Dresser tells tales of Mt. Riga history, community

SALISBURY — A standing-room- only crowd turned up at the Scoville Memorial Library to hear “summer Raggie� Jim Dresser talk about Riga’s history and current status.

Mt. Riga “lies on the southern end of the Taconic Plateau  and in the northeast corner of both the town of Salisbury and the state of Connecticut,â€� began Dresser, after issuing a caveat that  “many of you in this room know some of this subject matter much better than I do.â€�

(Longtime mountain resident Crosby Wells, seated in the front row, nodded at this.)

Mount Riga, Inc., owns about 4,500 acres; about 1,000 acres were sold to the National Park Service for the Appalachian Trail in the 1980s, Dresser said, adding that the Riga holding comprises about one-eighth of the Taconic Plateau and also about one-eighth of the town of Salisbury. “There are two lakes, South Pond and Riga Lake, commonly referred to as the Lower and Upper Lake, presumably because the Upper Lake is 30 feet higher.�

And there is a 400-acre conservation easement granted by Mt. Riga to The Nature Conservancy in the 1980s that covers the ecologically important Bingham Pond area and Bald Peak, the 2,000-foot top of the mountain.

It began at Lower Lake

Dresser went through the early history of the mountain community, beginning in 1783 when Daniel Ball bought land at the eastern end of the Lower Lake and the right to dam the Wachocastinook, the stream that runs through town.

Ball “built the first forge on Mt. Riga and a crude, wooden dam, which he gradually strengthened by reinforcing the back of the dam with the slag from his forge. By roughly a century later, the era of iron-making was over, and the transition to today’s summer community had begun. This conservation-minded community of summer residents has also lasted roughly a century so far,� said Dresser, who owns one of the oldest houses on the mountain.

Trees were what brought them here

Life on the mountain during the iron era was rough, Dresser said. “Why build a furnace at 1,700 feet requiring that ore and limestone be transported more than 5 miles and 1,200 vertical feet by ox-cart or on the backs of mules, especially when there were already 30 to 40 furnaces operating in the upper Housatonic watershed? The primary reason stems from the large quantities of wood required to smelt iron.�

With a note of thanks to Lakeville Journal columnist and local historian Richard Paddock for research, Dresser said to operate a furnace of the type on Mt. Riga required 1,100 bushels of charcoal per day.  With a cord of wood yielding 38 bushels of charcoal,  29 cords of wood a day were needed.  

“My back and shoulders ache just thinking about the work involved in producing 29 cords of wood a day using handsaws, not to mention the labor involved in turning it into charcoal,� Dresser commented.

Despite the rigors of transporting the raw materials, Mt. Riga was not as unlikely a location for such an operation as a modern observer might think.

“The dependable waterpower was another major reason to locate a furnace on Mt. Riga,â€� said Dresser. “Also, while the Taconic Plateau has steep cliffs on the eastern and western sides, the southern access is gradual, allowing three transport routes:  up what we call ‘the Millerton Road’ [Route 44] from the Ore Hill mine; up the Middle Road from the mine east of Salisbury Central School across Selleck Hill and past the cemetery; and up the current road from Salisbury. Finally, heavy finished products like anchors, cannon and keels could be carried downhill to the west and put on ships on the Hudson.â€�

Proud to be Raggies

Dresser gave a sketch of the rigorous life of the Raggies. “A thriving community grew up around the furnace, forges and hammer shop.  There were a sawmill and a tannery. Orchards and fields of wheat, rye, oats, flax and potatoes grew on the ample stretches of relatively level ground.

“It’s hard to estimate the size of the community, partly because a significant percentage of the workers were colliers  [men who turned wood into coal] living in shacks in the woods, tending their charcoal mounds and brewing the moonshine that made their dangerous and boring occupation bearable.â€�

Citing the work of historian Julia Pettee, Dresser said there were more than 100 homes on the mountain around 1820, and 71 students in the school.

The ironmaking industry began to decline in the 1830s, with the depletion of wood for charcoal, competition from new iron works in Pennsylvania and New York near supplies of coal, and the construction of railroads, said Dresser.

“The furnace’s production finally halted for good in 1847 when a ‘salamander’ occurred.  This is a solidification of the molten ore in the bottom of the furnace, rendering it unusable.  The owners decided that rebuilding would not make economic sense.â€�

But reduced iron work and related activities continued until 1860, when the iron company ceased operation.  

“Many residents moved to the valley to find employment, often in nearby iron-making ventures.  But others stayed to farm or produce charcoal or simply because they had no choice but to retain their homes and go back and forth to employment or school in the valley.  

“Danny Brazee’s great-grandmother was known to walk down the mountain to school, walk home to do her chores, walk down again to attend a dance, dance all evening, and walk back up the mountain. This regime must have undermined her health because she only lived to be 101.â€�  

The beginning of the camps

The summer community began to take shape by the late 1800s, when the Millerton Iron Company sold a large parcel for which they had little use to Judge Donald Judson Warner of Salisbury, “reportedly at a tax sale,� Dresser said.

“He later sold one-third each to two other local families, who also used the land for hunting and summer cottages.  With so many family members, governance became complicated so Mt. Riga Incorporated was formed in 1922, and the family members deeded their ownership interests to the new corporation.

“The descendants of these three families continue to comprise the board of directors.â€�  

Today Mt. Riga, Inc., uses shareholder approval by supermajority for significant land transactions “to reduce the possibility of anyone from the outside achieving sufficient control to develop or otherwise alter the use of Mt. Riga’s land.�

Dresser explained the current setup. “Today, there are about 40 camps (as they have been called since many of them were used as hunting camps) scattered around the two lakes.  While few of the camps are on the lakeshores, they all have access to the lakes.  With some exceptions, the corporation owns and leases the land under the camps and the residents own the buildings.â€�    

And who are the summer Raggies? “Like the rest of Salisbury, they come from every walk of life and income level. Some occupations of current or recent residents include school teacher, photographer, small-engine mechanic, solar-panel installer, lawyer, executive, technical writer, physical therapist, minister, real estate manager, artist, banker, athletic coach, sports referee, carpenter and landscape architect.�

(Reporter’s note: Dresser omitted newspaper reporter from this list.)

Mt. Riga has no electricity, little plumbing and sporadic cell phone signals, and the summer community likes it that way.

“I believe you gain the ultimate insight into Mt. Riga’s current culture by picturing a community tossing monkey wrenches into the engine of so-called ‘progress.’ With almost universal consensus, we have simply refused to stay on the escalator carrying our society to greater creature comforts and technological innovations, at least for half of every year.�