Church of the Good Shepherd (Raquette Lake, New York)
Encyclopedia
William West Durant
William West Durant was a designer and developer of camps in the Adirondack Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas, Camp Pine Knot and Sagamore Camp which are National Historic Landmarks. He was the son of Thomas C. Durant, the financier and railroad promoter who was behind the Crédit Mobilier...
in 1880 on Saint Hubert's Isle in the hamlet of Raquette Lake
Raquette Lake
Raquette Lake is the source of the Raquette River in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, USA. It is near the community of Raquette Lake, New York. The lake has 99 miles of shoreline with pines and mountains bordering the lake. It is located in the towns of Long Lake and Arietta,...
in the town of Long Lake, New York
Long Lake, New York
Long Lake is a town in Hamilton County, New York in the United States. The population was 852 at the 2000 census. The town is named for long Long Lake beside which it sits. The town is entirely within the Adirondack Park and is the most northerly town in the county. It is a summer tourism...
. Along with St. William's Roman Catholic Church (1890) on Long Point, it was built to serve the owners, guests and employees of the Great Camps
Great Camps
Great camps refer to the grandiose family compounds of cabins that were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century on lakes in the Adirondacks such as Spitfire Lake and Rainbow Lake. The camps were summer homes for the wealthy, where they could relax, host or attend parties, and enjoy the...
Durant was building. Both churches were designed by the firm of J. Cleaveland Cady
J. Cleaveland Cady
J Cleaveland Cady was a New York-based architect whose most familiar surviving building is the south range of the American Museum of Natural History on New York's Upper West Side...
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Good Shepherd was built in the stick style and St. William's in the shingle style, both popular forms of architecture during the latter part of the 19th century. The island site was originally named Bluff Island, but was later renamed in honor of the patron saint of hunters.
The island church was the subject of many well-known photographers during the late 19th century - Seneca Ray Stoddard
Seneca Ray Stoddard
Seneca Ray Stoddard was an American landscape photographer known for his photographs of New York's Adirondack Mountains. He was also a naturalist, a writer, a poet, an artist, and a cartographer. His writings and photographs helped to popularize the Adirondacks.Stoddard was born at Wilton, in...
, William Henry Jackson
William Henry Jackson
William Henry Jackson was an American painter, Civil War, geological survey photographer and an explorer famous for his images of the American West...
and Edward Bierstadt
Edward Bierstadt
Edward Bierstadt was an American portrait and landscape photographer, and engraver. He was a brother of the painter Albert Bierstadt, and made a number of engravings of his brother's work...
- and painted in oils by John Whetten Ehninger in 1881, now at the Adirondack Museum
Adirondack Museum
The Adirondack Museum, located on NY-30 in the hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake in Hamilton County, New York, is a museum dedicated to preserving the history of the Adirondacks...
. Good Shepherd was also mentioned in writings by the authors and poets Nessmuk, Seneca Ray Stoddard, the Rev. E.O. Flagg and Alfred L. Donaldson, among others.
The first treasurer of the summer chapel was John Boyd Thacher
John Boyd Thacher
John Boyd Thacher was the Mayor of Albany, New York and New York State Senator as well as an American manufacturer, writer, and book collector...
, future mayor of Albany (1886–88, 1896–97). The warden was William West Durant.
The church is open to the public the first Sunday of August annually at 3:00 pm, with free transportation from the Raquette Lake Village dock beginning at 2:00 pm. Visitors are also invited to come by canoe, guide boat and rowboat as they did more than a century ago.