Charley 's" Boat Livery would have been the establishment of Charles Hiestand, at the foot of Mason Street in Saugatuck. A rowboat, with double oarlocks just like the ones the girls rowed, has been donated to the Museum and will become part of the permanent exhibit in the south gallery. The gangster mentioned, probably Red Bolton who was a frequent visitor to Saugatuck, would have been considered "retired" after 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The David C. Cook mansion still stands on a hill overlooking the mouth of the river. It is currently owned by Frank Denison.Collection
SDHS NL Inserts, Nautical, Buildings: LostCataloged By
Winthers, SallyAcquisition
Accession
2023.50Acquisition Method
Found in CollectionNotes
SDHS Newsletter insert pages 105-106Lexicon
Search Terms
childhood, friendship, exploring, tresspassing, cookingLocation
* Untyped Location
Digital data in CatalogItRelationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
DeSoto, Helen (Gage), Harbert, William Soesbe 1842-1919, Barron, Edith S. (Reider) 1876-1951, 340-360 Water/Dockside Marketplace/Boatyard Village/Hiestand's Edgewater Boat Livery/Heath Grist Mill, Cook, David Caleb 1849-1927Related Places
Place
* Untyped Place
Kalamazoo RiverGeneral Notes
Note
This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. A binder of original paper copies is catalog item 2023.50.01Create Date
November 10, 2023Update Date
August 13, 2025
