Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Industry & Commerce

Location

1130 Deerland Rd, Long Lake, NY 12847, USA

Lat/Long

43.967253, -74.418043

Grant Recipient

Town of Long Lake

During the hot summer months, it was common for city residents wishing to escape the heat and urban setting for a quiet holiday at one of the many camps and resorts in the Adirondack Mountains. William West Durant was one of the men largely responsible for the development and popularization of the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. He operated a fleet of steamboats which were used to transport guests from Long Lake to Raquette Falls. Among the vessels in Durant’s fleet was a steamer named Buttercup. While is it not known when the boat was built, Buttercup operated for a number of years on Long Lake until it mysteriously disappeared in 1885. An August 17, 1885 edition of The Post-Star explains:

There is evidently bad blood between the guides and the steamboat company at Long lake, owing to the latter endeavoring to take away many of the perquisites of the former. The ferryboat Buttercup, carrying passengers from Sagamore to Raquet Falls [sic], disappeared on the night of the 7th inst., and it is supposed she was scuttled and sunk.

While it was suspected that the vessel was deliberately sunk on Long Lake by local guides, the location of the wreck remained a mystery for more than 70 years. That mystery ended in 1959 when Buttercup was found. The October 22, 1959 edition of the Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald reported discovery:

The afternoon of September 12, 1959 was a most exciting one for two young men at Long Lake. George Boudreau and Franklin McIntyre, both amateur skin-divers. On that quiet, sunny day their weeks of spare-time underwater searched was climaxed at on o’clock by the finding of the long lost, little steamboat “Buttercup” which had been sunk one night in the summer of 1882. The location of their find was directly out from the Sagamore Hotel bluff on Long Lake, about 500 feet from the Sagamore dock, where the boat was moored 77 years ago.

The wreckage of the Buttercup was recovered from the lake and eventually put on display behind Long Lake Town Offices. As of 2021, it could still be viewed by visitors to Long Lake.