|
a.
|
Note: ge Gallery, which could be reached only after a stiff climb into the Steuben Hills over water-shedded roads. Puffing and wheezing horses stopped to rest on "Thank you, Ma'ams", while red-faced drivers mopped their brows with bandannas and long-skirted women readjusted hairpins which had been loosened by the bouncing buggy or two-seater.
Visitors were greeted at the summit by Jacob Boody himself, a white-whiskered old man dressed in a costume which featured a derby hat and a swallow-tailed coat. Boody was the perfect host. Everything about his manner, his voice, his smile of welcome and his dignified bearing, made each arrival his special guest. And his attractive house, reached over terraced lawns dotted with statuary, evoked little cries of happiness from the ladies.
Visitors usually brought basket lunches, which they ate at tables Boody had provided for them. He also performed little acts of courtesy, such as building a fire so they could roast corn, or lending them his long ship's telescope, so they might pick out the boats and men working on Oneida Lake, which shimmered along the horizon.
Boody was one of the most versatile men ever to live in the Adirondack foothills. He kept a good farm and raised a large family. He got along with his neighbors, though they looked askance at his multifarious activities. Visitors from the cities, however, fully appreciated him, and spent hours discussing phrenology, geology, ornithology, history, taxidermy and religion with the pleasant little man from the hills.
Though he had no professional training as a sculptor, some of the statues he carved out of native stone showed a touch of genius. He spent thirty-five years making images out of stone and his yard held an amazing collection of prominent people, Biblical scenes and family records. Though his favorite subjects were Abraham Lincoln and Grover Cleveland, he also tried his hand on Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Christopher Columbus, John Wesley, Pocahontas, Lot's wife and Baron Steuben, to mention a few. One stone, surmounted with Carry Nation's hatchet, was devoted to women's rights, and another contained the record of the Boody family.
His prize exhibit, however, was a mottled gray stone weighing ten tons which he had hauled to the Boody farm behind eight teams of horses. He called it "the stone of mystery" and in a prepared lecture explained to visitors the various markings on its surface. On occasion, Boody liked to play what he called "the language of passion". His instrument was a buzz-saw and to its accompaniment he sang verses he had written.
He believed in prohibition, though he might look the other way when a party of gay young blades brought a few bottles of beer in their picnic baskets.
His home served as a museum for Indian relics, stuffed birds and animals and a bottle of alcohol containing an appendix, which he claimed he had removed from his own body with a razor.
The climax of the tour brought visitors to a wall cabinet on which was inscribed: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Great and marvellous are thy works."
Boody would step majestically to the cabinet, deliver a brief lecture, and press a button. The doors would spring open to reveal the skeleton of an Indian girl about ten years of age. Boody would explain that the cleavage in the skeleton's chest had been made when the girl had been killed in battle by a blow from a tomahawk.
Toward the close of his life, which ended in 1907, Boody made several phonograph records of his lectures, so his family could hear his voice long after he had passed away.
The Boody place may be reached over rough roads and through the guidance of one who knows the Steuben hills. Boody's granddaughter and her husband occupy the house with its collection, while the statuary still adorns the yard. If the town of Steuben would build a hard road to the Boody place, the museum would attract tourists from far and wide..
"Tales from the Adirondack Foothills", by Howard Thomas, 1967, Prospect Books, Prospcet, NY.
Note: A major attraction of the horse and buggy days was Jacob W. Boody's Ima
|
