The Story of Chautauqua

by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

One story of a later season may be told in this connection, for it was without doubt typical. There are staid fathers and mothers attending lectures on sociology and civics in the Hall of Philosophy who could narrate similar experiences if only they would. A youth and two young lasses went out at the pier-gate for a sail across the lake. They landed at Point Chautauqua, refreshed their constrained bodies by a good dance, and then sailed home again. But it was late, the gate was closed, and it was of no avail to rattle the portals, for the gate-keepers were asleep in their homes far up the hill. The girls were somewhat alarmed, but the young man piloted them through the forest over a well-worn path to a place where some pickets of the fence were loose and could be shoved aside. They squeezed through and soon were safely at their homes.

But their troubles were not over. Their tickets had been punched to go out of the grounds, but not to come in again. Technically, in the eyes of the Chautauqua government they were still outside the camp. This young man, however, was not lacking in resources. He knew all the officials from His Whiskers, the supreme chief of police, down the list. Making choice of one gateman whose nature was somewhat social he called upon him in his box, talked in a free and easy way, picked up his punch and began making holes in paper and cards. When the gatekeeper's back was turned, he quickly brought out the three tickets, punched them for coming into the grounds, and then laid down the nippers. The girls, now officially within the grounds, were grateful to their friend, and to manifest their regard wrought for him a sofa-pillow which decorated his room in college.

Something should be said just here concerning the ticket-system of Chautauqua. It was devised by the genius of Lewis Miller, to whom invention was instinctive, and was improved to meet every possible attempt at evasion. There were one-day tickets, good for only one admission, three-day tickets, week-tickets, and season-tickets, all providing no admission on Sundays. They were not transferable, and all except the one-day variety bore the purchaser's name. Two or three times during the season officers visited every house and every lecture and class, even stopping everybody on the streets to see that no single-day tickets were kept for longer periods. Provision was made for exchanging at the office short-stop tickets for the longer time desired. If one wished to go outside the gate on an errand, or for a sail on the lake, he must leave his ticket, unless he was known to the gate-keeper, in order to prevent more than one person from using the same ticket. When one left the Assembly for good, he gave up his ticket. Every ticket had its number by which it could be identified if lost or found; and the bulletin-board contained plenty of notices of lost tickets.

It is said that one careful visitor carried his ticket everywhere for a day or two, at each lecture-hall and tent looking vainly for a window where it might be shown. As it did not seem to be needed, he left it in his room, only to find when he wished to take out a boat, that he must go home and get his ticket. When the day arrived for him to leave Chautauqua, he placed his ticket in the bottom of his trunk, as it would be needed no longer, intending to take it home as a souvenir for his memory-book. But, alas, at the gate, departing, he found that ticket an absolute necessity. Without it, apparently he must stay forever inside the walls of Chautauqua. So once more he overhauled his trunk, dug up his ticket from its lowest strata, and departed in peace.

Old Hall of Philosophy

The Golden Gate
Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, Dr. J. H. Vincent, Lyman Abbott, Bishop H. W. Warren

One departure from camp-meeting customs at once wrought a change in the aspect of Chautauqua and greatly promoted its growth. We have noted the fact that in the earlier years no householder or tent-dweller was to receive boarders, and all except those who cooked at home ate in a common dining-hall. After the third Assembly, this restriction was removed and anyone could provide rooms and board upon paying a certain percentage of receipts to the management. The visitors who came in 1877 missed, but not in sorrow, the dingy old Dining-Hall, which had been torn down. But everywhere boarding houses had sprung up as by magic, and cottages had suddenly bulged out with new additions, while signs of "Rooms and Board" greeted the visitants everywhere. In fact, so eager were the landlords for their prey, that runners thronged the wharf to inform new arrivals of desirable homes, and one met these agents even at the station in Mayville. There was an announcement of the Palace Hotel, the abode of luxurious aristocracy. The seeker after its lordly accommodations found a frame building, tent-covered and tent-partitioned into small rooms for guests. But even this was an improvement upon the rows of cots in the big second story of the old lodging house, where fifty people slept in one room, sometimes with the rain dripping upon them through a leaky roof. Year by year the boarding cottages grew in number, in size, and in comfort. Fain would we name some of these hostelries, whose patrons return to them season after season, but we dare not begin the catalogue, lest by an omission we should offend some beloved landlady and her guests. In a few years the Palace Hotel, half-house and half-tent, gave place to the Hotel Athenæum, on the same site, whose wide balcony looks out upon the lake, and whose tower has been a home for some choice spirits. The writer knows this for he has dwelt beside them.