At the 2016 Lite up the Village celebration in Shepard Park, Mayor Robert Blais announced the launch of a fundraising campaign to pay for improvements to the Shepard Park bandstand and amphitheater. The Village received a $25,000 donation from the Charles R. Wood Foundation for the project and is challenged, by the Foundation, to raise another $25,000 by June 1, 2017 to receive a matching grant.
Money raised will be used to replace the old lighting system, which the Mayor describes as “antiquated,” and upgrade the sound system. Also planned is the addition of two or three rows of natural seating on the sloping grounds to the right of the current seating area and a walkway connecting the park entrance and the seating area to provide wheelchair access to the amphitheater.
This is not the first time the community has come together for the benefit of Shepard Park. Fund drives such as this current campaign brought the park into existence more than 100 years ago. Building a public park in the heart of Lake George Village, with a beach where all could access the lake at no charge, was the dream of Edward Morse Shepard.
Born in 1850 in New York City, Shepard was only 6-years-old when his father, Lorenzo Shepard, a U.S. District Attorney for New York, died unexpectedly. Young Edward became the ward of Abram S. Hewitt and moved, with his mother, to Brooklyn. He attended public schools graduating from the City College of New York in 1869. The centerpiece of the CCNY campus is a neo-gothic tower, completed in 1907, which is named for Shepard.
Shepard went on to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1875. He became involved in New York politics, identifying himself as a reformer at a time when the civil service was rife with corruption.
His success as an attorney and an investor earned him great wealth, which allowed him to build his grand summer home, Erlowest, on the Western shore of Lake George. He first saw Lake George as a 14-year-old boy passing through on a journey to Vermont. In a retrospective of Shepard’s life penned by William Bruce Dowd, he is quoted as saying, “As I passed through the lake, I was so enraptured with it that I then resolved that at some time I would have a home on its shores.”
Shepard never married, claiming he hadn’t the time, but he did have many friends including prominent Lake George summer residents George Foster Peabody and Spencer and Katrina Trask. He was fond of music and was a talented pianist, according to Dowd.
Shepard ran, unsuccessfully, for public office twice on the Democratic Reform ticket, an 1895 bid for Mayor of Brooklyn and a 1901 run for Mayor of New York City. He was also a candidate for the United States Senate in 1911, but he withdrew from the race in February 2011. He died five months later, July 28, at Erlowest.
“The employees of the Shepard estate, Erlowest, nearly 100 in number, waited in tears outside the house. Brief bulletins from time to time were given them until the end came.” ~ Buffalo Courier, July 29, 1911
His death was attributed to pneumonia. Newspapers across the state published romanticized accounts of his passing:
“It was the hour of sunset on Lake George. The mountains to the west shut out the fall of golden light as it neared the horizon line that hazy July day, and threw the lake in shadow. With the evening the breeze, which now and then had stirred the waters into ripples of gold and silver, died down, and a holy quiet rested upon lake and mountain. The stillness was broken at last by a bell of the monastery across the water ringing the Angelus. As the sound died away, there passed from that scene of peace and loveliness a spirit, of the rare spirits — Edward M. Shepard. ” ~ Rev. John Howard Melish, Tribute to Edward M. Shepard, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 13, 2012″
The high esteem in which he was held is evidenced by the dozens of tributes offered by public officials at the time of his death. More telling of Shepard’s character is the actions of his friends and family who were determined to leave a lasting memorial in his honor.
In the year before his death, Shepard sought to purchase the former Lake House property on the lake’s Southern shore for use as a public park. His friends, those in Brooklyn and Lake George, thought it would be a fitting tribute to take up this project, which exemplified the deceased lawyer’s dedication to public service. Shepard’s friends turned to the Lake George community for help raising funds to pay for the project.
In 1912, the final week of August was declared Pageant Week in the Village of Lake George. The Post-Star of Glens Falls reported:
“The main street of the village is now adorned with flags of different nations stretched in rows across the broad highway. At each end of the decorated portion is a large banner reading ‘Pageant Week’, which will attract the attention of all who enter the village from the north and south. The merchants and hotel managers in the village are now decorating their places of business and by tomorrow night the village will be ablaze with flags and bunting.” – Aug. 29, 1912.
The three-day affair was a fundraiser for the Edward M. Shepard Memorial Park. A cast of 100 portrayed scenes from Lake George’s history spanning the centuries from when Father Isaac Jogues first laid eyes on the lake through the American Revolution. The pageant and other fundraising appeals were successful.
By October 2012, $11,200 had been raised; $10,000 was used to purchase the property, which included several hundred feet of shoreline. The balance was used to repair an existing dock and add smaller docks for rental boats.
In September 1917, a stage erected in the park, the Open-Air Forum, was dedicated at a ceremony attended by several hundred people. The new outdoor stage was flanked by two sets of Grecian columns with large urns centered between each set. Inscribed on the lintel over the northern columns were the words, “Given by the people of Lake George.” Over the southern set of columns, the inscription read, “In memory of Edward M. Shepard.”
At the dedication, George Foster Peabody read a poem written for the occasion by Katrina Trask. Over the course of the next four decades, the Open-Air Forum in Shepard Park was the site of many concerts and dramatic productions. According to Lake George Town Historian Margaret Mannix, the structure stood until 1958. By that time, the Grecian columns had begun to crumble and removal was necessary.
On the historic shores of Horicon/Storied with legends of the long ago/And sacred with traditions of today/There lies a park of mossy loveliness/Embowered in verdant foliage: the lake Ripples in sparkling beauty at its foot/In ever-varying, ever-changing hues —
Bright morning blue, deep sapphire, shadowed gray/And close upon the border of the beach
An open forum stands amid the trees: It stands encircled by the winds of heaven,
Roofed by the sky and carpeted with flowers: The lofty mountains are its sentinels
— lines from Katrina Trask’s poem
Shepard Park Today
“It’s a tremendous draw in the Village,” says Village Mayor Robert Blais of Shepard Park. It has become a year-round venue with an arts and craft festival each spring, the Elvis Festival in June, summer concerts and other events each evening throughout the summer; autumn brings the renowned Lake George Arts Project Jazz Festival and a spirited Oktoberfest.
Each year, on the third Saturday of November, Shepard Park is lit with thousands of holiday lights at the annual Lite up the Village celebration, an event that brought a crowd of nearly 1,500 to Lake George last year. On New Year’s Day, the park again is filled for the New Year’s Day Polar Plunge, and every weekend in February, the park serves as headquarters for the Lake George Winter Carnival. All events in the park are free, and park patrons spill out into the Village to dine and shop at local businesses.
The park has changed over the years. In 1984, MacDonald Pier was completed. The L-shaped sundeck, complete with seating and lights, was built off the Southern end of the Shepard Park Beach. Construction of the current bandstand was completed in 1990, with much of the cost covered by private donations.
The Centennial Fountain was built next to the park’s main entrance in 2003 to commemorate the Village’s 100th anniversary. The natural-styled fountain suggests a cold mountain stream with water trickling over rock, and a spectacular display of flowers, foliage and moss spills from the slabs of Adirondack granite.
The fountain and its surrounding walkway provide a soothing respite from the hustle of Canada Street. Community donations and donations of services and materials from local businesses funded its construction.
The current Shepard Park fundraising effort
Donations have begun coming in, according to Mayor Blais, and a mail appeal to residents and local merchants is in the works. On Sunday, Feb. 19, King Neptune’s Pub hosted a fundraising concert with performances by the Jonathan Newell Band and the Stony Creek Band.
Anyone wishing to join the legions of community-minded donors who, over the past century, have contributed to the maintenance and growth of Edward M. Shepard’s dream for the people may do so by mailing a donation to the Village of Lake George, 26 Old Post Road, Lake George, NY 12845. Make checks payable to “Lake George Village — Shepard Park Fund.”