Thousand Island Park, Wellesley Island - A Place of Pilgrimage
Mary (Archana) Tamraz is a member of the Vedanta Society of Sacramento since the 1970's; a founding member of the Sri Sarada Mahila Samiti of Northern California; and a retired Professor of Communications and Women's Studies.
As the summer approached with the threat of sweltering heat in New York City, Swami Vivekananda longed for rest from his strenuous work after two years in America. Vedanta studies with Swamiji continued through June 2nd, 1895. Yet many wanted classes to go on during the summer months.
One of the New York students, Miss Elizabeth Dutcher, invited the Swami to take a vacation in her summer cottage at Thousand Island Park on the St. Lawrence River. Swamiji felt that those students willing to put aside all other interests to devote themselves to the study of Vedanta and travel more than three hundred miles to a suitable spot, were really in earnest. He would recognize them as disciples. Swamiji was eager to establish Vedanta on sound footing and mould the spiritual lives of individual students. He hoped to train those who could continue his work in America.
The Early Days on Wellesley Island
There are actually more than 1,000 islands among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River which borders the Province of Ontario, Canada and the State New York in the United States. Of those, Wellesley Island is nine miles long and from one to two miles wide.
In the mid-1870s, the Thousand Island Park Camp Meeting Association was founded by the Reverend John Ferdinand Dayan. He was caught up in the religious revival movement of the time and wanted to establish a Methodist summer camp for families to experience both spiritual and physical renewal. The Camp was non-sectarian. Yet its activities embraced religious thought and an inflexible observance of the rules of the Sabbath. Revival meetings and sermons were common.
Swami Vivekananda at Thousand Island Park July 1895 via Wikimedia Commons
The Camp developed quickly with families summering in their tents, rooming houses, or newly built cottages. By 1890, in addition to public accommodations, the Park Camp was firmly established with nearly 600 cottages and 7,000 summer inhabitants. An open-air tabernacle offered bench space for gatherings. The Pavilion at the river boat landing was the main entry to the Methodist retreat at a time when all travel to Wellesley Island was by water. It could even accommodate the landing of steamships and served as the gateway for hundreds of visitors seeking intellectual and spiritual pursuits. In 1895, Swami Vivekananda and his students contributed to this mixture of people and events.
Miss Elizabeth Dutcher's Cottage in 1895
Miss Dutcher's cottage was perched on a rock in the Sunrise Mountain section of the Park with exceptionally fine views of the St Lawrence River. After inviting the Swami, she added a large three-storied wing to the house for Swamiji's own use. Miss Dutcher thoughtfully added an outside stairway to the Swami's room so that he could enter or exit without notice by others.
Sara Ellen Waldo noted that "about the middle of June, six or eight students gathered in the little house at Thousand Island Park; and true to his promise, Swami Vivekananda came there...and remained for seven blessed weeks. A few more students joined us until we numbered twelve, including our hostess. To those who were fortunate enough to be there with the Swami, those were weeks of ever-hallowed memory, so fraught were they with unusual opportunity for spiritual growth. No words can describe what that blissful period meant (and still means) to the devoted little band who followed the Swami from New York to the Island in the St. Lawrence, who daily served him with joy and listened to him with heartfelt thankfulness. His whole heart was in his work, and he taught like one inspired."
All visitors landed by river steamer at the dock located near the corner of St. Lawrence Avenue and Coast Avenue on the beautiful St. Lawrence River. It is now marked by a plaque erected by the community in remembrance of Swamiji's visit and is called Vivekananda Landing.
"Swami Vivekananda, the patriot saint of modern India, and a lover of humanity who promoted peace and brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic oneness of existence, arrived at Thousand Island Park on June 18, 1895."
Swami Vivekananda's Twelve Students at Thousand Island Park
In the June 1895 issue of the Syracuse Evening Herald six of Swamiji's students were named. "Stopping at the well-known cottage of Miss E.H. Dutcher at Thousand Island Park are Mr. and Mrs. Walter Goodyear, Miss Ethel Howe, Miss Stella Campbell of New York City, Miss Ellen Waldo of Brooklyn, also the Swami Vivekananda of India. The latter was a delegate at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and one of the most popular of the many learned men from the Far East. After the close of the Parliament the Swami remained in this country lecturing through the West and later in the East. He is an able exponent of Hindoo philosophy and has attracted many to listen to his teachings." In addition, Ruth Ellis, Dr. Lyman Lincoln Wight, Marie Louise Davitt, and Leon Landsberg came from New York City. Christine Greenstidel and Mary Caroline Funke arrived later from Detroit.
There were twelve students altogether. Every occurrence was an opportunity for spiritual lessons. From June 19th to August 6th, Swamiji held classes on Vedanta using references from various scriptures including the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Vedanta Sutras. The group also gathered on the upper veranda of the house in the cool, silent evenings as he talked.
Miss Elizabeth Dutcher
Miss Elizabeth Dutcher, an artist and staunch Methodist, built her cottage on a rock with huge boulders and gardens all around. Her concepts of religion, values, and ideals came up for examination during classes there. Sometimes she did not appear for two or three days. Swamiji noted, "Don't you see? This is not an ordinary illness. It is the reaction of the body against the chaos that is going on in her mind. She cannot bear it."
As Swamiji's host, Miss Dutcher had to oversee the smooth running of a very cramped house full of guests from different socio-economic backgrounds. There was an attempt at democratization of housekeeping tasks. This experiment proved something of a disaster and a maid was hired. Christine compared the situation to a page from American Transcendentalist history, namely, Bronson Alcott's experiment in group living. "Some of us who had just been reading the story of Brook Farm felt that we saw it re-enacted before our eyes."
Sara Ellen Waldo
Sara Ellen Waldo was born in Boston in 1845. She was a member of the Brooklyn Ethical Association which sponsored Swami Vivekananda's talks at the Pouch Gallery in 1894. Miss Waldo became one of Swamiji's closest and most devoted disciples in New York. A distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sara was well acquainted with the Transcendental School of philosophy. She served as the chief transcriber- taking meticulous notes in longhand-of the Thousand Island Park classes.
Leon Landsberg
While at Thousand Island Park, Swami Vivekananda initiated two disciples into Sannyasa. Leon Landsberg, a Russian Jew by birth, a member of the Theosophical Society, and a journalist for the New York Tribune became Swami Kripananda. He shared an apartment with Swamiji in New York City in early 1895. And Madame Marie-Louise Davitt, who immigrated from France to the United States in 1865, was involved in social justice causes. She became Swami Abhayananda. Five other students were initiated into brahmacharya, the vows of chastity and poverty, and others received sacred mantras.
Christine Greenstidel
Christine Greenstidel was born in Nuremberg, Germany, the daughter of a German scholar. Her family moved to the United States when she was three years old and settled in Detroit. Raised a Lutheran, she later became a Christian Scientist. A school teacher at Webster School in Detroit, Christine was the sole financial support of her mother and five younger sisters upon the death of her father.
Mary Caroline Funke
Mary Caroline Funke, also a former Detroit teacher, was a dear friend of Christine Greenstidel. They attended Swamiji's lectures on religion and philosophy in Detroit in early 1894 and embarked on a daring adventure to seek him out when they heard that Swamiji was vacationing at Thousand Island Park. They arrived late at night exhausted and rain soaked. "We have come to you just as we would go to Jesus if he were still on earth and ask him to teach us."
Years later, Christine described the impact of the first time they heard Swami Vivekananda. "Little did I think when I reluctantly set out one cold February night in 1894 to attend a lecture at the Unitarian Church in Detroit that I was doing something which would change the whole course of my life and be of such stupendous import that it could not be measured by previous standards I had known.... For before we had listened five minutes, we knew that we had found the touchstone for which we had searched so long. In one breath, we exclaimed - 'If we had missed this... !’"
Swamiji said of Christine, "She is pure, pure in soul. I knew it, I felt it. I must have her for my work in Kolkata." After her mother died in 1901, Christine went to Kolkata to teach at the Sister Nivedita Girls' School and participate in Swamiji's vision for the regeneration of India.
Stella Campbell
Stella Campbell had been an actress. She later retired to practice meditation on an island in Orchard Lake near Pontiac, Michigan. Swamiji sympathetically referred to Stella as 'that Baby' and firmly defended her from the criticism of others.
Dr. Lyman Lincoln Wight
Dr. Lyman Lincoln Wight became famous during the 1870s as a producer of high quality cheeses. He retired from the medical profession about 1850 and invested in a cheese factory in Whitesboro, New York. Active in many professional organizations, such as the Utica Board of Trade, he wrote articles about dairy farming and cheese production. Wight may have been introduced to the Swami by Dr. Egbert Guernsey or by Mr. Francis Leggett. Other students of Swamiji called him 'Docky Wight.
Christine wrote, "He was well over seventy but as enthusiastic and full of interest as a boy. At the end of each class there was usually a pause, and the little old Docky would stoop down and rub his bald head and say, with the most pronounced nasal twang, 'Well, Swami, then it all amounts to this, 'I am the Absolute!' We always waited for that, and Swamiji would smile his most fatherly smile and agree. At times like this the Swami's thirty years in the presence of seventy seemed older by countless years ancient but not aged, rather ageless and wise with the wisdom of all times. Sometimes Swamiji said, 'I feel three hundred years old? This, with a sigh."
Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis was on the staff of one of the New York newspapers. Christine described her as "gentle and retiring and seldom spoke, yet one knew that her love and devotion were unbounded." In a letter to Sara Bull, Ruth described Marie-Louise as 'untamed and untamable.
Walter and Frances Goodyear
Walter and Frances Goodyear were a married couple who had attended Swamiji's classes in New York City. Walter was the grandson of the famous inventor, Charles Goodyear, who vulcanized rubber, thereby rendering that material durable for myriad uses. Walter's father invented a welting process for attaching the heel of a shoe to the sole by machine. Recalling all the pain and poverty his father suffered over loss of patents, Goodyear Jr. secured patents that would in future provide steady income for his sons, Walter and Charles. Walter owned a bookstore on Fifth Avenue and was friends with C. B. Patterson, who invited Swami Vivekananda to Hartford, Connecticut. Walter served as treasurer and then as president of the Vedanta Society of New York for a number of years.
Ethel Howe
Ethel Howe was a singer who made her New York City debut in 1879 and was featured in one of Gilmore's Sunday evening concerts at the Grand Opera House. For a while she resided with Walter and Frances Goodyear.
Mary Funke reminisced about the preparation of lunch at Dutcher's cottage just after the morning class was over. A long dining table filled the second parlor.
"Swamiji's fun-making is of the merry type. Sometimes he will say, 'Now I am going to cook for you!' He is a wonderful cook and delights in serving the 'brithrin. The food he prepares is delicious but for yours truly too hot with various spices; but I made up my mind to eat it if it strangled me, which it nearly did. If a Vivekananda can cook for me, I guess the least I can do is to eat it. Bless him!...At such times we have whirlwinds of fun. And then, at table, such gales of laughter over some quip or jest, for he unfailingly discovers the little idiosyncrasies of each one-but never sarcasm or malice-just fun."
Christine remarked of her friend, Mary Funke. "Perhaps more than any of us she realized how much he [Swamiji] needed rest and relaxation. The body and mind should not be kept at so great a tension all the time. While others were afraid of losing even a word, she thought how she could amuse him. She would tell funny stories, often at her own expense, and talk lightly and entertainingly." Mary commented, "I know he thinks I am a fool, but I don't care as long as it amuses him." About Mary, the Swami said, "She rests me. She gives me freedom."
Mary recalled the days at Thousand Island Park, "There were twelve of us and it seemed as if Pentecostal fire descended and touched the Master. One afternoon, when he had been telling us of the glory of renunciation, of the joy and freedom of those of the ochre robe, he suddenly left us, and in a short time he had written his Song of the Sannyasin, a very passion of sacrifice and renunciation. I think the thing which impressed me most in those days was his infinite patience and gentleness-as of a father with his children, though most of us were several years older than he."
"Wake up the note! the song that had its birth
Far off, where worldly taint could never reach;
In mountain caves and glades of forest deep,
Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame
Could ever dare to break; where rolled
inthe stream of knowledge, truth, and bliss that
follows both. Sing high that note, sannyasin bold! Say, of Om Tat Sat, Om!"
The Inspired Talks recorded by Miss Sara Ellen Waldo
Swami Vivekananda's Inspired Talks are a record of the Swami's teachings for disciples and devotees who lived with him at the cottage. These were recorded by Swamiji's disciple, Miss Sara Ellen Waldo of New York to whom he also dictated his translation and explanation of Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms, published later as Raja Yoga. Swamiji had great confidence in Miss Waldo's ability and gave her lecture transcripts with the request that she edit or change them as she thought best.
Once when she was reading a portion of her notes to friends at the Thousand Island Park house, the Swami paced up and down, apparently unconscious of them. When the listeners left the room, Swamiji turned to Miss Waldo and said: "How could you have caught my thought and words so perfectly? It was as if I heard myself speaking"
Miss Waldo compiled her notes of Swami Vivekananda's talks and, with her consent, Sister Devamata edited them.
Devamata prepared the manuscript for publication and took it with her to India in 1907. There Inspired Talks was first published in 1909. It was reviewed by both Swamis Ramakrishnananda and Brahmananda.
"It is a perpetual inspiration to live with a man like Swami Vivekananda," wrote Miss Waldo. "We were alone with nature, and it was a fitting scene in which to listen to the utterances of such a Teacher. The Swami did not appear to address us directly, but rather seemed to be speaking to himself in words of fire, as it were, so intense were they, so eloquent and convincing, burning into the very hearts of his listeners never to be forgotten. We listened in utter silence, almost holding our breath for fear of disturbing the current of his thoughts, or losing one of those inspired words."
"Blessed is the country in which he was born," noted Sister Christine, "blessed are they who lived on this earth at the same time, and blessed, thrice blessed are the few who sat at his feet... Only if one's mind were lifted to that high state of consciousness in which we lived for the time, could we hope to recapture the experience. We were filled with joy. We did not know at that time that we were living in his radiance. On the wings of inspiration, he carried us to the height which was his natural abode."
Swamiji held his last class in Miss Dutcher's cottage on August 6th. The following day the Swami along with Sister Christine and Mary Funke strolled about half a mile from the cottage where all was forest and solitude. They sat under a low-branched tree. The Swami said, "Now we shall meditate. We shall be like Buddha under the Bo- tree." He became still as a bronze statue. A thunderstorm came up and it poured, but the Swami did not notice anything. Swamiji had entered into Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
At nine o'clock in the evening on Wednesday, August 7th, 1895, Swami Vivekananda boarded the steamer for Clayton, where he was to catch the train for New York City. While taking leave of his disciples standing on the pier he said, "I bless these Thousand Islands."
Present Day at Thousand Island Park
Thousand Island Park is a small village located on Wellesley Island about 360 miles from New York City on the St. Lawrence River. Wellesley Island is among the 1,864 islands in the Thousand Islands. An island must meet two criteria: it must be above water 365 days a year and it must support a living tree.
Miss Dutcher's cottage was acquired by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York in December, 1947. It was restored while maintaining the original design. During the reconstruction in 1948, an electrician working in the house accidentally discovered Swami Vivekananda's original manuscript for the Song of the Sannyasin which he composed during his stay there. The cottage was dedicated as "Vivekananda Cottage" and Swamiji's room serves as a shrine for spiritual pilgrims.
The Vivekananda Cottage is usually open from July 8th to 27th each summer. The Cottage is a place of pilgrimage for devotees from all over the world. At times, Swami Yuktatmananda, the present Minister-in- Charge of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, conducts seminar classes there.
Thousand Island Park, photograph by Roy Googin
In 2009, a plaque was installed near the spot where Swamiji meditated on the final day of his visit. It reads in part: "Following his appearance at the 1893 Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian Exposition, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was at once acclaimed the foremost champion of the harmony of religions.
In the summer of 1895, the Swami spent seven weeks at Thousand Island Park in the cottage of Elizabeth Dutcher, imparting his teachings to a number of earnest disciples. Those teachings, later published as Inspired Talks, have made their way to every corner of the world, providing inspiration to seekers of peace and spiritual fulfillment."
Revered Pravrajika Bhavaniprana, the President of Sri Sarada Math and the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission, Guntur, India and Pravrajika Divyanandaprana of the Sri Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi, and Editor of Samvit: Knowledge that Leads to Enlightenment, made a pilgrimage to Thousand Island Park from July 18th to 22nd, 2019. They read from Inspired Talks with other pilgrims while sitting on Vivekananda Landing along the St. Lawrence River; meditated in the shrine at Vivekananda Cottage; walked to the tree under which Swamiji experienced Nirvikalpa Samadhi; and imbibed the spiritual atmosphere tangible everywhere. The pilgrimage was sponsored by the Sri Sarada Society of New York through the generosity of Joan Shack, Caroline Williams, Bhrama and Neha Mandalapu and other devotees.
References
1. Marie Louise Burke. Swami Vivekananda in America New Discoveries. Advaita Ashrama. Calcutta. 1966.
2. Swami Vivekananda. Inspired Talks My Master and Other Writings. Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center. New York. 1987.
3. George Fischer. 1000 Islands Tour Guide. International Tourism Council. New York State. 2018.
4. Pravrajika Atmaprana. Western Women in the Footsteps of Swami Vivekananda. Ramakrishna Sarada Mission. New Delhi. 1995.
5. Swami Vivekananda. In Search of God and Other Poems. Advaita Ashrama. Kolkata. 1947.
6. Swami Mumukshananda. Vivekananda A Biography in Pictures. Advaita Ashrama. Calcutta. 1993.
7. Members of the Vedanta Society of Northern California. Photographs of Swami Vivekananda 1886-1901. Sri Ramakrishna Math. Chennai, India. 2002.
8. Website: Vivekananda Cottage, Thousand Island Park, N.Y. 13692. Vedanta Society. New York.
9. Website: Thousand Island Park. Visitors Association.
10. Website: Thousand Island Park Historic District.
11. Website: Vivekananda Abroad Collection: Postcards.
