William Gage was an employee of E. J. Worden, proprietor of the Worden Hotel in Lake George, NY. On Sunday morning, October 30, 1910, Gage asked Worden for the loan of a team of horses and a wagon, so he could visit his mother in nearby Luzerne.
Worden agreed, but warned that the equines could be spirited. The 26-year-old Gage is said to have replied that he had handled horses all of his life and they wouldn’t be a problem.
That afternoon Worden was notified that Gage had met with tragedy, plunging off a short pier west of the steamboat dock into the shallows of Lake George.
For some reason, the horses had become frightened and raced off, pulling the wagon with Gage aboard, into the chilly waterway.
The accident was witnessed by a sole person, a woman, who frantically ran for help. Several local people stopped what they were doing to lend a hand and quickly determined the horses had broken free from the cart.
One had drowned, the other succeeded in lugging itself and its dead stablemate to shore.
Using a nearby rowboat, the villagers spotted the submerged wagon but could not immediately locate Gage. A rope was tied to the buckboard, and it was yanked to shore.
A grappling hook attached to a throw line was employed to drag the now muddied waters in hopes of recovering the hotel worker. Once found, local physician Dr. Hemstreet (probably Dr. Chester Arthur Hemstreet) and the Coroner, Dr. Charles K. Burt attempted to revive Gage, but he was gone.
Later that afternoon, two medical staff traveled to Lake Luzerne to inform William Gage’s mother Lucinda of his death. Gage’s body was later transported to Luzerne for burial.
Local inhabitants debated the mystery of what happened that day before Halloween. The consensus was the wagon was heading from the western part of the village toward Canada Street, when the horses unexpectedly burst into “wild flight.”
The speeding wagon crossed the state highway and headed east on the Beach Road along the south end of the lake. As it approached the train station it veered onto a pier west of the steamboat dock.
With Gage in the driver’s box and the two spooked horses leading the way, they were all plunged into the chilly lake.
Illustrations, from above: Arlington and Worden Hotels in Lake George (New York Public Library); the short docks just west of the steamboat pier at the head of Lake George, ca. 1908 (Library of Congress);and the Gage family gravestone in Lake Luzerne Cemetery showing William H. Gage (1883-1910).
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