Paperback
-
SHIP THIS ITEMIn stock. Ships in 1-2 days.PICK UP IN STORE
Your local store may have stock of this item.
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781626199460 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcadia Publishing SC |
| Publication date: | 09/14/2015 |
| Series: | Haunted America |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Lake's Legends and Lore
Mark Twain
Captain Frémont discovered the lake during his second expedition of the Great Basin. Frémont called the lake "Lake Bonpland" in honor of Jacques Alexander Bonpland, the noted French botanist who accompanied Baron Alexander von Humboldt on his exploration of the west. Charles Preuss, however, identified it as "Mountain Lake" on maps he later drew of the expedition. Thus began the confusion over what the lake should be called. Native Americans had been living on the shores around Lake Tahoe for hundreds of years before Fremont made his discovery. They called the lake "Tahoe," which is what many felt it should be called.
Others strongly disagreed; the debate raged for many years. In Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain, who did not like the name "Lake Tahoe," jumped into the fray with the following:
Sorrow and misfortune overtake the legislature that still from year to year permits Tahoe to retain its unmusical cognomen! Tahoe! It suggests no crystal waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity. Tahoe for a sea in the clouds; a sea that has character, and asserts it in solemn calms, at times, at times in savage storms; a sea, whose royal seclusion is guarded by a cordon of sentinel peaks that lift their frosty fronts nine thousand feet above the level world; a sea whose every aspect is impressive, whose belongings are all beautiful, whose lonely majesty types the Deity!
Tahoe means grasshoppers. It means grasshopper soup. It is Indian, and suggestive of Indians. They say it is Pi-ute — possibly it is Digger. I am satisfied it was named by the Diggers — those degraded savages who roast their dead relatives, then mix the human grease and ashes of bones with tar, and "gaum" it thick all over their heads and foreheads and ears, and go caterwauling about the hills and call it mourning. These are the gentry that named the Lake.
People say that Tahoe means "Silver Lake" — "Limpid Water" — "Falling Leaf." Bosh! It means grasshopper soup, the favorite dish of the Digger tribe — and of the Pi-utes as well. It isn't worthwhile, in these practical times, for people to talk about Indian poetry — there never was any in them — except in the Fennimore Cooper Indians. But they are an extinct tribe that never existed. I know the Noble Red Man. I have camped with the Indians; I have been on the warpath with them, taken part in the chase with them — for grasshoppers; helped them steal cattle; I have roamed with them, scalped them, had them for breakfast. I would gladly eat the whole race if I had a chance.
Certainly Mark Twain's words were of a different time, nonetheless they were thoughtless, cruel and derogatory. But everything evens out, eventually. There is an old saying, "What goes around comes around." In Mark Twain's case, this has proven true, although it would be over one hundred years in coming. There is a scenic cove on the lake that supporters recently wanted to name Samuel Clemens (Twain's real name) in his honor. Native Americans nixed the idea because of Twain's racist, derogatory comments about the Washoe and the Paiute tribes. The cove was not named after him.
During the winter of 1852, California's third governor, John Bigler, received word that a group of emigrants were stranded in the area. With the tragedy of the Donner Party still fresh in everyone's memory, he led a rescue party in to assist them. His actions were considered heroic, and soon afterward, the lake was unofficially renamed "Lake Bigler" in his honor. Despite the unpopularity of that name, largely due to Bigler's pro-Southern views during the Civil War, the California legislature passed an act in 1870 that officially legalized the name. In 1945, the legislature rescinded that act: "The lake known as Bigler shall hereinafter be known as Lake Tahoe."
Mark Twain often walked from Carson City to the lake, not a short stroll. Of his walk, he wrote:
We plodded on, two or three hours, and at last the Lake Burst upon us — a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still. It was a vast oval, and one would have to use up eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling around it. As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords!
And then there was that fire that Mark Twain and a friend were responsible for starting. He tells of that in Roughing It:
By and by our provisions began to run short, and we went back to the old camp and laid in a new supply. We were gone all day, and reached home again about night-fall, pretty tired and hungry. While Johnny was carrying the main bulk of the provisions up to our "house" for future use, I took the loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the coffee-pot, ashore, set them down by a tree, lit a fire, and went back to the boat to get the frying-pan.
While I was at this, I heard a shout from Johnny, and looking up I saw that my fire was galloping all over the premises! Johnny was on the other side of it. He had to run through the flames to get to the lake shore, and then we stood helpless and watched the devastation.
The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-needles, and the fire touched them off as if they were gunpowder. It was wonderful to see with what fierce speed the tall sheet of flame traveled! My coffee-pot was gone, and everything with it. In a minute and a half the fire seized upon a dense growth of dry manzanita chaparral six or eight feet high, and then the roaring and popping and crackling was something terrific. We were driven to the boat by the intense heat, and there we remained, spell-bound.
Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of flame! It went surging up adjacent ridges — surmounted them and disappeared in the canons beyond — burst into view upon higher and farther ridges, presently — shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again — flamed out again, directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-side — threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and ribs and gorges, till as far as the eye could reach the lofty mountain-fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled network of red lava streams. Away across the water the crags and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the firmament above was a reflected hell!
Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the glowing mirror of the lake! We sat absorbed and motionless through four long hours. We never thought of supper, and never felt fatigue. But at eleven o'clock the conflagration had traveled beyond our range of vision, and then darkness stole down upon the landscape again.
Mark Twain is not the only writer to have spent time at the lake. While working as a handyman at Lake Tahoe, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck not only met his first wife but also wrote his first novel, Cup of Gold. Long before Twain wrote Lake Tahoe's praises and hundreds of years before the rich and famous claimed the lake as their playground, the Washoe and the Paiute tribes lived on its shores and fished its clear waters. They referred to the lake as "Lake of the Sky" and told many stories concerning the lake and those who'd lived in the region long ago.
Cave Rock
Cave Rock is located on the southeastern shore of Lake Tahoe between Glenbrook and Zephyr Cove. Travel around the rock formation was treacherous and difficult until work began on the Cave Rock Tunnel on Highway 50, opened in 1931. Although it appears harmless, this is still a deadly section of roadway. Since the tunnel opened, there have been numerous automobile accidents, ending with fatalities, here. Climbers have also fallen to their deaths from the 360-foot-tall and 800-foot-wide Cave Rock, which is known as De'ek Wadapush, or "Rock Standing Gray," by the local Washoe people who have held De'ek Wadapush as a sacred place for centuries.
The Washoe believe Cave Rock is a place that should be respected by everyone and avoided by all but Washoe healers. At one time, the magnificent rock was a popular site with rock climbers. The Washoe tribe protested the fact that climbers were defacing the rock with their climbing implements. As you might expect, the climbers didn't want to give up their use of Cave Rock. But the Washoe pushed back. This was their holy place, and they didn't want it desecrated. The battle between the climbers and the Washoe went on for ten years. In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service finally decided to enforce a ban on climbing at Cave Rock.
My Native American friend Cimarron Sam tells of two people who had hiked to the top of Cave Rock for sightseeing and photography:
One of the men sat on a rock while the other got his camera ready. He heard what sounded like a whooshing noise and looked up. The other man was gone. He had fallen to his death onto the rocks far below. There was no wind, it was as if someone had just pushed him from that rock.
Beware the Water Babies
Water babies are blamed for the bodies of drowning victims that are never recovered from the depths of Lake Tahoe. But don't mention it. And whatever you do, don't speak aloud about water babies. Washoe legend has it that these tiny creatures are very powerful and can either be friend or enemy. And as enemies, they will drag you to a watery doom if you're not careful.
Water babies live in Pyramid Lake (north of Reno) and in the waters off Cave Rock. There is believed to be an underwater connection between these two bodies of waters. If you should be visiting this area of Lake Tahoe and hear what sounds like babies wailing, remember that this could well be the water babies' attempt to pull you in. These pitiful cries are how they coerce the unsuspecting into the water.
But what if someone wanted permission to go into the water to fish or swim? Early Washoe filled a basket with corn and pine nuts, sealed it with pitch and took it into the water as an offering. If it appeased the water babies, they were safe, if it didn't ...
My friend Cimarron Sam remembers a childhood in which his grandmother would warn him and his siblings, "If you hear kids laughing and playing around the water, do not go down there."
Native Americans can't swim in Tahoe until someone drowns in the water that season. Yes, someone must drown each season. Cimarron told me it is because the water babies are looking for a soul. But it is not just in Lake Tahoe and Pyramid Lake that the water babies can be found. They are in all bodies of water.
Vikingsholm
Located at the head of Emerald Bay is the former summer home of Lora Josephine Knight. The thirty-eight-room mansion was built in 1929. Today, tourists from around the world come to visit Vikingsholm, which is open for guided tours from early summer through early fall.
In the twentieth century, the Lake Tahoe area became a playground for the rich. A rush of wealthy people came to the lake, eager to build showcase summer homes, cottages and mansions on its shores. None of them would build a more fabulous home than Lora Josephine Moore Knight's Vikingsholm.
Knight was an heiress with more money than she could spend in three lifetimes. And she liked things a certain way. No expense was spared in seeing that her summer home at the southwest end of Emerald Bay resembled a Scandinavian castle. Everything, down to the tiniest detail, was to be authentic. So she set off on a buying trip to Norway, Sweden and Finland with her architect and his wife. What couldn't be purchased would be expertly copied. The décor included six fireplaces of Scandinavian design, painted walls and ceilings and intricately woven carpets. A touch of whimsy was added with a carving of a woman whose face is a clock, and dragons were carved into two of the ceiling beams. According to folklore, the dragons would chase away evil spirits.
A generous woman, Knight opened Vikingsholm to friends and family and entertained them all summer long. Just for the fun of it, she would often take guests by motorboat over to Lake Tahoe's only island, Fannette Island, where they would be served tea in the stone teahouse that was built the same year as her mansion. Those houseguests who took excursions around the region returned to find that their hostess always had their cars cleaned and their gas tanks refilled after each outing. Knight's was a luxurious, carefree life, but sadly, she was only able to enjoy her fabulous summer home for sixteen summers.
Today, Vikingsholm and Fannette Island are overseen by the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Rumor is that both sites are haunted. We'll get to Fannette in a bit, but as for Vikingsholm, well, I have a theory.
Native Americans could not have been too happy with all these people rushing to an area they held dear and tearing down trees to build large homes. Thunderbird Lodge on the other side of the lake (we'll also get there later) is another such home that was built with a lot of money and little thought to preservation. Native Americans believe it is haunted. Couldn't it be the same at Vikingsholm?
Hank Monk
Listen! Do you hear the steady clip-clop of horses' hooves galloping across the wind? Could it be the ghostly Hank Monk driving his team across the mountain passes? Hank Monk was known in the Tahoe region as a stagecoach driver extraordinaire. His prowess with a team of horses became legendary throughout the country for the wild ride over the Sierras that he took newspaperman Horace Greeley on in 1859. As Greeley climbed into the coach, he made the mistake of telling Monk that he had a speaking engagement and was in a hurry to get to Placerville. Monk nodded his assent. He would get the man to his destination on time. The coach pulled out of Carson City at lightning speed and raced over the narrow mountain passes. Horace Greeley looking out the door became alarmed and urged Monk to slow down. Hank Monk, however, was not one to back down from a challenge or a promise.
"Keep your seat, Horace." He called down to his frightened passenger. "I'll get you there on time!"
Of his ride, Horace Greeley wrote, "Yet at this breakneck rate we were driven for not less than four hours or forty miles changing horses every ten or fifteen, and raising a cloud of dust through which it was difficult at times to see anything."
Monk did get his passenger to Placerville on time. And he couldn't wait to get to the nearest saloon and tell everyone within earshot all about Greeley's fear as the coach sped along the Tahoe shore. They all had a good laugh at Greeley's expense. Monk told a reporter, "I looked into the coach and there was Greeley, his bare head bobbing, sometimes on the back and then on the front of the seat, sometimes in the coach and then out, and then on the top and then on the bottom, holding on to whatever he could grab."
The tale spread across the country, and soon everyone was having a good laugh at Horace Greeley's expense. Thirteen years later, the story was still being told. Needless to say, this didn't make Greeley happy. Some said it was this story that ruined the former New York congressman's chances at defeating opponent Ulysses S. Grant in the 1872 presidential election.
Hank Monk is buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery in Carson City. When not behind a team of horses, Monk loved nothing more than partaking in a bottle of whiskey beside a warm fire. Monk's apparition has been seen at a local Carson City bar quietly guzzling his drink. And then there are those ghostly horse's hooves high up in the Sierras.
A Mother's Love
An old Native American legend is the story of a young wife and mother who died suddenly, leaving an infant and her husband behind. The grieving husband dutifully spent the required four days and nights watching at her grave. During this time, he went without food or drink. On the fourth night, the grave suddenly opened, and the woman stepped out before him.
"Where is my child? Please give me my child," she demanded.
The husband did as he was told and quickly brought the baby to her. Without a word, he handed the child to her and watched in amazement as she took the child and nursed it. Then, holding the baby close in her arms, she turned and started to walk slowly away. Silently, he followed her. On and on they went, through the tall pines and out across the meadow.
Was he dreaming? He reached out to touch her, but she warned him off with a wave of her hand.
"Don't touch me." She said. "If you touch me, you must die too!"
She nursed the child once more and then placed it gently in her husband's arms. "Please go home now," she said, dissolving into air.
He did as he was told, but he was confused and uncertain. He wasn't quite sure if it had all been a dream brought on by his broken heart and hunger. When his perfectly healthy infant died a few days later, he received his answer. His wife had come back to get her baby. And because she had warned him to not touch her, he would live to be a very old man.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Haunted Lake Tahoe"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Janice Oberding.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword, by Bonnie Harper,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
1. The Lake's Legends and Lore,
2. Ghosts and Hauntings,
3. Truckee,
4. The Donner Party,
Afterword,
About the Author,