Hyde Bay Camp For Boys
Photo Gallery
The Dayman
Letters
History
Home Letter
Gallery
Gilman Voices
Catalog
Cap Hartzell's boat
(Herb Pickett writing): I'm attaching a print of the Hyde Bay sailing fleet, taken some time in the 40's I think. The leading boat is Cap's dinghy.
I think it may have been called the "African Queen" after Hepburn's movie came out. The next craft, (566 on the sail,) is the Comet Larry and I brought new from the factory about '36 or '37 (Cost, $225.00). When I was sailing Councilor, a couple of lads from across the lake had Comets,and we organized the Hyde Bay Comet Club and had races week-ends. After the guys got involved in military service, marriage and all that, Dad bought their boats. The third craft is one of those and I am on the fourth taking the picture.
I happened to be there when the Star sank. I was visiting on vacation, and Dad asked me to tutor a kid for a speech problem. (He figured in ministerial school I had had some speech training.) It was a very breezy day, and I kept one eye on the boat. I looked down for a moment, then looked up again and there was nothing there except eight heads bobbing in the waves. I took off as fast as I could go and Dad and I hopped into a row boat, out to the Hacker and ran out to rescue the floating crew. So the "Kitten" rests to this day in about 80 feet of water, all sails still set, thoroughly tangled in Lake Trout trolling gear snarled there.
Back to the Lodge
Bumppo
the Goat
Somewhere Dad got hold of a large goat, neutered male, who had a considerable ability to butt into things. Naturally he was named after Cooper's Deerslayer, Natty Bumppo. So Bumppo, he became. He was usually tethered near some brush Dad wanted trimmed and he feasted on that. I don't recollect our giving him any other food, or in fact, water. We used to leave pail of water with him, but since he never touched it, we didn't, bother. His stunning portrait attached was taken, of course, by the Commodore. The rest is me (Herb Pickett) with hair.
Cap Hartzell
Somehow, Dad engaged a man named Carl Hartzell to teach French in the tutoring school. I suspect he came through Ed Dunning. Anyway, he left prep school and was an instructor of French in Franklin and Marshall College. I don't remember what his rank there might have been. He had a sort of irascible personality and his considerable temper had a short fuse. He controlled it well, but it was known. He was as dedicated bridge player, and Dad fixed up a place in the corner off the dining room labeled, "Hartzell's Bridge Nook." In the last two weeks of camp, he collected all manner of dead wood, and by himself built the final bonfire. One year he turned up with a small sailboat on trailer behind his car. It was a sort of dinghy, 12 or 14 feet in length. Dad eventually bought it, and it may have been in the Hyde Bay Navy when you were there. He fooled with it, painted, caulked, did this and that, but I don't recall his sailing it very much.
Dad soon called him Captain of his ship, and forever afterwards, he was Cap Hartzell. Politically, he was very liberal, and on a small shelf by his desk kept his favorite books, Thorstein Veblen and Karl Marx, "Das Kapital." As a result, political discussions at the head table were often lively. He was one of the great personalities that made Hyde Bay unique.