The Secret of Mirror Bay
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If you want to know the real secret of "Mirror Bay" aka Otsego Lake, it’s
not about mysterious mountain sorcerers, fireflies, or poisonous centipedes. It is, however, about how Harriet Stratemeyer Adams came to visit Cooperstown in
the summer of 1971. She was there to do research for book #49 in the classic
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories Series, The Secret of Mirror Bay, which she
wrote. It was published in 1972. Harriet was head of The Stratemeyer Syndicate,
the company behind Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys among other popular series.
In Mirror Bay, as the book’s synopsis reads, “Aunt Eloise Drew
invites Nancy and her friends to Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee cabin near Cooperstown,
New York, for a visit and a chance to solve the mystery of the woman who glides
across the water. Upon their arrival Nancy becomes mixed up in a vacation hoax
because she resembles the young woman involved, and is nearly arrested for
fraud. On the wooded mountain near the cabin further exciting events await
Nancy and the other girls. There, in the deep forest, a weird luminescent green
sorcerer appears who threatens to cast an evil spell on anyone investigating his
strange activities. In a dangerous twist of circumstances Nancy finds that
solving one mystery helps to solve another. What happens when the young
detective and her friends uncover a cleverly concealed criminal operation makes
thrilling reading.” In the New York Public Library’s Stratemeyer Syndicate
archives there are quite a few documents and letters back and forth between the
Syndicate and Nancy Drew publisher Grosset & Dunlap on the creation of this
published book synopsis.
Nancy brings along her pals Bess and George and they meet up with Aunt
Eloise and the shenanigans start off right as they arrive in Cooperstown – two
mysteries! Local characters Miss Armitage and Yo are introduced as well as the
host of villains who try to thwart Nancy when she gets too close to their
secret hideout on the mountain. Villain Sam the Green Man is the one who
dresses up to scare people. One of these crooks is Doria Sampler Hornsby who
happens to look similar to Nancy, except she has a harder looking face.
However, people tend to mistake Nancy for her and think Nancy’s up to no good
until corrected. Johann “Yo” Bradley is a local youth who knows the ins and
outs of Cooperstown and is always ready to help Nancy with her mystery solving
and even comes to her rescue several times. Yo likes to tell tall tales and
refers to Cooperstown as “Ghost Country.” Miss Armitage has ancestors who
buried a Russian child’s coach in Otsego Lake which she is trying to find using stilts in the water.
The book is similar to a 1970s style Scooby Doo
mystery in part with the sorcerer and his costumes the villains “haunt” the
mountain with, the strange vacation hoax, the poisonous centipedes, the
luminescent mushrooms, the visits to all the area attractions, and the
discovery of rogue scientists doing experiments in a secret underground lab in
the mountain, which all work together to make this a rather interesting and zany Nancy Drew mystery. Mirror Bay does provide a great
travelogue style story in that Nancy and her friends travel around to the local
haunts and you get a real flair for the Village of Cooperstown.
As always, when I pick a real-life location where
one of the Nancy Drew books is set so that fans can follow in Nancy Drew’s
footsteps and bring the book to life at one of our Nancy Drew Conventions, I dive
in and research and sleuth for clues. Basically, I get to play Nancy Drew, but
it’s a much safer version of sleuthing without the chloroforming, head
knockouts and villain foibles thrown my way that Nancy often experienced. No
threats to stay off the case or else! No Cooperstown green sorcerer trying to
steal our thunder. In planning these conventions for over twenty years, I often
find some really neat real-life answers to the Nancy Drew book mysteries of our
youth. Sometimes though, things remain the stuff of mystery, which may be
fitting as this is Nancy Drew, after all.
I grab my magnifying
glass, hop in my proverbial roadster, and delve into the mystery like Nancy. I
re-read Mirror Bay, taking meticulous notes, made a list of real-life places
in the book and other things that happened or were interesting clues or what
seemed like possible real-life things and turned to Google. Looking up places
on Google, terminology used in the book, and using Google Maps helped to build
the logistics and lay the groundwork for our convention in Cooperstown. Then I
reached out to various places and people to create a great
itinerary for the fans to follow in Nancy and all her chums’ footsteps. Briefly,
in this book Nancy and her friends mention or visit some neat local places in
Cooperstown including 5-mile point, 3-mile point, Glimmerglass State Park, Hyde
Bay on Otsego Lake, Shadow Brook, Mount Wellington, the Cooperstown docks, Kingfisher
Tower, Council Rock, The Farmer’s Museum and the Cardiff Giant, the “Fenimore
Museum” likely then “Fenimore House” home of the New York State Historical
Association (NYSHA) now called the Fenimore Art Museum, Natty Bumppo’s Cave, a
Toy Museum which is no longer open, Hyde Hall, the National Baseball Hall of
Fame and Museum, shopping in the Village of Cooperstown, the US Post Office,
The Otesaga Resort Hotel, and Hyde Hall. Researching and reading about these
places is one thing, experiencing them in real time is a whole different
ballgame.
I traveled to Cooperstown with several close
chums in Nancy Drew Sleuths, Gina, Mary, and Kelly who are part of our fan
organization that puts on these conventions. We started out in Ohio and drove
up to Cooperstown over the course of two days doing research and book hunting.
The day we arrived in Cooperstown we could picture Nancy and her chums making
that same drive into Cooperstown. While we wound down the winding roads and
valleys, everything was green and lush. The distant woods in the spooky Cooperstown mountains were daring us to explore. Would there be a mysterious sorcerer
to tangle with or try and stop us from our sleuthing around Cooperstown? Time
would tell. As we drove into Cooperstown we were amazed with the picturesque
homes and buildings. It was like stepping back in time. Throughout downtown
Cooperstown, people were milling about and checking out the shops and
attractions, but we turned North heading toward the west side of the lake where
we were staying in a cottage for the duration of the convention. Our home base
was the Bayside Inn and Marina along the lakeshore. As we took the road on the
west side, I spotted Otsego Lake and everything fell into place – just as
described in the book and just as serene. As we wound around the lake, trees
densely populated the lake front in places and then views of the lake would quickly
come into focus as we whizzed by. The sun was starting to set and the colors and
reflections on the Glimmerglass were beautiful as we observed the lake from our
deck. I couldn’t wait to start out our adventure the next morning sleuthing out
the places from the book and real-life places from behind the scenes when
Harriet visited Cooperstown.
Speaking of real life, what’s the mystery behind the writing of this
book, the real secret of Mirror Bay? Before we began our journey there,
I had turned from planning our tourist stops and real-life adventures around
Cooperstown to the history behind the mystery. Specifically, source material
that can be easily found that might reveal a few clues. I have notes from frequent
trips to the Stratemeyer Syndicate archives at the NYPL. I had made mention in
my notes of a couple of letters about Mirror Bay but hadn’t paid a lot
of attention to them, as I was focused on other subjects on my previous visits.
So, I reached out to Stratemeyer researcher James Keeline who has quite a
database of letters and records on the NYPL Syndicate archives. He searched through
his files and came up with several dozen letters and documents in the NYPL
related to Mirror Bay that greatly added historical details to what I wanted
to share with fans at the Village of Cooperstown Library event where I was to
give a talk on Mirror Bay and the history behind it. These letters
included the two that I had taken notes on. Also, there was an interesting
reference on a written set of writing tips, a “Hint on Procedure for Writing
Children’s Books” that Harriet wrote. The procedures included this bit of
information under “Part III. Research” – “Libraries, museums. Children’s
coaches in Moscow palace now a museum. Used in story now laid in Cooperstown.”
In doing a bit of research online, The Grand Kremlin Palace serves as the
official working residence of the president of Russia. It also houses a museum.
The Armoury Chamber at The Grand Kremlin Palace houses a lot of historic and
ceremonial items including carriages and coaches. Harriet seemed to have an
interest in Russian cultural artifacts, as they appeared in several other Nancy
Drew mysteries. Was there something locally that Harriet spotted that inspired
her to create the Russian backstory and cultural artifact, the child’s coach,
that was hidden in the lake waiting to be discovered? I would soon discover a connection…
As I was working my way through the Syndicate
letters, notes, and memos for more clues, I discovered a curious piece of
ephemera that transcended way back before Harriet’s 1971 visit to nearly fifty
years earlier. Specifically, to 1924 Cooperstown in the midst of the Roaring
Twenties. Cooperstown was quite the enterprising village town. The historic Otesaga
Resort Hotel had opened in 1909. And Cooperstown was a place of many lakeside
camps for kids which were very rustic in nature, not for today’s glampers. Cooperstown
has been described as literary, cultural, recreational, and of course naturally
beautiful - and it has remained so for many years. As it turns out, the letter
I discovered involved Harriet’s father, Edward Stratemeyer of The Stratemeyer
Syndicate – inventor of Nancy Drew and other popular series including The Hardy
Boys, Tom Swift, The Rover Boys and The Bobbsey Twins. Stratemeyer had been to
Cooperstown in 1924. In a typed letter dated July 15, 1924, to “Camp Chenango,
Cooperstown NY”, addressed to a “Mr. Fisher,” he wrote of his time spent in
Cooperstown at the camp briefly. He was traveling with “Mr. Adams” – Harriet’s
husband Russell. “I shall long remember my visit to your camp and how royally I
was entertained there. It certainly is a beautiful spot and I do not wonder the
boys are enjoying every minute of their vacation. Remember me to all of them
and also to your wife and to the others.” He was sending Fisher a parcel of
Stratemeyer Syndicate books including some that Stratemeyer himself wrote up to
the camp for the boys to read, perhaps on rainy days.
Naturally I was curious about this camp! I
Googled “Camp Chenango” online to find a little bit of info, but not much, as this
was nearly 100 years ago that Stratemeyer visited and I wasn’t sure how long
the camp was in existence. I ran across something written about camps in the
area and it would appear that Camp Chenango was near the Pathfinder Lodge somewhere
on the east side of the lake described as a “woodsy maze.” In a June 1921 issue
of Scribner’s Magazine, an ad ran for Camp Chenango heralding “CAMP
CHENANGO ON OTSEGO LAKE, COOPERSTOWN, N. Y. For Boys 6 to 15. Give your boy a
vacation that counts. Self-Reliance, Happiness, Health. Wholesome Food,
Systematic Exercise, Mountain Air, Ideal Surroundings. Send for Illustrated
Booklet.” I also found a book –
“A Handbook of Summer Camps: An Annual Survey,” vol III by Porter Sargent, dated
1926, in which a description of Camp Chenango noted that the camp “is on the
east shore of the lake, four miles from Cooperstown and The Pathfinders’ Lodge
is a half mile beyond.” Camp Chenango was a boys’ camp, Pathfinders’ Lodge was
a girls’ camp. In Mirror Bay, Nancy stayed around 6 miles on the east
side out of Cooperstown, the Pathfinder Lodge is near there and of course Camp
Chenango. Located by Camp Chenango was Camp Otsego for girls also run by the Fishers
which opened in the 1940s. In Mirror Bay, Nancy and her friends walk
from their cottage toward Cooperstown and encounter a group of boy campers and
their counselor – no doubt likely from Camp Chenango, since it was a boys’
camp. They also run into a councilor named Karen who referred to her “little
girl campers” – likely from Camp Otsego. There were quite a few camps running
up and down the east side of the lake.
Campers in a 1920s postcard of Camp Chenango
.jpeg)
Map of Otsego Lake from Ralph Birdsall's The Story of Cooperstown
Copy from Suzan Friedlander with notes on camp locations
I ran across an article in the Cooperstown
Crier from 2013 with some information on a gathering of folks discussing
the lake camps. Several people were listed who presented about Cooperstown area
camps and I settled on one of them to contact - Suzan “Sue” Friedlander, Executive
Director & Head Curator at the Arkell Museum & Canajoharie Library, who
was happy to help share some information and I credit her immensely in helping
me find more information on the camps and to figure out where the real-life
location of the cabin in the book, Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee, might have been when
Harriet visited Cooperstown in 1971.
Sue was a fan of Nancy Drew and has her childhood
books including some of the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Bobbsey Twin books one of
which is signed by the author through a colleague of her father’s. Sue shared a
map from a book by Ralph Birdsall - The Story of Cooperstown, first
published in 1917. You can get a reprint at Willis Monie Bookshop in downtown
Cooperstown. Sue had written notes on a copy of the map as to where the camps
were back in the day. Now I could get a sense of exactly where Camp Chenango
and Camp Otsego were located along the east side of Otsego Lake. Past Natty
Bumppo’s Cave and before Pathfinder Lodge.
So nearly 50 years later after her father
vacationed through Cooperstown with her husband Russell, Harriet in the summer
of 1971 ventures to Cooperstown to gather research for writing Mirror Bay.
This is where the mystery deepens. How did she come to go to Cooperstown and
more importantly, who drove her there? This could have been the stuff of
Syndicate legends never solved, but I gave it the old college try. I started
with Nancy Axelrad, the only surviving Stratemeyer Syndicate partner left who
had told me several years ago that a Jane Sanderson who was working at the
Syndicate went with Harriet to Cooperstown. Nancy noted that Jane had spent
summers camping in Cooperstown as a child and knew all the ghost stories around
there. So, my starting point to find out more info behind the scenes, was to
locate Jane Sanderson if possible. When you’re living in the present day 2020s
and you’re talking about people who were working at the Syndicate more than 50
years ago in the 1970s, sadly, many are not around today which throws a wrench
into sleuthing for more clues.
Not so for Jane Sanderson. My one big clue was
that she was, like Harriet, a Wellesley graduate. So, I reached out to the
Wellesley Alumni Association and they sent Jane a message for me and I got a
reply from Jane. Unfortunately, it was not the reply I expected. She was there working
at the Syndicate in the 1960s, but not the 1970s and didn’t know about
Cooperstown. So, dead end there, and then the plot thickened…
Going back to square one is a daunting place to
be at first. However, I never give up that easily. So, I compiled a list of
people I was aware of who were working at the Syndicate in the early 1970s to
try and figure out which one of them could be our “culprit.” Nancy had been
sure it was Jane, so she tried to think over who it could have and likely
couldn’t have been. Many on the list have already passed on. There was
Priscilla Baker-Carr, June Dunn, Ann Shultes, Mary Fisher, Julie Irish, Lorry
Rickle, Lilo Wuenn, Grace Grote, and others Harriet sometimes took trips with
from her own family including sister-in-law Jeannette Adams and granddaughter Dr.
Margie McClave. There were others too that worked at the Syndicate like secretary
Marjorie Flynn and Nancy reached out to Marjorie to see if she had a few clues.
Meanwhile, I started trying to find out more
about Julie Irish. Curiously, Julie was from New Paltz, NY – just a couple of
hours from Cooperstown. That seemed promising. However, a letter in the NYPL
files from Julie to Harriet stated that Julie was moving to Tucson, AZ in the
summer of 1970, so she wouldn’t have likely been around to go with Harriet and
she didn’t work in the office, she worked from New Paltz. I surmised that whoever
went with Harriet was likely someone working regularly in the office or living
around that area in New Jersey. There was a woman on the list – a Mary Fisher –
who I was curious about as one of the letters on Mirror Bay back and
forth from the Syndicate to Grosset & Dunlap included a secretary’s
initials “mdf” (turns out this is Marjorie Flynn) and another Syndicate letter
of the time period included initials with just “mf” – could that be Mary
Fisher? Alas, no it was also Marjorie Flynn. And then of course, there’s Camp
Chenango that Edward visited run by a family named Fisher. Coincidence?
Possibly. But another piece to the puzzle I needed to shake down.
Grace Grote worked for the Syndicate during the time period of Mirror Bay having been written, she’d been there over 10
years at this point and had written quite a few Bobbsey Twins books plus helped
revised some Nancy Drew books including The Secret of Shadow Ranch and The
Message in the Hollow Oak. She also helped with general research and had done
research on the two Nancy Drew books published before Mirror Bay. Her
husband Donald Grote, was an advisor on science related subjects, mainly for
the Tom Swift series. As of 2020, Grace had turned 100 and there’s a news piece
online about her church celebrating that milestone. Would I be able to get in
touch with her in 2023? Might she have the missing piece of the puzzle? I
reached out to her church to see if they could get me in touch with her.
Then there was the eureka discovery in going manually
through the PDF files of the Grace and Donald Grote letters in the Stratemeyer
Syndicate archives at NYPL that James shared. It seemed there were little to no
hints there, nothing about Mirror Bay from the 1970s letters and as I
scrolled upward back through time, I got into the 1950s when I spied it. And I
can see why the “Cooperstown” search James ran didn’t find it originally as
Cooperstown was misspelled in the letter – it was spelled “Cooperstorn,” a
harmless typo at the time, but not so harmless in that it was nearly overlooked
70 years after the fact when trying to solve this mystery!
This letter that I
discovered in the Grote files, began the final unearthing of the rest of the
puzzle pieces I needed to solve this mystery. Harriet was dashing off this
letter to Grace’s husband, Donald, in 1957 about a Tom Swift he was consulting
on and she casually mentioned that she and her husband had unexpectedly made a
trip to Cooperstown for a funeral of “an old friend.” The letter was dated July
12, 1957. Looking up a 1957 calendar online, I surmised based on her mentioning
having gone there “last Sunday” – which would have been the 7th of
July, that the funeral had to have taken place around that time. It was
exciting to see that Harriet had been to Cooperstown and that she knew someone
associated with the town. I felt like I was getting closer to solving the
mystery.
Screen capture from The Oneonta Star - July 5, 1957
I figured it was worth a try to search out 1957 obituaries
for early July. I searched online
for a Cooperstown area newspaper – The Oneonta Star – to see if I could
find an obituary for early July that matched the date. In a matter of minutes,
I’d found a “smoking gun” of sorts. There was a clipping of a July 5, 1957
entry about E. Lynn Fisher who had died on July 4 at his camp on Otsego Lake.
What are the odds that a Fisher – associated in some way with Harriet’s father
before her and his visit to Camp Chenango in 1924 with her husband, passed away
at around the same time Harriet was going to Cooperstown for a funeral?
The obituary mentioned that Fisher had
established Camp Chenango. Undoubtedly the same “Mr. Fisher” that Edward
Stratemeyer was writing to in 1924. The funeral was in the afternoon that same
day Harriet and her husband had hurriedly drove up to Cooperstown. Fisher was
living in NJ and was an English teacher in Newark, NJ. That sealed the deal for
me. The Stratemeyer family likely knew the Fisher family well based on not only
being based in NJ where the Stratemeyers had lived for years, but the 1924 visit
by Edward and Russell Adams and Harriet traveling to Cooperstown for the
funeral in 1957, and so that explains the travels to Cooperstown and likely the
connection to traveling there in 1971. I would soon come full circle with more
news about this connection between the two families.
Now the real question became what inspired
Harriet to return for researching Mirror Bay in 1971 and was Syndicate
employee, Mary Fisher, the connection to the Fisher family in NJ and
Cooperstown and did she drive Harriet to Cooperstown in 1971?
In order to solve that mystery, I needed to see
about connecting with Grace Grote and running all these new developments by
Nancy Axelrad to see if that seemed plausible.
Nancy revealed a connection between E. Lynn
Fisher and a Lynn Ealer who worked at the Syndicate during the 1970s and it was
a further eureka moment! Lynn Ealer Ritchkoff was a granddaughter of E. Lynn Fisher.
I recalled that in the obit of Fisher, one of his daughters listed was Mrs. George J.
Ealer. Nancy revealed that Harriet, her husband Russell, and some couples including the
Fishers formed a group called The Whirling Dirvishes and would get together and
ball room dance. I think like a graceful waltz we’ve now come full circle. I suspected
that Lynn might have driven Harriet or perhaps suggested the setting of the
book. But, was she the “culprit” who went with Harriet? As for Mary Fisher, not
a relation, just a red herring!
I needed to see if I could find Lynn to get answers to my questions. I found her daughter through
social media and messaged her hoping she could get me in touch with Lynn.
Meanwhile, in doing a Google search, I found an obituary for a woman that Lynn
had left a condolence on at legacy website where she reminisced about “beautiful
Otsego Lake and Hyde Bay” and “camping days on Otsego.” She fondly remembered
camp reunions. This was definitely the right Lynn.
I heard back from Lynn’s daughter, and she was
able to put me in touch with Lynn. Her daughter recounted the family trips to
Cooperstown and how cousins of theirs still live in the area. She related how Camps
Chenango and Otsego closed in 1976 and at one point the local family took over
running the camp from the Fishers before that after E. Lynn “Pop” Fisher passed
away. She related that Camp Chenango was located near Pathfinder Lodge. As for
the Stratemeyer Syndicate, her daughter told me how she spent “sick days”
sometimes from school curled up on a couch at the offices of The Stratemeyer
Syndicate reading the books when her mom Lynn was working there.
Lynn Ealer Ritchkoff (far right) as a camp counselor, photo from a Facebook
reunion group for Cooperstown camps - copyright held by owner of photo
Lynn and I had a wonderful time chatting - just
the stories and memories she could recount about her time at the Syndicate and
knowing Harriet. The memories spent in Cooperstown at the camps were lovely to
hear about. Her grandmother, Jane Carr Fisher, was really good friends with
Harriet, the wife of E. Lynn Fisher of Camp Chenango. In fact, Lynn told me how
the Fishers lived just a few houses down from Harriet in Maplewood, NJ. She
spoke of Camp Chenango and Camp Otsego and how they were very rustic camps,
mostly tents and a few cabins. There was a bridge between the two camps and the
girls and boys would get together some for meals, beach cookouts, square
dancing, church on Sundays, but they also did a lot of activities on their own.
She reminisced about all the camaraderie among the campers and counselors who
came back for many years each year. So here it was, the connection complete
between how Harriet and her family came to travel and visit Cooperstown – she
was good friends and Maplewood neighbors with Jane and Pop Fisher. And the association ran deep - back at least as far as 1924 when Edward and Harriet’s husband visited
the Fishers at Camp Chenango. What a really neat and exceptionally quaint back story,
one I never expected to uncover when I began looking into the background of
Harriet researching for this book. I have no doubt that visits to the Fishers
and the camps was an inspiration and perhaps this was a touching way to
commemorate the long-lasting friendship among the families.
After graduating from her grandmother Jane’s Alma
Mater, Elmira College, Jane suggested that Lynn work for Harriet and after the
interview, she was hired and worked at the Syndicate for a few years. Her
position was secretarial and she did a lot of typing. She recalled a small
staff in the office, the line of typewriters everyone worked on, how Harriet
was most pleasant, generous, and always had a smile. Parties in Maplewood and
Harriet’s Bird Haven Farm were a treat. Lynn recounted once they moved the
Syndicate offices from East Orange to Maplewood, how they had a wonderful
library in the office of all the books the Syndicate had produced.
My first question, after pleasantries, was to ask
if Lynn drove Harriet up to Cooperstown. Was she THE one I’d been searching
for? The answer was “no” – Lynn was not the one who traveled with Harriet. Lynn wasn’t sure if she had been in Cooperstown when Harriet visited in 1971, but she remembers Harriet saying she was going to go there and of course about her having traveled up there and then writing the book. Lynn had a thought that it might have been June Dunn, who Nancy Axelrad had told me
often went on trips with Harriet. So, perhaps it was June, similar in name to
Jane, who went with Harriet to Cooperstown. Perhaps Jane Sanderson was being remembered
instead of Jane Fisher, Harriet’s friend. Two Janes and one June and I think
we’re on the right track. The one person left who might know, of course, was
Grace Grote.
From Lynn I learned a little more about Cooperstown and Otsego Lake. Harriet visited Hyde Bay, located near the north part of the
lake, named after the Hyde family. Located in Hyde Bay is Glimmerglass State
Park with the Hyde’s mansion, Hyde Hall. There is a river called Shadow Brook,
a tributary which flows into Otsego Lake at the north end near Glimmerglass
Park that Harriet investigated. In fact, it’s the largest watershed in the Otsego
Lake basin. In the book, when the sailboat Nancy and her chums are using is
stolen, Yo suggests it might be found around Shadow Brook and they immediately
go there and find the sailboat half sunken in the Shadow Brook inlet. Shadow
Brook also flows under the historic Hyde Hall Bridge.
When I mentioned some of the details from Mirror
Bay to Lynn, including the sunken chest with the old child’s coach, she
wondered if some of the sunken cultural artifacts from the lake could have
inspired Harriet. Lynn recalled a particular sunken boat that is in the lake. I
did some research online and found there were several wrecks in the lake and an
aircraft that crashed in 1948. In August of 1940, there was a wooden boat, The
Leatherstocking, that caught fire and sank. There is also Sunken Island in
the north part of the lake that Lynn mentioned. These cultural artifacts and
the idea of something being sunken – like the island – all could have been
inspiration to Harriet.
Other things that clearly inspired Harriet were the
history and tales written by James Fenimore Cooper which Harriet mentions in the
beginning of Mirror Bay and in various places throughout the story.
Cooper’s 1830 novel, The Water-Witch, featuring a ship named
“Water-Witch,” likely inspired the name of the speedboat that capsizes Nancy’s
sailboat, named “The Water Witch.” Sleuth Gina found this gem in searching
about Cooperstown. Cooperstown was also called “The Haunted Lake” by Cooper’s
grandniece Constance Fenimore. In Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in a
volume from 1871 to 1872, there’s an article called “The Haunted Lake” which
discusses Cooper and the lake. Constance speaks of Cooper no longer being with
us but that the magic of his characters lingers on all around the area that he
“lovingly described.” She writes of the lake, “It’s points and bays are
haunted, and it’s forests are peopled with wraiths and shades.” There couldn’t
have been a better place to set Mirror Bay.
Lynn and I discussed where Harriet might have
stayed when she visited Cooperstown in 1971. She mentioned a place I hadn’t
heard of called Rathbun’s. In doing some research I zeroed in on the fact that
it was located nearly 7 miles on the east side of the lake near Hyde Bay in very close proximity to the place in the book that everyone stays at. I
discovered that it was sold in 1985 and is now the Hyde Bay Colony. Online you
can look up Hyde Bay Colony and learn more about these cabins that 13 families
collectively own and rent out. The colony is located near Glimmerglass State Park. It’s also just south of the Shadow Brook River and tributary
to Otsego Lake.
Sharing the description of Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee
in the book with Sue Friedlander, she agreed that it was likely the current
Hyde Bay Colony. A major clue in the book that didn’t seem like something that
would have been made up, was that Nancy’s cabin was a “cola stop” for hikers so
there was a coke machine on the porch. There’s a cottage today in the colony
that advertises that they keep a copy of Mirror Bay displayed in the
cottage. Looking online at photos of the cottages in the colony, the
descriptions, the lake being right there, a dock, the views north across Hyde
Bay and west across Lake Otsego, just south of Shadow Brook, it would appear to
be THE location. Whether Harriet stayed there or not while doing research for
the book, she certainly made that the location for Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee when
writing the story.
In the book, once everyone gets to Cooperstown,
Nancy notes they will drive along the water to Hyde Bay and then walk down to
“Bide-A-Wee cabin.” It’s located “some six miles” from Cooperstown. The drive
to the cabin involves sites along the lake of various camps and campers -
likely Camp Chenango and Camp Otsego among others. They come to a parking area on
the left and park. They take their bags and head down a path toward the
waterfront. Though the cabin was on the bay, it was at the point where the “inlet
joined the lake proper.” The cabin was described as rustic and had a large
front porch with a view west across the lake and north across the bay. It had a
living room with a large fireplace, a well-furnished kitchen and three good
sized bedrooms.
Former Entrance to Camps Chenango/Otsego
After we arrived in Cooperstown the next morning
we set off on a sleuthing adventure around the east side of the lake. Our goal
was to find the location of the former Camp Chenango and Camp Otsego and also
to check out the Hyde Bay Colony to see if in fact this could be where the
fictional Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee cabin was located. I had a rather vague address
for Camp Chenango and a notation of someone mentioning a chain across an old
entrance. We watched our car’s mileage and drove about 4 miles until we soon
spotted a chain draped lazily across what was formerly a driveway. Overgrown
with greenery and vines, Gina and I traipsed down through the path, picking our
way as rain threatened to start pouring. There was an overgrown clearing and
then a “woodsy maze” as described in researching the camp. Nothing remained of
the camp, but you could picture the kids having a grand old time back in the
day with so much to explore and probably daring each other to run across on the
right side of the road up the spooky old “haunted” mountain.
We also doubled back to check out the hiking
entrance to the trail going up to Natty Bumppo’s cave – considered a rather
steep hike and by then the rain was coming. I walked a pathway among the trees
which provided some shelter and even checked the stumps of trees for mushrooms
as I went. Would they be luminescent? While we didn’t try to hike up to the cave,
Sleuth LuAnn and her husband Jim did – they didn’t spot any real sorcerers or
mushrooms, but they did discover the cave entrance. LuAnn noted that the path
up gets steeper as you climb up. She said “the cave is vertical and a small
person could probably squeeze in. Maybe
it has a lower opening, but it was too steep for us to check out.” It was
different as described in the book and of course Nancy and her pals had an easy
time getting to it for the sake of the mystery and convenience in Mirror Bay.
Pics of Natty Bumppo's Cave from LuAnn O'Connell
taken during a hike with her husband Jim
We headed around the lake to a point of “some six
miles” to arrive at the Hyde Bay Colony. A sign on the road advertised and
rather beckoned us in and we drove down into a parking area surrounded by
cabins that spread down towards the lake. It was pouring rain at this point and
I grabbed one of Mary’s umbrellas determined to not let that detour me. Channeling
my inner Nancy Drew, I headed down with my phone tucked under the shelter of
the umbrella and started down a pathway. Just like in the book, you wound down
towards the lake and as I came around a bend, there the lake came into view, and
it was like I had transported myself into historical fiction – the book came to
life. The view! Oh, the view across Hyde Bay was spectacular. You could see
west across Otsego Lake, north across Hyde Bay to see Hyde Hall up on the hill.
To the right was Shadow Brook inlet and just north from there the Glimmerglass
State Park beach area. Down around the lake front were several cabins on the
left and right. They sported decks and like in the book had chimneys and
fireplaces. The dock ran out from the shore and there were several boats and
kayaks. I could picture Nancy and her friends swimming and diving and even Miss
Armitage “gliding across the water” on her stilts. I was a little awestruck as
the rain came down in torrents. I almost hated to leave the glorious view, but
we had more sleuthing to do. Turning around one last time as I headed back up the
path, I had solved one mystery. This was Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee.
The path down to...Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee
One Mystery Solved!
Hyde Bridge, Shadow Brook runs underneath
Next, we headed to Glimmerglass State Park and
stopped at the Hyde Bridge, one of the oldest covered bridges and it was a
beauty. What a sight to stand there and watch Shadow Brook flow under the
bridge toward Otsego Lake. We continued into the park and walked to the beachfront.
I took a trail left down towards the lake edge where Shadow Brook empties into
it. There was a lot of areas you couldn’t get to, without getting into the
muddy shallows and brush, but I got close enough to get some nice pictures of
the inlet where in the book, Nancy’s stolen sailboat is found half buried in
mud. From the park we traveled to Hyde Hall, the mansion in the book where some
of the crooks try to conceal a stolen chest of papers. You could see across
Hyde Bay back over to Hyde Bay Colony and a small dotting of the cabins. The
views were stunning. Our sleuthing out the real-life places was a very
successful and rewarding part of our day.
Shadow Brook inlet, tributary
Hyde Hall
Before arriving in Cooperstown, I had continued
to try and solve the mystery of who Harriet went with to Cooperstown. Would I
ever solve that? I had to find a way to get in touch with Grace Grote. What
might she have to say about it all? And did she or her husband Donald have
anything to do with Mirror Bay behind the scenes? Mirror Bay with
its inclusion of the theory of Cold Light, the Fireflies, and the science
laboratory in the mountains, would have been right up Donald’s alley.
The church contacted me back and called Grace to
see if they could give me her phone number so I could call her. She wasn’t on
social media and didn’t have e-mail, so it would be regular mail or the phone
which suited me just fine. In the nick of time, I rang her the day before I
embarked on my trip to Cooperstown and I was thrilled to get to chat with
Grace, nearly 50 years after she had worked at the Stratemeyer Syndicate, having left in
1974.
Grace was so interesting to talk with. She mainly
worked on the Bobbsey Twins series, but did do research for Harriet on other
things, however she didn’t remember whether she or Donald might have worked on
the Mirror Bay book. After so many years, it wasn’t familiar to her. She
was always pretty caught up in the Bobbsey Twins series at the Syndicate. She
spoke fondly of her husband Donald who was a science teacher. She said when he
worked on Tom Swift, he could come up with fantastic inventions but Harriet’s
one caveat was that they must be scientifically possible. It’s possible he could
have given some info to Harriet on some of the science in Mirror Bay
regarding Cold Light and fireflies. Grace wasn’t sure who Harriet would have
traveled with. So, outside of the possibility of it being June Dunn, I was
resigned to the fact that this piece of the puzzle might remain a mystery. Grace
did fondly remember reading Nancy Drew during the Great Depression. She was
around 9 years old and emphatically stated that “Nancy Drew was a great splash
of light in a very dark time.” Grace, very proud of her work at the Stratemeyer
Syndicate, gives talks about Edward Stratemeyer, Harriet, Nancy Drew, the
Bobbsey Twins, and other topics related to the Syndicate. I think this is
incredibly inspirational.
There was a February 2011 article in the now
defunct Whispered Watchword by Jack French about Grace Grote who he’d
spoken with to write the article around 2010. He wrote of Harriet and her
research trips and Grace had mentioned that June Dunn frequently went with
Harriet on trips for research. French wrote, “When Harriet needed some outside
research to be done regarding a geographical region or a certain industry for
use in an upcoming series book, Harriet would take another staffer, June M.
Dunn, with her on these trips.” I think therefore, since June and “Jane” are
similar, that it’s highly likely given this information about June, that she
was probably the person who went with Harriet to Cooperstown. A letter soon to
arrive from Lynn also referred to the likelihood that it had to be June Dunn.
Back to Cooperstown, I was speaking at the
Village of Cooperstown Library on Saturday, July 15 during our convention and I
was very excited to tell everyone about my sleuthing adventures in ferreting
out all the clues behind the mystery and how Harriet came to visit Cooperstown.
Sue Friedlander attended the event and other local Cooperstonians were present
including Pam Larbig whose grandparents were Pop and Jane Fisher. Lynn, her
cousin, had called to chat with her about my visit and research. I was so
thrilled to be able to meet one of the family and chat about Harriet’s visit.
Several exciting things came from the library event. Pam told me about
remembering Harriet’s visit in 1971. She was just a kid then and busy with camp
activities, but she recalled Harriet coming to visit. She remembered a coke
machine at the camp too that may have figured into the coke machine on the
Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee porch. She also remembered Harriet sending up books to
the camps and still has her vintage series books including her Nancy Drews.
Several locals and some of the Sleuths in the audience noted during our Q’
& A’ after the talk, that the 1970s were a period of Sci-Fi themes in pop
culture, so that also could have influenced Harriet’s choice of the science
elements of this book. Sue brought up the Carriage and Harness Museum when I wondered
about the coach. When I referred to the character Yo in the book as being
called a “folklore joker” behind the scenes by Harriet, Sue and the woman
sitting next to her both said immediately that was a local man named Louis “Lou”
Jones. And then and there I had more rabbit holes to sleuth down when I
returned and wrapped up this adventure. What an exciting day!
Postcard featuring the Carriage and Harness Museum
First let’s talk about the Carriage and Harness Museum
and the child’s Russian coach plot elements. Back in the 1970s when Cooperstown
was full of museums, some no longer here today, there was a carriage museum called
the Carriage and Harness Museum. There had been around three dozen carriages
owned by millionaire F. Ambrose Clark that had been on display among other
relics. In an article in the New York Times about the museum from 1978, it was
disclosed that the museum would be closing and the collection would be dispersed
at public auction. The carriage and harness collection was considered the
finest in the country. Clark was an internationally known sportsman and one of
the last sporting carriage drivers. The museum was located two blocks from main
street in the former stable of Clark’s at Elk and Fair streets. A 1975 New York
Times article, “A Large Slice of Americana, Served up in Cooperstown” described
the vehicles as "buggies, runabouts, buckboards, carts, phaetons, shays,
sleighs, Bronson wagon, road coach and other horsedrawn vehicles." Could there
have been a child’s coach in the collection? Did visiting this museum inspire
Harriet to look into coaches in a Russian Palace, “now a museum,” as she
noted in the set of writing hints, which then led her to create the Russian child’s
coach backstory?
Denny's Toy Museum
There was the “Toy Museum” that Nancy and her
friends visited in Mirror Bay. Long closed, it was located on the west
side of the lake toward Springfield Center located on the northwest part of the
lake and the buildings are still there though it’s a private residence now. I
found a reference online in an old issue – May 30, 1977 – of New York
Magazine via Google Books. It was called Denny’s Toy Museum when Harriet
visited. Harriet was an avid doll collector and the now-closed toy museum housed
quite a few dolls and children’s toys. In the book the description of the dolls
included this information, “Also on display were many kinds of buggies and
other vehicles in which children had given their dolls rides.” Perhaps between
the toy museum and the Carriage and Harness Museum, and Harriet’s love of
Russian antiquities, the child’s Russian coach plot was born.
Louis C. Jones aka "Yo" from Mirror Bay
Next, we’ll focus on the “folklore joker,” Louis
C. Jones. What a character he must have been! After the library event and a
special early 50th surprise birthday party that was thrown for Kelly and I, we headed to Hyde Hall for the house tour which didn’t disappoint, Hyde
Hall was a fabulous vintage Cooperstown showpiece. Before the tour, in the gift
shop, I purchased one of Jones’s books, Things That Go Bump in the Night,
which is a neat book, a 1983 reprint published by Syracuse University Press. The back
of the book notes that Jones was “an authority on regional folklore and on ghost
stories in particular. He was director of the New York State Historical
Association in Cooperstown, New York.” His New York Times obituary from
November 28, 1990 noted that he had retired from NYSHA the year Mirror Bay was published. His collection that he assembled of “primitives” has been
said to be one of the most important of its type in the country, according to
art historians. He was a founder of the New York Folklore Society. In the
preface to the book I purchased, Jones stated about the supernatural, “I was
not, am not, a believer in the supernatural; if I had had a motto it would
probably have been, Dubito Ergo Sum.” This translates to “I doubt, therefore I
think, I think therefore I am.” Of Cooperstown he stated, “It is a great
privilege to live in a town which the dead have not deserted.”
Harriet had to have met
Jones in researching the area and with his being head of NYSHA and the associated
Fenimore House and the Farmer’s Museum, he would have been a great resource for
her on local Cooperstown lore. She clearly used his books for research in Mirror Bay. In reading Things that Go Bump in the Night, two stories that Yo had talked about in Mirror Bay, included a “folk classic” and a “ghostly hitchhiker”
tale that Jones expanded on in his book. A classic example of urban ghost lore
is “The Ghostly Hitchhiker” and Jones devotes an entire chapter to this
folklore. There are similar versions all over but the basics include a rainy
day, someone riding by a cemetery, seeing a girl, and picking her up to take
her to an address. She disappears once there, the woman inside the home was her
mother, the girl had died and was buried in that cemetery. On page 137 of Mirror Bay, Yo tells this story to Nancy and her
friends. Another tale from Jones’s book, the folk classic ranking up there with
the ghostly hitchhiker was a story about a couple stopping for the night and an
elderly couple giving them a room. They left early so as not to disturb the couple, leaving
a 50-cent piece on a table. In town, they’re told the place had burned down
some time ago, and a trip back to investigate finds the remains of the building
but on part of a table still standing is the 50-cent piece. Yo tells this story
on page 105 of Mirror Bay.
In Mirror Bay, Harriet brings the folklore into the plot
with Yo referring to Cooperstown as “Ghost Country.” The name Jones appears in
several places in the book – a botany student, Karen Jones, is a camp counselor
at a girls’ camp and tells Nancy about Yo, “People around there laugh at him
and say he’s full of tall tales…” He’s noted as being “kind of a town
character.” George refers to him as the “tall-story boy.” Nancy’s boyfriend Ned
Nickerson conveniently is taking a psychology course at Emerson College and as
part of that course he’s been studying folklore and ghosts. Ned tells the
reader that “Scholars of this subject declare that all these stories are merely
folklore.” Ned ends up spoiling Yo’s attempt to put one over the girls with
these ghost stories, for Ned already knows the stories and their endings. One
of the villains, Sam Hornsby, is revealed to be named Sam H. Jones. Curiously,
in Jones’s book, a man named Michael Welch is mentioned in connection with a
ghostly tale. In Mirror Bay, Sam’s partner is named Michael Welch, who rented along with Doria,
the Water Witch speedboat. His full name is Michael W.
Brink. Finally, Yo refers to Nancy as “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.” As a teenage
sleuth, calling Nancy a “Mrs.” is odd. I have to wonder if Jones called
Harriet, a Mrs., by that moniker due to her mystery writing and sleuthing
around Cooperstown. I’m sure that would have delighted Harriet enough to use it
in the book.
Reprint purchased at Hyde Hall
Bruce Markeson telling tales about Pomeroy Place
Cooperstown Candlelight Ghost Tours
The night before the
library event, our group had taken a ghost tour of Cooperstown haunts by Bruce
Markeson – Cooperstown Candlelight Ghost Tours – which was wonderful and is highly
recommended. He and his wife attended the library event. When Sue Friedlander
mentioned Lou Jones, I was reminded of a stop on the ghost tour to Pomeroy
Place. A gray stone house, Pomeroy Place was built in 1804 located on the
corner of Main and River Streets near Otsego Lake. It was a wedding gift from
William Cooper, founder of Cooperstown, to his daughter Ann and her husband
George Pomeroy. Ann’s ghost is said to haunt Pomeroy Place. Markeson related
the tale and said she’s sometimes seen reading through a window. Jones lived
for a time in Pomeroy Place. In fact, in a new introduction dated 31 December
1982 to the reprint of Things That Go Bump in the Night, he writes on page vii, “We moved next door to live in Ann Cooper
Pomeroy’s herringbone house, and while we have never seen her, my wife thinks
our old Sheltie, Fido, watched her come down the stairs and go out the front
door one summer’s evening.” Our tour ended as we wrapped things up at Otsego Lake near the infamous Council Rock.
The infamous Council Rock
When I returned home from Cooperstown to continue
sleuthing for more information about clues that I was given at the library
event, there were letters waiting for me from Lynn Ealer Ritchkof. I was
excited to see them. One was a promised article on Cooperstown by Nicole
Pensiero in the NJ Star-Ledger – I had found a link to it online to check out
while traveling there and it was a nice write up with neat things to do in
Cooperstown. Lynn mentioned in her letter several things that were interesting
to note. One exiting clue was that Lynn and a friend had researched mushroom
caves for Harriet in Newburgh, NY. She also reminisced about the camp days and
Harriet’s generous donation of books to the camps over the years. She
reiterated that she felt that June Dunn was the likely one to have gone with
Harriet to Cooperstown.
The research into mushroom caves was intriguing.
Especially since luminescent mushrooms play a role in Mirror Bay as do
caves. Nancy finds a luminescent mushroom growing a cave in a scene in the
book. I didn’t find much online about any mushroom caves, but while we were
there in Cooperstown, I kept my eye out for any growing around tree stumps and
on the ground. I had looked up luminescent mushrooms online and had some idea
what they might look like. We did find an abundance of mushrooms in two
locations. The first was south of Cooperstown near Milford where we went on a
rail biking adventure. The other was when we visited Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee the
second time when it wasn’t raining after the library event and everyone got to
see that amazing view. There were mushrooms growing all over of various types.
I don’t think any were luminescent though. In a humid lake environment such as
what exists in Cooperstown, I’m sure that mushrooms are prevalent and would
have been back at the time of Harriet’s visit. Perhaps they piqued her interest
enough to turn them into something more intriguing in Mirror Bay.
Mushrooms on our rail bike tour south of Cooperstown
Mushrooms at Mirror Bay Bide-A-Wee
Baseball Hall of Fame
What of the Key to Cooperstown that museum
officials were going to have made for Nancy? After the mystery involving the
Russian child’s coach is solved and the relic is brought up from the lake
bottom, officials from the “Fenimore Museum” come to collect it – a Mr. Hill
and a Mr. Clark. The Clark name was famous in Cooperstown – the family had many
roots in this area – F. Ambrose Clark’s carriages and harnesses making up the museum
previously mentioned, the family built the Otesaga Hotel and Resort. Stephen
Carlton Clark was a philanthropist and art collector among other pursuits. He founded
the Baseball Hall of Fame. He gave his late brother, Edward’s home, to NYSHA
which became the Fenimore Art Museum. He is the founder of the Farmer’s Museum.
His son Stephen Carlton Clark, Jr. would have been around continuing his father’s
legacy when Harriet visited in 1971. So, there is little doubt that either the
senior or the junior is the inspiration for the museum official, “Mr. Clark,”
that arrives to assist Nancy and Miss Armitage with the donation of the Russian
child’s coach.
I reached out to the Deputy Mayor of Cooperstown,
Cynthia “Cindy” Falk, and Mayor Ellen R. Tillapaugh for a few clues. Was there
a real-life Key to Cooperstown, or perhaps back in the day? Or was it the stuff
of fiction, as is often the case? I found out from them that there is no
real-life Key to Cooperstown, now or back when Harriet was writing this book,
just an invention and a way to reward Nancy for a job well done for solving the
mystery. Deputy Mayor Cindy sent me a 1928 article that had the line, “if there
was a key to the village…,” showing that there was historically no key at that
time. Mayor Ellen gave me a little info on Denny’s Toy Museum and noted that it
was a popular place for birthday parties with a tour, lantern slides and then
cake and ice cream on the porch. It was closed sometime after Harriet’s visit
in the 1970s and the collection dispersed. She noted that she had purchased Mirror
Bay for her kids and nieces and she even came to the library event. It was
a pleasure to meet her and I thank both her and Cindy for the information they
provided.
There was one final curiosity I had in checking
out the book and real-life people and places. The Baseball Hall of Fame is more
of a tourist-type stop in the book rather than a part of the mystery. But Nancy
and a few of the others check it out one evening. Nancy states that she’s
partial to baseball player Leroy Satchel Paige for a quote of his, “Don’t look
back—something might be gaining on you.” I had wondered if that quote might be prominent
at the museum, assuming that Harriet had visited it. But when I did a search on
Paige, I found that he had come to Cooperstown in 1971 after it was announced
in February of that year he would be inducted in the Hall of Fame. In August
1971, he was inducted. There would have been a lot of local fanfare in July
leading up to the induction, when Harriet had visited. So, that was big news,
and likely played a role in Harriet focusing on Paige in some of the baseball information used in the book.
The Farmer's Museum
Hating to say goodbye to a great adventure, the
day we left Cooperstown we stopped into the Farmer’s Museum to see the Cardiff
Giant that Nancy and her friends visit in the book. An old archaeology hoax, a
man named George Hull decided to see how easily he could fool people with a
fake giant and for a time it worked. It
was sold to the Farmer’s Museum in the 1940s. We also briefly visited the Fenimore
Art Museum.
Now that we’ve wrapped up the real secret – or
many secrets - behind Mirror Bay and how Harriet had an association to
the town, via the Fisher family, that none of us ever had a clue about, there
must be something magical about the month of July in Cooperstown. Edward Stratemeyer
visited Camp Chenango in July of 1924. Harriet and her husband went to Fisher’s
funeral in July 1957 and likely Harriet visited Cooperstown in July of 1971 to
do research for her book, having written to Grosset & Dunlap mid-July noting
she’d just got back from her visit. And of course, here we were, the NancyDrewSleuths hosting our convention in Cooperstown in July of 2023, 99 years after
Stratemeyer’s visit. And if you want to get even more conspiratorial, my last
name is Fisher. All just fun coincidences, but intriguing nonetheless. But if
you don’t believe in coincidences, next thing you know, Doria or Sam the Green Man
sorcerer will suddenly appear to scare us away from finding out even more amazing
historic behind the scenes information.
One rewarding consequence of my research into Mirror
Bay is that Lynn and Grace have reunited and are catching up after quite a
few years of losing touch with each other. I think that’s so charming and sweet
and I’m happy I could get them back in touch with each other. As I close
out this “novelette” about my research into the history behind Harriet’s
writing Mirror Bay, I must say, playing Nancy Drew and following in her
footsteps as well as Harriet’s was as thrilling as the prospect of doing it all
again at the next travelogue-style convention. Until then, Happy Sleuthing
Campers!
The Fenimore Art Museum
Check out these other images of local sights from our visit to Cooperstown including a boating excursion on Otsego Lake on the Glimmerglass Queen, seeing Kingfisher Tower from the boat, a visit to the US Post Office, the statue of James Fenimore Cooper and the cemetery where he is buried among other infamous Cooperstown folks, the Otesaga Resort Hotel where we held a mystery dinner, Five Mile Point, and the lakeshore by our cottage and the colorful kayaks that were beached.
Sailing on Otsego Lake
Kingfisher Tower
US Post Office
Statue of James Fenimore Cooper
Cemetery & Headstones
The Otesaga Resort Hotel
Images above of historical documents from NYPL courtesy of James Keeline. Map from Ralph Birdsall's The Story of Cooperstown with notes courtesy of Suzan Friedlander, some images from the ghost tour courtesy of Jim McNamara and Gina Travis, pics from the Natty Bumppo hiking trail from LuAnn O'Connell, photo of Lynn Ealer Ritchkoff and campers from a
Cooperstown camps reunion Facebook group.
Other photos from around Cooperstown, taken by Jennifer Fisher.
BIBLIOGRAPHY – SOURCES USED IN RESEARCHING THIS
ARTICLE:Carolyn Keene, The Secret of Mirror Bay. Nancy
Drew series, volume 49. Grosset & Dunlap, 1972.
Stratemeyer Syndicate Records, 1832-1984, New
York Public Library, various letters and documents from various boxes –
research gathered by James Keeline, Stratemeyer expert, research notes by
Jennifer Fisher; from various library research trips over the years.
Phone calls and letters from Lynn Ealer
Ritchkoff, former Stratemeyer Syndicate employee and granddaughter of E. Lynn
“Pop” Fisher and Jane Carr Fisher discussing Camp Chenango, Camp Otsego, and
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams’s visit to Cooperstown to research Mirror Bay.
“E. Lynn Fisher, 77, Organizer of Cooperstown
Camps, Dies.” The Oneonta Star, July 5, 1957.
July 2023 phone calls with Grace Grote, former employee
and ghostwriter of the Stratmeyer Syndicate, on her experience at the Syndicate
and with Harriet Adams.
Previous e-mail correspondence plus July 2023 e-mails
with Nancy S. Axelrad, former Stratemeyer Syndicate partner on Harriet
Stratemeyer Adams’s travels to Cooperstown
July 2023 e-mails with Suzan Friedlander, Executive
Director & Head Curator at the Arkell Museum & Canajoharie Library,
whose research on the camps and Camp Chenango and knowledge of Cooperstown
history were a huge help in locating and learning about the camps as well as
learning more about Louis C. Jones. Her reading of Mirror Bay helped to
point out real-life connections and she was quick to point me toward articles for further research.
In-person chat with Pam Larbig in Cooperstown, NY
about her grandparents Pop Fisher and Jane Carr Fisher and Harriet Stratemeyer
Adams’s 1971 visit to Cooperstown.
July 2023 e-mails with Cooperstown Deputy Mayor
Cynthia Falk and Cooperstown Mayor Ellen R. Tillapaugh regarding an old Toy
Museum and the Key to Cooperstown.
The Freeman’s Journal, Cooperstown NY, October
24, 1928. Reference to there being no key to the Village of Cooperstown.
Wikipedia – Cooperstown information, Cooperstown
being the “Village of Museums.”
ThisisCooperstown.com – Cooperstown visitor’s
information and lore
A Large Slice of Americana, Served up in
Cooperstown. New York Times, July 27, 1975.
“Denny’s Toy Museum” ad. New York Magazine, May
30, 1977.
Louis C. Jones, Things That Go Bump in the
Night. Syracuse University Press reprint, 1959, 1983.
Glenn Fowler, “L.C. Jones, 82, Dies; A Writer and
Expert on Folklore in U.S.” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1990.
Shirley O’Shea, The Time of Year for Ghost Stories. Cooperstown
Crier, October 6, 2011. Features Cooperstown Candlelight Ghost Tour guide Bruce
Markeson.
Constance Fenimore, The Haunted Lake.
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume 1871-1872.
“Museum is Going Way of Horse and Buggy.” New
York Times, July 6, 1978. References to the old Carriage and Harness Museum
July 2023 E-mail with owner of a cottage at Hyde
Bay Colony, Jo Grice-Barrows about Hyde Bay Colony having formerly been
Rathbun’s.
Jack French, Fourteen Years Working for the Syndicate.
The Whispered Watchword, February 2011 issue, #11-1.
“CAMP CHENANGO ON OTSEGO LAKE, COOPERSTOWN, NY” ad. Scribner’s
Magazine, June 1921.
Porter Sargent, “A Handbook of Summer Camps: An Annual Survey,” vol
III by Porter Sargent Publishers, 1926. Information on Camp Chenango.
Ralph Birdsall, The Story of Cooperstown. The Arthur H Crist
Co, Cooperstown, NY, 1917.
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