French Louie was an Adirondak guide, trapper, woodsman and hermit who died in 1915. His age was unknown but his death certificate said he was 84. His name was Louis Seymore and he was born near Ottawa Canada, sometime around 1832.[1] French Louie is mentioned in virtually every book written about the South-Central Adirondacks. A lot of what is known of him is from the oral tradition, but Harvey Dunham wrote a biography in 1953.
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Louis Seymore was born on a small farm near Dog River North of Ottawa, Canada. As a young boy he was able to do the work of a man, removing stumps, clearing brush etc. It's not known how many brothers and sisters he had, but Harvy L. Dunham described it as "many". After his mothers' death, his step mother was mean. He ran away from home and joined a circus. Louie crossed into the United States and joined another circus, and after an undetermined amount of time, at the age of twelve, he took a job on the Erie Canal as a driver, for $8 per month. During the many hours walking behind the mules, he would daydream about living in the woods, and how to set trap lines[2].
Once Louie went back to Canada and found his family had separated, and he never went back. For the next 20 years, until after the American Civil War, he worked on the canal, and with circuses. During the winter when the canals were closed, and the circuses were in winter quarters, he would go into the woods as a lumberjack, mastering the dangerous river driving and clean chopping. During the circus season of 1868, while working in a circus in Saratoga New York, he heard from a crew of lumberjacks about the great country to the north. Soon Louie was northbound on the Sackets Harbor & Saratoga Railroad which, was then under construction, and planning to cross the entire woods past Blue Mountain Lake, and Raquette Lake through the Moose River and Bever River country on to Carthage and Sackets Harbor. The plan was also to log some 500,000 acres of timber land. At Thurman Station Louie got on a stage for Warrensburg, where he caught a stage for Indian Lake[3].
Louie had a real fondness and longing for the "bush." A man sent Louie down a road to the south to Lewey Lake to get a job[4]. George Griffin was a big lumberman with thirteen camps in the area around Lewey Lake and Indian Lake. Griffin hired Louie on as a blacksmiths helper[5]. Before long Louie was sent into the woods as a chopper. At that time, crosscut saws were rare and had to be imported from England, and few knew how to sharpen one. Among the loggers in the Adirondacks, there was a debate about which was better, sawing or chopping. The reason for the debate was because the flat ends of the sawed logs would split when they would hit rocks and bolders in the rivers on the way to the sawmill. Chopping produced a tapered end on the log.
In 1871 Louie bought a yoke of oxen to work a small lumber job for Griffin. Two years later he hauled a load of hides with his oxen through the town of Newton Corners to the tannary for a man named Dave Sturgis. Between 1871 and 1873 worked in the lumber woods for Jim MacCormack and John McGinn, and drove loggs on the Jessup River for Dave Sturgis[6].
In 1873 Louie gave up following the lumber jobs, and built his first enclosed camp on Lewey Lake[7]. There he lived and trapped, and sold his furs at Indian Lake Village through Oliver Ste. Marie. Louie had no steel traps, but used snares and deadfalls. Oliver sent the furs to Prouty in New York City, who paid the best for furs. It might be a year or two before Louie saw the checks to be cashed[8]. During that winter Louie captured two deer, built a pen and fed them shin hemlock. Later the deer were sold to the owner of a park in Saratoga. On the opposite side of Lewey Lake another French Canadian named Sam Seymore lived in a cabin. Sam was also a woodsman hermit, and trapper but did not long for the deep woods. Sam believed that Louie and himself must be brothers because they both came from Dog River, they both said their family broke up in Canada, and had the same story of a hard step mother. Louie said he had many brothers and sisters, but didn't remember one named Sam. Sam always believed they were brothers, and Louie wasn't so sure. Sam died in the summer following Louie's death in 1915[9].
Louie kept chickens and had a productive garden. He attributed the success of his garden to the many snakes of the area. He had a couple of hound dogs, and when he was going into town he would kill a deer, skin it out, and leave it with the dogs, along with a large volume of water. Louie gained the respect of many by his ability to live in the wilderness and be totally self-sufficient[10].
It became too civilized for Louie at Lewey Lake and he moved on to the Jessup River where he built another cabin and stayed there for one winter. From there he built a camp in a clearing on the Indian Lake-Newton Corners road. Next he built a cabin at Cedar Lakes. Trapping took him to Pilsbury Lake where he built two lean-to's facing each other. Louie left his pack and gun with Dave Sturgis, and went to a circus with some lumberjacks, and didn't return with them. When he again headed back to the wilderness, he ended up in the vicinity of Moosehead in Maine. He wasn't there long because he killed a moose out of season and got away on a river log drive. He said he left no tracks getting out of the state of Maine. This time he settled not at Cedar Lakes, but nearer to Newton Corners. He did odd jobs, and cleared several acres of timber for Dave Sturgis[11].