History Of Lake Maxinkuckee, O. A. Gandy Part Four

(Continued From Last Week)

One of the principal natural advantages of Lake Maxinkuckee isits copacity for producing ice.

When in January 1818, WIlliam Marshall's pick struck through the dirt and broken rock in the Scramento valley of California and dug up a nugget of gold, it by furnished an analogy to the the earlier discovery of ice on Lake Maxinkuckee. California's gold fields were soon all but exhausted, while our lake rarely fails to produce a valuable crop.

This is the way it happened

For several years after the first settlers had begun to accustom themselves to their new homes and had acruired a taste for freah fish, that found a ready means to satisfy it during the greater part of the year.

But winter months the kaje would ovten be frozen over for long periods at a time and then kippered herring (chubs) and canned slamon (carp) and smoked halibut had to satusfy most of them.

One day, after a protrected freeze, a native who, for the sake of brevity, we will call Jones, was crossing the lake on foot to his home on the East side, when he chanced to glance downward. directly under foot he beholf a splendid specimen of bass, which to his astonished gaze seeled to be at least a yard long.

With visions of fired bass for supper he hastened on to the home of the nearest settler, and procuring an ax lost no tim ein returning to the spor where he had seen the beauty, It was still there, likewise there still.

With the sturdy strokes that a pioneer log familiar with the use of an ax could deliver, he began chopping a hole directly above where the fish lay.



Suddenly he paused, his attention diverted from the bass to the scatterd fragments of vthe substabce he had been chopping. Dropping the ax he ga thered up several good size chunks and examined them closely. Incredility was plainly visible upon his conutenance, but as he continued to gaze it gave place in turn to a half-formed belief and then to certainty.

Quickly catching up the ax he ran like one bereft of senses to first one spot and then another, pausing only to sink the implement to the helve into the flistening bosom of the lake.

At last the wonderful truth dawned upon him! It was ICE - all ice. From shore to shore it streched, a solid, compact mass of cry stal wealth .

Jones recognized it as the same material he had oce, in a distant city, parted with with a week's wages for a small cake. He recalled rumors of untold wealth possessed by the magnate whose slave had seigned to harken to his small fortune for that minim of luxury.

And here were acres and acres of it, all might be his to do with as he wished. The secret was his alone; so far as he knew no one before him had even suspected its existence there.

As he made his way homeward Jones sought to avoid meeting his friends and neighbors lest they read his secret in his face. If he had encoutered any of them he would have preserved an icy demeanor.

He fell to estimating the probable worth of his find based upon what he had once paid for a small portion of much inferior quality. His mind reverted to the words of a itinerant preacher who had talked long and earnestly of a place where there was continual fire and few comforts such as ice and water, and he wondered what his profit would be if he could deliver the lot there and auction it off in blocks to the highest biddder.

History is silvent as to what became of Jones. Old-times will tell you that on the coldest winter nights, when ten-inch ice covers the surface of the lake, his wraith may be seen flitting from chadwick 's to the Indiana boat house, and from Dan McDonald's cottage to the academy bay, and if you listen closely you will hear his lament: "Two miles wide and three long and ten inches deep at a dollar a pound would make ---" and so on.

We cannot rouch for the truth of this statement, but offer it as a field for investigation to anyone intereste in spooks. But whatever his iltimate fater everyone owes a debt of gratitude to Jones for his discovery of one of Lake Maxinkuckee's most valuable and famous products. In the language of the poet:

"wherever he be or how he am,
Nobody know or cares a ---"

great deal at this late day. We are content to coolly take advantage of h is find.

To Be Continued_

Part One ~ ~ Part Two ~ ~ Part Three ~ ~ Part Four ~ ~ Part Five