BRIGHTON CURING TIME LINE
1848 - Edward Livingston Trudeau is born in New York City. (Trudeau)
1855 - James Wardner settles in Rainbow Lake to cure consumption and to hunt, trap, fish and farm. (Charles Wardner, “Footprints”)
1862 - Wardner’s Rainbow Inn built, later the site of the Independent Order of Foresters' Rainbow Sanatorium. (Charles Wardner “Footprints”)
1865 - Two days before Christmas, E.L. Trudeau’s older brother Francis dies of TB.; E.L. had nursed him. The brothers were very close. E.L. wrote “It nearly broke my heart.” (Gallos)
1871 - E.L. Trudeau graduates from medical school and marries Charlotte Beare. (Gallos)
1873 - Dr. E.L. Trudeau is diagnosed as having TB. He comes to Paul Smith's Hotel, sick with TB and expecting to die, but improves and lives on to become head of the Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake. This is the start of 40 years of staying at Paul Smith’s every summer. (Trudeau)
1875 - Because of the Smith’ kindness, Dr. Trudeau and his family stay at Paul Smith’s Hotel all winter as the only guests. E.L. still sick with TB. (Trudeau)
1876 - Dr. Trudeau starts a subscription list for a chapel. Money is raised and Paul Smith donates land and logs. (Trudeau)
1877 - The small log chapel which seats 40, St. John's in the Wilderness, is consecrated. Later it is enlarged to seat 150. The Trudeau’s third child, Henry, is born, only to soon die of convulsions and be buried in the chapel graveyard. (Trudeau and Rinehart)
1879 - With Paul Smith’s help, Marc Cook goes into “Camp Lou” on Osgood Pond to cure TB. (Cook)
1882 - In Germany Robert Koch discovers tuberculosis bacteria. Dr. Trudeau later reads a translation of his report and learns how to isolate and reproduce the bacteria in the lab. (Rinehart)
1884 - Dr. Trudeau takes in the first two patients at his new sanitarium in Saranac Lake. They stay in a part of the main building with the caretaker’s family. (Trudeau)
1885 - “Little Red,” the first cottage at Trudeau’s sanitarium is completed (Trudeau)
1887 - Trudeau publishes his famous rabbit study. Son Francis is born. (Rinehart)
1893 - Trudeau’s daughter Chatte dies of TB at age 19. (Trudeau)
1894 - Bishop Henry Gabriels of the Ogdensburg Diocese encourages the Sisters of Mercy to establish a TB Sanatorium. Sister Mary of Perpetual Help Kieran and Sister Mary Magdalen McCourt make the first efforts, with Sister Kieran being the leader. Sr. Mary McAuley Connelly also helps. The Sisters are given land for the San in the Town of Brighton by Paul Smith and W. Seward Webb. At first the Sisters live in a small Paul Smith’s storage cabin and get their water from the railroad station. (Harding)
1895 - With Paul Smith in attendance, the Right Reverend Henry Gabriels places the cornerstones for the Administration Building and Rest-a-While cottage and Kerin Cottage at Gabriels Sanatorium; Isaac G. Perry, architect, Branch and Callanan, builders, B.J. Lantry, foundation. (Harding, Collins)
1897, July - The first patients are admitted to Gabriels Sanatorium. (Collins)
1897 - “Slumber Land” at Gabriels San consists of 10 former horse cars sent up from New York City and arranged in a circle to be used as sleeping quarters for patients. Rest-a While Cottage is completed, also a large kitchen (I.G. Perry). The Sisters obtain the right to set up a US Post Office. (Harding, Collins)
1898 - St. Joseph's Cottage is completed at Gabriels San. A US Post Office, run by the Sisters, is established in what is now called Gabriels. (Collins)
1899 - The Sisters Motherhouse is moved from Hogansburg to Gabriels. A house adjoining the Lantry property is bought for the novices (later moved and called Loretta Cottage). (Harding)
1900 - Mary D'Arcy Cottage completed at Gabriels San, donated by the father of a patient; cost $5000. (Harding)
1901 - Paul Smith’s Electric Company electrifies the Gabriels San. (Harding)
1901 - Stony Wold Sanatorium for women is founded by Elizabeth Newcomb on Lake Kushaqua in the Town of Franklin. (Buck)
1903 - $135,000 spent on Gabriels San so far; about one half paid for. The first issue of the San magazine “Forest Leaves” is produced. The San is given a medal by the Paris Exposition for “arrangement, construction, water supply, drainage, warming and ventilation.”(Collins)
1903 - E.L. Trudeau’s son Ned, newly married and a physician, dies of pneumonia and a heart clot. (Trudeau)
1904 - Cornerstone for the Gabriels San chapel is laid, money donated by a Mr. McGrain whose son had died at the San. It takes several years before enough money is collected; stained glass windows and special doors added one at a time. (Harding)
1905 - The Sisters of Mercy purchase a farm to supply the San with food. (Harding) (2002-The farmhouse and huge barn of this once state-of the art farm are still standing in the community of Gabriels.)
1910, July - Rainbow Sanatorium opens, run by the Independent Order of Foresters benevolent society for their members. The property was purchased from James Wardner; the sanatorium placed on the site of the old Rainbow Inn. (Collins) orc 1914 - Four horse cars donated to Gabriels San by the Metropolitan Street Railway Co. of New York City, shipped free of charge by the NY Central Lines to serve as temporary shelters for patients. (Collins)
1914 - Sister Mary of Perpetual Help Kieran, known to all as “Mother Mary,” much beloved by all who knew her, dies. They bury her between the Shrine and the Angelus Bell, the two objects she loved best. (Harding)
1915 - New cement sidewalk and ornamental fence installed at Rainbow San. (Collins)
1915, Nov. 15th - Edward Livingston Trudeau succumbs to TB at age 67, 43 years after being diagnosed. All stores in Saranac Lake close and a hush falls over the village. (Rinehart)
1916, January - The Gabriels San Administration Building burns down. Patients are taken to Rainbow San. (Collins)
1916 - On the Administration Building foundation, the Knights of Columbus build temporary units 1 and 2 for 18 patients. Later a one story portable cottage comes by train and is placed on the foundation for priest patients (Harding). Later this becomes the Priests Bungalow for staff and priests (Collins).
1920 - The Independent Order of Forester’s Rainbow Sanatorium had admitted 642 patients during 1910-1920, at around 70 or less per year. In 1919-20 they take in 192 WWI vets from the US, Canada, and other foreign countries. The US Post Office moves to the San farmhouse - still there in 2002! (Collins)
1922 - Ceiling murals painted in Gabriels San Chapel. (Harding)
1923 - St. Margaret's Convent is built high on the hill to house Gabriels San Sisters and elderly Sisters unable to work. (Harding)
1926 - Knights of Columbus Units 3 and 4 built at Gabriels San; famed John Russell Pope is the architect. (Branch and Callanan Catalogue, courtesy Mary Hotaling).
1927 - Edward Smith Memorial Infirmary built at Gabriels Sanatorium (Harding). John Russell Pope the architect.(Forest Leaves,Vol XXI, No. 1, 1926)
1928 - First burial in the nuns' new cemetery at Gabriels San. Later graves are moved to a cemetery in Tupper Lake. (Harding)
1929 - All buildings at Gabriels San are connected by cement walks. More “Bridgetinas” (covered walkways) are built. (Harding)
1930s - Stony Wold Sanatorium with one large and 20 more buildings accommodates 150 patients and has a staff of 70. (Buck)
1930 - The Rainbow Sanatorium closes. (Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Historic Saranac Lake archives). Remaining patients are transferred to an Independent Order of Foresters San in California. (Collins)
1931 - A Research Lab and Isolation Ward designed for Gabriels San by architect John Russell Pope but believed never built. (Branch and Callanan catalog, courtesy Mary Hotaling)
1934 - Independent Order of Foresters Rainbow San property sold to William Hogan, Carl Anderson, Harry Hull, and Douglas Martin. (Collins)
1934 - Final Issue of Forest Leaves published by Gabriels San. (Collins)
1935 - Gabriels San suffers from the world economic downturn, has fewer patients and there is fear it will close, but it hangs on. (Harding)
1938 - The founder of Stony Wold Sanatorium, Elizabeth Newcomb, herself a victim of TB, dies and is buried in back of the Stony Wold Hall. (Buck)
1940s - Gabriels San receives fewer donations and faces higher prices, yet has more patients. (Collins)
1943 - There are 190 patients at Gabriels San; some are not TB cases. (Collins)
1944 - The Sisters of Mercy sell the Gabriels Sanatorium Farm in Gabriels, NY. (Harding)
1946 - The Sisters of Mercy give up the Post Office to Mr. Martin. (Harding)
1953 - The old St. Joseph’s Convent at Gabriels San burns. (Collins)
1954 - Gabriels San begins accepting aged and chronically ill patients as the number of TB patients declines with the advent of new drugs. (Collins)
1954 - The Trudeau Sanitarium closes. (Rinehart)
1955 - Stony Wold Sanatorium closes. (Buck)
1958 - Stony Wold property sold to the White Fathers, a Catholic order carrying on missionary work in Africa to be used as a college seminary, operating from 1959 to 1972 with a capacity for 200 students. (Buck)
1960 - There are only nine TB and 55 geriatric patients left at Gabriels San. (Collins)
1965-66 - The Sisters of Mercy move their geriatric patients to the new Uihlein Nursing Home in Lake Placid. They had cared for over five and one-half thousand patients at the Gabriels Sanatorium. In August Paul Smith's College take possession of the Gabriels San property. (Collins)
1974 - After closing the seminary in 1972, next operated for 2 years as a children’s camp and again closed, White Fathers sell off much of Stony Wold furniture and start dismantling the buildings. (Buck)
1975 - New York State Department of Environmental Conservation takes possession of Stony Wold (except for Stony Wold Hall and two other buildings on the lake shore) and completes the demolition of buildings. (Buck, Woods)
1977 - St. Margaret's Convent and Rest-a-While Cottage at Gabriels San (now part of Paul Smith’s College) torn down. (Lydia Wright)
1980 - Last Paul Smith’s College students are at the Gabriels San campus for the fall semester only. (Collins)
1982 - Paul Smith’s College sells the Gabriels San to New York State for a minimum security correctional facility. By August the first inmates arrive. (Collins)
1997 - Dick Freeburg receives an Adirondack Architectural Heritage Stewardship Award for the restoration of the Sisters of Mercy’s former farmhouse in Gabriels. (AARCH)
SOURCES
- Personal knowledge and records of local citizens, especially Geraldine Collins, Ruth Hoyt, Mary Ellen Helms Salls, Ruth Tucker, Rev Jesse Corum and Robert Lefler.
- Adirondack Life magazine
- Adirondac magazine, publication of the Adirondack Mountain Club
- Calloway, C.G. The Abenaki. 1989
- Cambell, R.D. The People of the Land of Flint. 1985
- Collins, Geraldine. The Brighton Story. 1977
- DeSormo, Maitland C. The Heydays of the Adirondacks. 1974
- Donaldson, Alfred L. A History of the Adirondacks. 1921
- Exhibit boards, Brighton History Day
- Franklin County Historical Society Reviews, Vols. 1-34
- Gilborn, Craig. Adirondack Camps. 2000
- Hooker, Mildred Phelps Stokes. Camp Chronicles. 1964
- Hough, Franklin B. A History of St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties NY, 1853
- Hurd, Duane Hamilton. A History of Clinton and Franklin Counties. NY, 1880
- Kudish, Michael. Railroads of the Adirondacks, A History. 1996
- Kudish, Michael. Where Did the Tracks Go?. 1985
- Martin, J. Peter. Adirondack Golf Courses, Past and Present. 1987
- Rubin, Nancy. American Empress, The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post. 1995
- Seaver, Frederick J. Historical Sketches of Franklin County and Its Several Towns. 1918
- Paul Smith's College Historical Museum
- Technical Assistance Center, SUNY, Plattsburgh, Economic and Demographic Characteristics of Franklin County, 1998
- Wallace, P.A.W. The White Roots of Peace. 1946
- Woods, James. Paul Smith’s College 1937-1980. 1980
Original text from a display at Brighton History Days by Pat and Tom Willis.
Brighton History Days have been held one weekend each summer since 1994, sponsored by the Brighton Architectural Heritage Committee.
