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March 1, 1913

Hon. William Sulzer

Governor of New York

Albany, New York

My dear Sir:

The situation existing in New Jersey, relative to the appointment of Commissioners of the Palisades Inter-State Park is such that I feel it incumbent on me to offer you my resignation.

I hereby resign as a Commissioner of the Palisades Inter-State Park of the State of New York to take effect at your pleasure or upon the appointment of my successor.

Very truly yours,

Abram De Ronde

WILLIAM WELCH WAS joining the commission staff at a time of upheaval and an almost head-spinning surge forward in the park stewardship experiment. Within two years of his employment, he was promoted to chief engineer and general manager, leaping from a career that had been focused primarily on building railroads to hosting a growing wave of park visitors rapidly increasing from the hundreds to the thousands, and finally into the millions. Welch was not in on-the-job training; he was in self-training with no prototype as a guide.

Politics and mortality were taking a toll on the commission. The signal from Democratic governor James F. Fiedler of New Jersey, who succeeded Woodrow Wilson, echoed the former governor’s opinion that Abram De Ronde, an active participant in conservation activities since the inception of the commission thirteen years previously, was no longer politically acceptable. De Ronde, a member of the New Jersey Democratic Committee, apparently stepped on the wrong toes within the power structure of his own party. With his resignation, De Ronde’s name disappeared from the commissioners’ roster, ironically to resurface nineteen years later when he was reappointed to the commission by Democratic New Jersey governor A. Harry Moore. De Ronde thereafter served until his death in 1937.

Two other charter members departed the commission in 1913: William A. Linn, a second political casualty in New Jersey, who, like De Ronde, submitted his resignation, and D. McNeely Stauffer, who passed away. Four years earlier, death also had taken William B. Dana. Succeeding Dana was Richard V. Lindabury, a founding partner of Lindabury, Depue, & Faulks in Newark, New Jersey. Through various legal proceedings, including a successful challenge directed at the American Tobacco Company for the restraint of trade and a defense of the United States Steel Corporation against trust-busting, Lindabury gained a distinguished reputation in his chosen profession. He served as a director and counsel for the Prudential Life Insurance Company and, as a lifelong Democrat, was urged by party leaders to run for governor. Lindabury declined, preferring, instead, to return to his childhood farming roots by creating and devoting attention to “Meadowland,” his 600-acre estate near Bernardsville, New Jersey. Lindabury brought sharp legal talent to the commission and would serve for fourteen years until a tragic equestrian accident took his life.

Succeeding De Ronde was Frederick C. Sutro, a Harvard University graduate and campaigner for Woodrow Wilson who helped found Sutro Brothers Braid Company, a textile manufacturer. Sutro’s avocation was history and park conservation. He was elected president of the New Jersey Parks and Recreation Association, a post he held for twenty years. His service with the commission extended from 1912 to 1940. Within the PIPC, Sutro performed the impossible in 1931 by stepping down from his appointment as a commissioner to assume the task of executive director for the next nine years, answering as a paid manager to the very men with whom he had shared authority as a volunteer and peer.

Appointed to succeed Stauffer was Charles W. Baker, an engineer with ties to Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Baker played a significant role as a consultant on the Panama Canal project and was a champion for municipal ownership of utility companies. Baker’s tenure with the commission would extend for thirty-five years. He joined his colleagues at just the right moment to provide important guidance in the construction of the Henry Hudson Driveway at the base of the Palisades cliffs.

Filling a fourth vacant slot was Dr. Edward L. Partridge, who was promptly elected treasurer. Partridge would hold that office and serve with the commission until 1929. The remaining commissioners were George Perkins, Edwin Stevens, J. DuPratt White, Franklin Hopkins, Nathan Barrett, and William Porter. These men and their predecessors, successors, colleagues, and employees seemed to share a common affliction: once bitten by the park bug, always bitten. The idea of serving for two or three years in dutiful public service was alien to most commissioners. Several of them would be carried feet-first from their commission responsibilities.

March 6, 1913

Mr. George F. Perkins

Hotel Raymond

Pasadena, California

Dear Mr. Perkins:

I enclose copy of a letter just received from Senator George A. Blauvelt in regard to certain proposed legislation hostile to Park interests. Hagar has plenty of nerve to attempt legislation of this kind. The exception of the Conger property would be a fearful breach of good faith on the part of the State with the people and the large private contributions.

Yours very truly,

Leonard Hull Smith

Assistant Secretary, PIPC

New York state senator Hagar, otherwise unknown to the commission, appeared to be representing a holdout quarry operator at Hook Mountain, New York. The senator was attempting by legislative maneuver to exclude the quarry site from the commission’s acquisition power. Hagar attempted a clever legislative tactic by seeking to legally mandate expansion to twenty commissioners, with the obvious intent of diluting the influence of Perkins, White, and their eight fellow commissioners. Fortunately for the commission, it had a staunch, watchful, and influential champion in Albany in the person of New York state senator George A. Blauvelt. Senator Blauvelt, a senior and respected Republican in the state legislature from Rockland County, New York, quickly smothered this bit of political smoke and mirrors.

While the commission had its guard up in Albany, the tax collector for the borough of Alpine, New Jersey, put two commission properties on the block for sale, claiming tax delinquency. At about the same time the New Jersey comptroller was holding up $200,000 of the $500,000 appropriation made for construction of the Henry Hudson Drive. The comptroller claimed that the funds should not be made available until the commission purchased the “Lawrence” property so that the drive could be extended to the village of Piermont, New York, ignoring the fact that he had no authority to mandate such a requirement across the border in another state.

Then on the New York side of the border the commissioners encountered reluctance on the part of Governor William Sulzer to approve legislation intended to clarify the commission’s prerogative to establish fish and game regulations, including a restriction against hunting on parklands. Sulzer expressed concern that the legislation would undercut the authority of the New York Conservation Department.

These challenges were met and overcome, only to be replaced by new challenges. After years of negotiation, Perkins succeeded in acquiring the E. I. DuPont de Nemours Powder Company property on the shoreline in New Jersey near the Carpenter brothers’ old quarry site. Despite earlier claims that all necessary properties had been acquired to protect the cliffs, the DuPont property, including a narrow, 3,400-foot strip of land and riparian rights on the river shoreline and eight acres on the summit of the Palisades, was an exception. The $142,500 purchase price was tucked out of sight into the paper shell of the commission’s subsidiary corporation, the Palisades Improvement Company, to ensure that the high per-acre cost would not come back to haunt future acquisition initiatives.

One of these initiatives was taking place in New York. Charles T. Ford, the estate manager for Mary Harriman, managed to win agreement from a “Mr. Cunningham,” who boasted that he once stood gallantly alone and “blocked E. H. Harriman” from acquiring even more land in the highlands. Ford took it upon himself to negotiate with Cunningham, setting a $15 per acre price for 3,000 acres and $30 per acre for an additional 400-acre parcel. The proposed route for a road intended to connect the commission-owned Bear Mountain property with land donated by Harriman went right through the Cunningham holdings. Ford’s offer was accepted and promptly paid for with commission funds, opening the way for the construction of a road later to be named Seven Lakes Drive, one of the most delightfully scenic byways in New York.

May 2, 1913

Mr. S. Gilchrist

Upper Nyack, New York

Dear Sir:

I have your note of the 29th about Dr. Helm’s cows. I did not know of any such arrangement which you state was in force last season. I really feel that this coming season it would hardly be just the thing to allow this because the land will be more and more used by the general public and such action might be criticized, unless, of course, Dr. Helm was willing to pay some small amount for the privilege. It may be when Mr. White gets back we can take the matter up with him again.

Yours very truly,

Leonard Hull Smith

Assistant Secretary

May 9th, 1913

Mr. A. M. Herbert Iona

Island, New York

Dear Mr. Herbert:

Mr. Legien tells me of the manner in which he has been paying off some of the laborers. I don’t think the arrangement is desirable, from many standpoints. In the first place, he tells me that it is really dangerous to take up the amount of money that we now have each month and pay off possibly two hundred laborers in the small shed which is now in use. In other words, some arrangement must be made at once whereby the man paying off can sit behind either a railing or at a door, so that they cannot be crowded or jostled. Furthermore, I think each man should receive his envelope personally, open it and count it, and if he cannot write, at least make his mark, and the name can be filled in by someone else, as is now the practice.

Yours very truly

Leonard Hull Smith

Assistant Secretary

May 10, 1913

Mr. Chester C. Platt

Secretary to the Governor

Albany, New York

My dear Mr. Platt:

I am exceedingly anxious that the Governor sign a bill that is now before him and about which I telephoned him the other day, that gives the Palisades Commission the right to accept or reject any award which may be made to purchase property which the Commission is condemning and may condemn along the west bank of the Hudson. This bill was introduced by Senator Blauvelt and I have just heard that the Governor may be inclined to hold it up or veto it because it is a Blauvelt bill. Of course, I am sure the Governor would not be actuated by any motive of this kind if the bill is all right. If there is the slightest doubt remaining in the Governor’s mind as to whether he should sign it, won’t you please telegraph me at once, because in that event I will come to Albany on the first train possible and see the Governor about it.

Sincerely yours,

George W. Perkins

Under the guidance of Welch, work at Bear Mountain was in full swing, accomplished by laborers being paid a daily wage of $2.00. Under the supervision of Andrew M. Herbert, the commission’s superintendent, the labor force came primarily from New York City. Within months, the force expanded to 563 foremen, firemen, mechanics, drill runners, carpenters, helpers, and laborers. An additional eighty-six woodcutters were clearing the forest of dead trees and underbrush. Each day, the men would embark on the ferry to Weehawken, New Jersey, then board a West Shore Railroad Company train for the forty-five-mile ride to a special Bear Mountain stop arranged by the commission with the railroad owners. Ticket costs came from the pockets of the workers. Upon arrival at 7:00 A.M., this small army set to its tasks. Land was cleared, and roads were being built. Baseball diamonds, lawn tennis courts, a running track, and a huge lawn were under construction.

The commissioners and Welch also were grappling with the question of how to deal with “refreshment concessions.” The question was how many commercial enterprises and for what purpose. Welch wanted to encourage competition and bids, but control prices and maintain quality. Any concessionaire who failed to live up to the commission’s standards risked summary eviction, with no right of appeal. One vendor proposed to provide chewing-gum machines and weighing scales for visitors. “No thanks,” said Welch. Sandwiches being sold by F. D. Lockwood for ten cents were judged to be “too thin and lacked ham,” and glasses of milk, sold for five cents, were “too small.” The PIPC was quick to learn that some park concessionaires, assuming that the customers they served were day-visitors likely never to be seen again, put high priority on profit and less attention on service. Correction was demanded. Lockwood’s sandwiches gained weight and substance, and his milk glasses increased in size.

The McAllister Steamboat Company was planning summer excursions from the Battery in New York City to Bear Mountain for $.50 per passenger, round-trip, with a rule imposed by the commission that no intoxicating beverages could be taken ashore. This restriction did not include intoxicated passengers. To accommodate the steamboat passengers, a tunnel was dug under the railroad tracks, allowing easy pedestrian access from the dock to the playfields and refreshment stands on the plateau above. Beginning with the first trip, the steamboat carried 600 to 800 people daily on excursions up the Hudson River from the city. In the minds of the commissioners and Welch, what some people had called a “worthless wilderness” at Bear Mountain was being transformed into a park. But not everyone approved.

Newburgh Daily News,

Governor Sulver’s object in appointing a “commission” to investigate the Palisades Interstate Park Commission is tolerably plain. He wants to “reorganize” the commission, the members of which have been reluctant to rise up and declare him the anointed one, the fount of wisdom and the oracle of the people. Sulzer is convinced a lot of perfectly good money is not being distributed in patronage in a commission that should be responsible to political exigencies. Fully half the funding the commission possesses was subscribed by individuals, some of whom, including Chairman George W. Perkins, are members of the commission. No “investigation” is required to establish the fact that commissioners who are spending funds which they in part subscribed are not squandering them.

Publicly, Governor Sulver explained that his call for an investigation centered on his impression that the commissioners, “who were very, very busy men of large private interests,” had not been giving enough personal attention to commission activities, but, privately, land owners had complained to the governor that the commissioners were less than generous in their offers to buy land. Perkins hotly countered in the New York Times that the commission did not turn over its executive responsibilities to subordinates, and that “no lands have been bought or condemned that are not absolutely necessary to the preservation of the Palisades.”

While the commissioners were struggling with Sulzer’s reproach, an even more complex quandary faced them. Miss May Milne, an unmarried, unescorted woman, wanted to camp at Bear Mountain! Then, on top of this startling request, Mrs. Albert W. Staub, wife of the headmaster of Riverdale Country School, proposed a camping trip for herself and ten Campfire girls! The commissioners had an answer for these unprecedented requests: women and girls could camp at the old rifle range on South Mountain, twenty-five miles downriver from Bear Mountain. To their credit, however, the commissioners did take a tiny step toward gender equality. When campgrounds first opened in Harriman Park, the commission rule was that wives could accompany their spouses, so long as they separated from their husbands on arrival and stayed in a women-only section of the campground. Single women need not apply.

Group camping activities reflected the gender dilemma. The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was given primary use of the old rifle range at Blauvelt Park, and a large central camp for Boy Scouts was established in 1913 at “Car Pond” in Harriman Park. As with other initiatives, Perkins, his colleagues, and Welch could only guess at the eventual scale, diversity, and benefits of the group-camp program. Most rural parks are accessible to a mobile population with money to spend, private transportation, and time for leisurely travel. City parks protect small patches of green surrounded by the machines and structures of humankind. The transition between city and rural parks was and still is rare for lower-income urban residents. However, the commission sat on the doorstep of the nation’s most densely populated metropolitan region while controlling an increasingly vast swath of wildland. Welch was determined to make a functioning connection between the two.

For many inner-city children, the commission’s parklands afforded a first opportunity to step away, even for a moment, from the crash and contest of the city to hike along forest paths, climb to scenic vistas, learn about trees, plants, wild birds and animals, swim in lakes, invent toyless games, watch campfires blaze, listen to strange night sounds, and soak in the experience of nature. The YWCA and Boy Scout camps were a start, definitely not a finish line.

But one contest did end. Perkins was able to write to John D. Rockefeller Jr. that “after a very long hard struggle,” and thirteen years after the Carpenter brothers’ operation was shut down, the Clinton Point and Rockland Lake Trap Rock quarries at Hook Mountain were acquired, resulting in final victory in the quarry war.

As the dynamite smoke and rock dust disappeared, the commissioners found themselves explaining and justifying purposes and legal prerogatives to auditors, government appointees, and elected officials from the two states who frowned on the quasi-independence of the commission. Government officials in Albany and Trenton much preferred a more familiar style of pursuing the public’s business, one in which political power, patronage, and budget priorities were usually molded to the next election and against the “other” party. The nonpartisan commission, a private-public hybrid that did not fit easily within preconceived notions of political privilege and leverage, was grudgingly tolerated, but not applauded.

The obvious antidote for criticism was success, and the first summer of visitation at Bear Mountain confirmed public enthusiasm at such a high level that the commissioners began to consider the purchase of a steamship to provide even more access, an idea especially appealing to the nautically minded Perkins.

One vessel that caught Perkins’s eye was the steamship United States, moored in Michigan City, Indiana, and offered for sale for $175,000. The sidewheeler could carry at least 2,000 passengers. At the waterline, the vessel measured 208 feet in length. Its beam was forty-eight feet and its draft sixteen feet. A 2,500-horsepower engine provided propulsion. But the commissioners hesitated, not quite ready to begin creating a commission navy. At their annual meeting in September 1914, hosted by Perkins at his Wave Hill Estate in Riverdale, New York, they agreed, instead, to begin the construction at Bear Mountain of a “large restaurant” patterned after the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park.

At the same time, a sense of neighborly cooperation developed between the U.S. Army and the commission. This loose alliance started on a shaky note when the commissioners pressed to gain a right-of-way through adjoining land at the Military Academy, West Point, to allow for road access along the base of dramatically scenic Storm King Mountain. Military officers were not keen on the idea, but while the right-of-way issue was under debate, J. DuPratt White was reminded by H. Percy Silver, the West Point chaplain, that while officers had their privileges, enlisted men and their families at the academy had few options for summer holidays. In response, the commission arranged for a special summer camp that accommodated 300 soldiers, their wives, and children. Agreement for the road project was reached soon after. The result is the Storm King Highway, a three-mile road connection between the villages of Highlands and Cornwall-on-Hudson that is an engineering and scenic marvel. William Welch oversaw construction. Today, the Storm King Highway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In October 1914, with development of the Bear Mountain area accelerating, the commissioners agreed to accept an offer from Henry V. Gilbert, representing the heirs of John S. Gilbert, to buy the “Fort Lot” at the village of Fort Montgomery for $1,500. The site had quietly slipped into obscurity, shrouded by a canopy of trees and dense brush that made the old fortification all but invisible. One hundred thirty-six years after the “battle of the Clintons,” few people were aware of or gave thought to the “twin forts” or to the militiamen, soldiers, and mercenaries who died there. Fort Clinton had come into commission ownership with the acquisition of the prison site at Bear Mountain, but the Fort Montgomery site, lost in the thick woods on the northern side of Popolopen Creek and held in private ownership for so many years, might have slipped away entirely from public attention except for the generous offer made by Henry Gilbert. The commissioners promptly accepted.

Architects from the firm Tooker and Marsh were retained to design the “large restaurant.” Welch would supervise construction. The cost for construction was estimated at $95,000, but Perkins and Welch thought the cost could be scaled back to about $65,000 if certain efficiencies could be achieved, chief among them the avoidance of government-contract procedures. Perkins was leery of asking for state funds to cover the cost, knowing that delays and cost increases would probably result. He wanted the building up in a matter of months, each dollar squeezed to the maximum. Perkins turned to his fellow commissioners and won their unanimous approval for the use of privately donated gift funds, largely his own, to construct the Bear Mountain Inn.

There is no better symbol of Perkins’s commitment than the Bear Mountain Inn, ultimately described by the commission as “a rugged heap of boulders and huge chestnut logs assembled by the hand of man, and yet following lines of such natural proportions as to resemble the eternal hills themselves.” In late 1914 and early 1915, Welch led the commission’s work force in a rapid construction effort that resulted in a three-story art piece of more than 50,000 square feet completed at a bargain price of about $100,000. Perkins took criticism for avoiding contracts and union wages, but the result is magnificent. The Bear Mountain Inn was officially opened on June 3, 1915, and accommodated thousands of park visitors during its first summer season of operation, returning a profit to the commission of $600. The stone-and-log appearance is today recognized and celebrated as classic “park architecture,” presenting design elements that have influenced similar projects in many state and national parks.

Bear Mountain Inn (PIPC Archives)

Positive news at Bear Mountain was not necessarily echoed on the New Jersey side of the state line. Challenged by the Appalachian Mountain Club about the pending construction of the Henry Hudson Drive under the Palisades cliffs, feared by club members to become an “ugly gash in the landscape,” Perkins was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “We are not building any automobile boulevard along the shore.” The Times headline proclaimed, “No Road for Palisades.” This came as a surprise to Commissioner Sutro, who had been working hard for two years to convince the New Jersey legislature that the Henry Hudson Drive was a good idea.

Perkins quickly corrected the record by explaining that “a great many people seem to think that the commission has been determined to make out of this drive a great broad boulevard near the water and constructed in such a way as to almost obliterate many of the trees and make a long disfiguring scar through the Palisades.” Referring to the commission’s plan to carefully avoid visible roadway impact on the shoreline, Perkins added, “We have among ourselves been referring lately to the Henry Hudson Drive as an automobile trail.” Perkins and Sutro promptly settled their misunderstanding. In a follow-up letter to Sutro, the commission’s president said, “Whatever criticisms that can be made of those of us who are on the commission, there is one thing certain, that no halfway fair man could say we are not all desperately in earnest in our work and take everything that occurs in connection with it very much to heart.”

A witness to the activity at Bear Mountain was twenty-three-year-old W. Averell Harriman, recently graduated from Yale, who officially attended his first meeting on April 7,1915, as a newly appointed commissioner. The gift of land and money provided by his mother five years earlier had prompted the young man to pay attention to the commission’s activities. Now, as a duly appointed commissioner, he would remain consistently involved for the next fifty-nine years. Harriman also would become known as the “durable Democrat.” His credentials eventually would include service as ambassador to Russia in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration and ambassador to Great Britain in the Harry S. Truman administration. Through the years, Harriman came to know Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, and a host of world leaders. He was elected governor of New York in 1954 and twice contended unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to run for president of the United States.

Throughout his career, Harriman always viewed himself as a “volunteer,” using the railroad wealth left by his parents to maintain personal independence and pursue goals of interest to him. No other allegiance matched his commitment to the commission. When he was elected New York governor, Harriman appointed his brother, Roland, to take his place on the commission. In the 1958 election, the Republican candidate, Nelson A. Rockefeller, prevailed over Harriman, prompting a bit of family interlacing at the commission. Roland Harriman graciously resigned so that the newly elected governor could reappoint Averell. In so doing, Averell Harriman rejoined his fellow commissioner and the governor’s brother, Laurance S. Rockefeller. Both served together collegially for many years.

Before Harriman completed his work with the commission, he would donate an additional 12,000 acres to Harriman State Park. His constant allegiance and diplomacy brought stature and strength to the commission for more than five decades.

But that was in the future. In 1915, Harriman was sworn in with another new appointee, John J. Voorhees, son of the former governor of New Jersey. Harriman and Voorhees arrived just in time to hear a proposal from Mr. R. G. Hazard, president of the New England Bridge and Railway Company, who urged the commission to accept a seventy-five-acre gift of land in exchange for a right-of-way that would allow a railroad tunnel to be dug through Bear Mountain. The railroad would be connected to a bridge across the Hudson River, requiring a massive concrete anchor point in the park. The commissioners, including the two new appointees, were quick to decline this offer.

In New Jersey, the increasing popularity of the river shoreline was providing another challenge. Visitors were flocking to the small beaches, docks, and riverside campsites in increasing numbers. More law-enforcement patrols were scheduled, but few benchmarks existed to guide the unarmed patrolmen. Like so many of its activities, the PIPC found itself inventing more rules and regulations to control park use. The patrolmen watched for unattended campfires, directed that camping permits be visibly affixed to tents, and ordered that rubbish be either burned or buried before campers left. Camping permits were issued for a minimum of one week for a fee of $1.00. The commissioners reminded patrolmen that “severely injured persons must be taken to the nearest hospital as soon as possible.” A commission regulation directed that “bathers in bathing suits shall not be allowed to parade around amongst camping and picnicking parties, but must keep to the beaches, roads, and paths.” Patrolmen were advised to keep freshwater springs from becoming polluted, to prevent boulders from being rolled from the summit of the cliffs onto the crowds below, and to enforce the rule that “all boy scout parties shall be required to leave their axes with patrolmen on entering the park.” “Patrolmen will be allowed one day off every two weeks, the day to be designated by the Captain,” said a personnel rule.

The commissioners discovered, too, that the New Jersey Palisades were attracting “moving picture companies.” Requiring that the filmmakers have permits, the commissioners gave patrolmen discretion to stop or delay any filmmaking that might interfere with the public’s enjoyment of the park. Where public use was not encumbered, cameras cranked while cars plunged from the Palisades summit, and damsels clung to the cliffs by their fingertips while villains stalked and sneered. Thus, introduced into the national lexicon was the phrase “cliff hanger.”

The commission was branching out in many directions, all aimed at creating “the right sort of healthful playground for the people,” as Perkins explained in a letter to Rockefeller Jr. In response to this letter, on February 19, 1916, the commission received a $1 million donation from the Rockefeller Foundation. Perkins and his commissioner colleagues could take credit for raising more than $4.7 million in private funds over the first years of activity. In today’s dollars, the amount raised would exceed $100 million.

Momentum was everywhere. “If you love me,” Perkins pleaded with Welch, “do get the steamboat business straightened out next week. I am literally snowed under with work and it is going to be next to impossible for me to go into the differences between the McAllisters and the Albany Day Line. Please get after this and let me know as soon as possible in the fewest possible words what can be done to put us in the best possible shape for this year’s travel.” In 1914 almost 115,000 people arrived at Bear Mountain aboard regularly scheduled dayliner trips, and an additional 15,500 came by special chartered excursions. Palisades-bound passengers coming over from the city on the Dyckman Street Ferry numbered 199,973 in 1915. The inadequate docking facilities at Bear Mountain were already congested, and more boats would soon be underway. One of these was the Palisades, built for the commission in 1916 by the Mathis Yacht Building Company of Camden, New Jersey. This new 120-foot-long vessel was intended to provide free outings to Bear Mountain for poor mothers and children in care of social agencies. “So far as we know,” reported Welch to Perkins, “the Palisades is the first passenger boat in America using diesel-type engines.”

The commission continued its initiative to bring underprivileged children to Harriman State Park. A camp was established to provide for about 425 “poor boys,” one hundred of whom were segregated for a nutritional experiment. Under the direction of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, the study resulted in an average weight gain for each well-fed child of 3.5 pounds. Welch also reported that 2,369 young women had camped at Blauvelt Park, adding that, otherwise, “no record” of women was to be found in the general camping population, but by 1916 a camp that could accommodate twenty-four girls and two chaperones was established at Bear Mountain, shattering the tent ceiling.

Presaging demands made on park managers everywhere was the insistence of hunters that they be granted access to the commission’s lands in New Jersey to kill foxes. Their claim was that these predators were a menace to birds and other small animals. Setting an early standard on this troubling question, the commissioners rejected the request. Another use of parkland was welcomed. Herbert Whyte, representing the Outing Publishing Company, asked for permission in January 1916 to take a two-week “walking trip” through commission lands. The vanguard of “trampers” represented by Whyte and his peers would help create a generally firm and friendly alliance between hikers and the commission.

Unlike the hikers, landscape architect Nathan T. Barrett, a charter appointee to the commission who served until 1914, saw the natural terrain through different eyes. After he left his post as a commissioner, Barrett recommended to Perkins that equipment acquired with the quarries be used to drill a huge tunnel from Rockland Lake through Hook Mountain. His concept was that water flowing through the tunnel from the lake would tumble down a precipice into the Hudson River, creating an artificial 160-foot-tall waterfall. The commissioners declined.

But in 1916 other commissioner-approved projects were blossoming. One example was the sale of “soft drinks” of sugar-flavored Bear Mountain spring water, produced and bottled by the commission. In Harriman State Park, several dams were under construction to “enhance” existing lakes and ponds. Just north of Bear Mountain, a six-hundred-foot-long steel bridge was constructed across the deep Popolopen Creek gorge to greatly improve access for automobiles and horse carriages to the military academy at West Point and destinations farther upriver. The Bear Mountain Inn was expanded, reaching a size of 81,000 square feet. Far out in Harriman State Park, group camps continued to expand, but one camp was quarantined when two members of a Boy Scout troop who had been swimming in a nearby lake were diagnosed with infantile paralysis (polio). (Years later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt would contract polio at age thirty-nine, likely caused by swimming in a Harriman State Park lake.)

Land acquisition remained high on the commissioners’ priority list. With the acquisition of the “Queensboro” property between Bear Mountain and Harriman parks, the commission added 5,000 more acres to its holdings. In New Jersey, $100,300 was spent to acquire the 113-acre Anderson Avenue Realty Company’s property known as Greenbrook Park on top of the cliffs, confirming that the commission was taking a strong, yet publicly undeclared, initiative to control the heights as well as the shoreline of the Palisades. The commission now owned almost 20,000 acres.

While most parks around the nation were counting visitation in the hundreds, more than 500,000 annual visitors were journeying to the commission’s park system. This fact did not go unnoticed by Stephen Tyng Mather in Washington, D.C. Mather was just succeeding with the formation of the National Park Service and invited William Welch to speak at the first “National Parks Conference” in 1917. Enos Mills from Colorado, who introduced Welch to those in attendance, said, “The subject of discussion this morning is the recreational use of the national parks. The first speaker on this subject is Mr. W. A. Welch, who is Chief Engineer in charge of the Palisades Interstate Park. As some of you know, we will say that this park embraces 30,000 acres of land. Altogether, $8 million have been expended in this park. More than one-half of this entire sum has been donated privately.”

Referring more specifically to Welch’s work, Mills added, “The work that this man is doing is really evolutionary and revolutionary.” Welch responded by describing himself as a “little kitten” among the “lions” and went on to describe the array of opportunities and challenges encountered by the commission. He offered real-world examples of solutions to parkmanagement problems learned in the school of hard knocks. At the conclusion of the event, the “Supervisors of the National Parks” traveled to New York at the invitation of Welch and Henry Fairfield Osborn, trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, to tour the Palisades Park system.

In his conference remarks, Welch gave strong credit to the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs for its dauntless role in establishing the Interstate Park Commission, but still lost within the pace of the activities was the women’s memorial project. Only a small plot of land had been set aside for the memorial at a scenic location atop the cliffs. Almost two decades had passed. “Thus, alas, for the best laid plans of women, the park is a reality, the Palisades are preserved for ever and ever, but the tall tower to commemorate the work of the women is still in the air,” stated a 1917 Women’s Club report. “According to Miss Demarest, the money is still in the Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York and amounts to $3,500. So, although the club women of New Jersey … virtually saved the Palisades by bringing about the first interstate movement, their own project of a permanent monument is unfulfilled.”

Perkins and the commissioners were meeting every month, communicating with one another and Welch in between, and dealing with a growing public clientele and critics and partisans alike. Somehow, the women’s memorial kept being pushed down the agenda. This was due in part to the constant struggle for state funding. Perkins was quick to point out to anyone who would listen that the breakdown of funding consisted of 54 percent from private sources, 40 percent from New York, and 6 percent from New Jersey. Welch was distracted from the memorial project by letters of inquiry, now arriving by the sacksful, from park enthusiasts from all over the country asking for information ranging from what type of toilets to use in campgrounds to why parks were even necessary.

The biggest distraction was just around the corner. The New York Times announced that Norman Selby, better known as the popular prizefighter and role model “Kid McCoy,” had enlisted in Company K of the Seventy-First Regiment to begin military training. In 1917, England, France, and Italy were already at war with Germany. The commissioners encouraged the staff to enlist for military training and agreed, as a contingency, that female waiters could replace male waiters at the Bear Mountain Inn, if it came to that.

Rockefeller Jr., impressed by the continuing success of the commission, wrote to his father in April 1917, proposing that a fund of $15 million to $25 million be established for the purpose of “developing parks and playgrounds in the City of New York and also in the State.” He also suggested that a portion of the fund be used to “build a bridge across the Hudson River connecting the Interstate Palisades Park with Riverside Drive” at an estimated cost of $10 million. “I should like to see you build this bridge yourself,” Rockefeller Jr. said to his father. The senior Rockefeller was attentive to his son and seemingly not startled by the proposition that he personally bankroll the construction of a huge bridge where the present-day George Washington Bridge exists. War clouds, though, put this initiative on hold.

From his distant perch at Long’s Peak Inn in Colorado, naturalist and author Enos Mills was continuing to push his national park agenda. Writing to Welch, he said, “It is probable that a vigorous five-fhousand-word account of your Palisades Inter-state Park, by me, will appear in the Saturday Evening Post. As I told yourself and, I think, Mr. Perkins last winter, our National Park Service is not a model by any means. The inclination of those in power is to play politics and no one more than yourself knows what this means.”

By midsummer 1918, Perkins was able to report to Rockefeller Jr. that the interstate-park model that Mills found so appealing was increasingly popular. “More people visited Bear Mountain than ever before.” On one day, Perkins said, “six large steamers landed passengers at our docks, and a number of people came by way of the West Shore Railroad. Something over a thousand automobiles stopped at Bear Mountain.” So many people were coming that the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society speculated that the PIPC was having a difficult problem “reconciling its desire to preserve as nearly as possible the natural beauty of the tract and its desire to make the park practically useful to the people.”

Problem or not, the inn and facilities at Bear Mountain were being given over to increasingly urgent preparations for the United States entry into World War I. The 102nd Company, U.S. Marines, was housed in a dormitory formerly occupied by park workers. Their mission was to guard an ammunition depot developed by the U.S. Navy on Iona Island. This glorious island is only about one-half mile downriver from the Bear Mountain dock. Hikers who reach a point just below the summit of Bear Mountain are rewarded with one of the most picture-perfect river scenes anywhere, letting their eyes glide southward through the river narrows from West Point, past geologically prominent Anthony’s Nose on the opposite side of the river, past Iona Island nestled between the flanks of Bear Mountain and Dunderberg Mountain, then farther downriver to the Tappan Zee, where the Hudson widens again on its southern course to the Atlantic. On clear days, the classic New York City skyline is visible from the Bear Mountain summit.

Iona Island is the centerpiece of this enchanting scene. On its western shoreline, the island is edged by a large 200-acre marsh that traces the path of an ancient horseshoe bend, bypassed when the last glacier straightened and deepened the river channel on the island’s east side. Native Americans called the 120-acre island “Manakawaghkin” and left behind archaeological evidence attesting to their use of it for more than 5,000 years.

Through succeeding ownerships and name changes, title to Iona Island eventually came into the hands of John Beveridge in 1849. He promptly sold a part-interest to his son-in-law, Dr. C. W. Grant, a self-styled fruit grower and winemaker. Grant planted orchards and vineyards on the island, taking advantage of the glacial soil and sea breezes from the distant Atlantic that tempered the climate. For two decades, he struggled to develop the “Iona” grape with the intent of successfully competing against French imports. The resultant mediocre taste of the wine did not match Grant’s enthusiasm. His business venture failed, but he is credited with the first attempt in the United States to produce marketable wine. New owners transformed the island into a resort and picnic ground, presaging the popularity of Bear Mountain. World heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan was a frequent visitor.

In 1899 the navy arrived. By Act of Congress, the island was purchased for $160,000, primarily because the navy had run out of storage space in New York Harbor. World War I transformed the comparatively small navy depot on the island, and storage capacity reached more than 2 million pounds of explosive black powder, which was being packed into cannon shells and ordinance of all shapes and sizes for the U.S. and British fleets. Submarines sailed up the Hudson, tied up against the Iona Island shore, and were loaded with torpedoes. Just next to the submarines, antisubmarine depth charges intended for the “other guy” were loaded with other ordinance on barges and seagoing transports. This activity was within watery yards of the passage of dayliners full of park visitors traveling to and from the Bear Mountain dock.

Iona Island U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot (PIPC Archives)

One hundred forty-six buildings were constructed on the island, most of them made of brick, some including architectural flourishes a step above military square-and-basic. Ammunition bunkers designed to direct any accidental explosion upward and away were chiseled into the island’s topography. This beautiful island carried the official designation U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot.

Wartime demands caused Perkins, while retaining his position as president of the commission, to assume new responsibilities as president of New York’s Food Control Commission to prevent war profiteering, encourage bulk purchases of food commodities from upstate farmers, maintain price supports, and urge backyard gardening. His food commission consisted of 130 members. Welch joined the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps and was posted to the Pacific Northwest to oversee the production of spruce-tree lumber for the construction of “aeroplanes.” Perkins proudly reported to Rockefeller Sr. that Welch, given the rank of major, had been assigned to such a crucial wartime task. While engaged in what turned out to be a mammoth duty involving legions of men, Welch was visited by National Park Service director Stephen Mather, who, on a swing west, stopped by to further discuss park management and development. Neither man probably considered that the old rifle range at Blauvelt Park was again being used for military training with the same result: bullets whizzing through nearby residential neighborhoods.

A few successes were being achieved even during the war years of 1917–18. Perkins, his hand always on the commission’s tiller, continued to negotiate purchases of land, including the purchase of the Dana property on the summit of the Palisades for $175,000. One observer wrote to Perkins, commenting that “few will ever express their appreciation of what your Commission is doing; one man wants to do so.” The letter was signed by Rockefeller Jr.