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Lore
of the Willoughby Cliffs Natural Area
Moonshiners | "Willy"
Moonshiners and Rum-runners
Excerpted from:"Willoughby Lake Legends and Legacies," Harriet F. Fisher. Academy Books, Rutland, Vermont. Copyright © 1988.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
West-shore resident Steve Tanner recounts the following tale:
About three hundred feet up from the shore, under the cliffs of Mount Hor, there is a well-hidden cave with a melodramatic history. It involved crime and perhaps a doublecross or two.
In the early 1930s during Prohibition, some enterprising thirsty Vermonters used this cave to hide a whiskey still. It could be reached only by boat and by foot. It is said the moonshiners fired up only on foggy, moonless nights when the smoke from their fire could not be seen, even across the lake.
Somehow, perhaps through an informant, the revenuers got wind of this little business and planned a raid to destroy the machinery and catch the operators "with their hands in the still," so to speak. However, someone got word to the whiskey cave first; the night before the raid, the operators hightailed it up the lake, abandoning their rowboat on Crescent Beach.
The next morning the Feds sent the barrels of hooch and mash crashing down to the lake. If you can believe some West Side fishermen, the fish were drunk for a week.
To this day the cave is a family picnic site; some of the old barrel staves can still be found lying around.
Speaking of rum-running, Amanda S. Krieble writes:
Prohibition was in effect in 1929 when we first came to Willoughby Lake; my father entertained our cousins by escorting them north across the Canadian border for a beer at the nearest bar. By 1931 when we were renting a camp at Trail's End, I had become aware that Route 5A was a rum running artery.
One afternoon as my mother went out to our parked Model A Ford, a man crossed the road unsteadily and said to her, "See how I brought my whiskey through the customs." He pulled up the side of his radiator hood, and there were the bottles lined up against the motor.
Occasionally we were awakened in the night by the sound of shots as the local sheriffs chased a contraband liquor caravan down the Lake Road. There would be two motorcycles and a sedan, followed by a high-powered limousine carrying the hooch, and two motorcycles in the rear. We would hear stories about all this the next morning.
"Willy"
Excerpted from:"Willoughby Lake Legends and Legacies," Harriet F. Fisher. Academy Books, Rutland, Vermont. Copyright © 1988.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
On September 9, 1986 Audrey Besse of Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, documented a sighting of an unidentified aquatic creature in Willoughby Lake. The documentation was filed with the International Dracontology Society of Lake Memphremagog (IDSLM).
While sitting on the "point" near the Wheeler's Camps beach more than 15 years ago, Audrey, Ann Hauk (her mother), and a friend became excited at the site of a long, dark, creature with two or three humps; it was in the middle of the lake, swimming toward the south end. Mrs. Besse went for her binoculars and camera, but the creature had submerged before she could use them.
This sighting was not publicized because people did not like to think of this kind of "monster" in Willoughby Lake. However, no one, to our knowledge, has ever been attacked by such a creature.
Aquatic creatures such as this have names - "Champ" in Lake Champlain, "Nessie" in Loch Ness, and "Memphre" in Lake Memphremagog. Willoughby's creature could be named "Willy, " or perhaps it is time for a feminine name, such as "Willa."
A "monster" story appeared in the Caledonian for August 14, 1868. "It is reported that the great water snake at Willoughby Lake was killed Wednesday of last week by Stephen Edmonds of Newport, a lad of twelve years. Rushing boldly upon the monster he severed its body with a sickle. On actual measurement the two pieces were found to be 23 feet in length." Could this have been a monstrous eel? P.M. "Bun" Daniels of Westmore says eels have been caught near Gilman Tavern, but none of them would reach anywhere near these proportions.