All about Judge Hook and hook’s point

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

If you were at CH prior to 1980, there is a good chance you are familiar with the famous house pictured above, the home of federal Judge William Hook and his wife Louise. Mr. Hook was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Taft. He was most famous for his verdict against Standard Oil, defining it as a monopoly. His gutsy ruling ended the Rockefeller’s lock on oil prices. Ironically, CH would not exist had there been no monopoly, for it was the Rockefeller family that endowed the University of Chicago. Even more ironic is the fact that it was fellow Plum Laker T.W. Goodspeed, the very man to convince the Rockefellers to create the university, who presided at the 1921 funeral of the man who put an end to the Rockefeller’s money making creation. Willliam Cather Hook died in the house pictured above. The memorable funeral was outside under the pines. Doctor Monilaw would have been there. After the service the casket was ferried to Sayner by a large flotilla of family and friends. Water was always the only practical way to and from the tip of the peninsula. The house was never on the grid, which explains how it eventually fell into disrepair. Surrounded by state forest, it was like an island, without any practical way to run electricity in. It was swim, boat or walk, and the walk is a solid hour from any road.

The Hooks were friends of CH from the beginning, hosting tennis tournaments on their impeccable grass court (the first in the state), coming over to Camp for softball games on the hill (‘Hook’s Ball Flingers’), Sunday Assembly, and so on. Social time with our founder, Harry O. Gillet, was part of the routine up until 1913; then a friendship with Doctor Monilaw. Do you remember ‘the raft’? - the Mark Ulfers’ creation we used to cruise the lake with in the early ‘80s? The logs came from the Hook residence. Today, we enjoy the road that was put in to log the property after the devastating storm of 1953. It leads us through the Plum Lake Hemlock Preserve, an incredible hidden treasure.

The following has been excerpted from both the Kansas Historical Quarterly (February, 1934) and the book Lake People, by Mary Elizabeth Scholfield Hickey (1985). The artistic renderings are from the book and are signed by an artist with the name McNamara. If you know anything at all about this artist, or better yet have photographs of the homes on the point or Judge Hook, please do reach out to Tim Bachmann at plumlakekid@gmail.com. More on the subject of the Hooks and Goodspeeds (and Paradise Island) can be found on the Writings page.

From Lake People:

The history of Plum Lake would not be complete without the Hooks, Langs, and Staleys. They were pioneer residents who figured prominently in the lake’s activities. Their ‘Camp Kasomo’ was named for Kansas, Ohio and Missouri where the three families lived in the winter. The three men married sisters, whose name was Dickson. Judge Hook came first to northern Wisconsin with the Leavenworth Fishing Club in 1892, the year the Sayner resort opened. In 1894 the club camped on the small island (five pines). In 1895, Judge Hook brought his wife and children to stay at the resort; another year they tried Warner’s resort across the lake. In 1900, they built their cottage on the point which extends between Star Lake Bay and the east end of Plum Lake. Judge Hook acquired this property by land patent. [Learn more about land patents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_patent]

The home was built of pine logs two-and-a-half feet thick. It was a large two-story structure which should have been preserved for posterity, but was allowed to deteriorate until it was beyond repair. It was built by craftsmen with attention to architectural detail, and took 18 months to build. There was a large living room with a stone fireplace at one end and a staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms and a real bathroom. The power lines never penetrated as far as the point, but the house had running water pumped from the lake to a storage tank on top of the house. There were five wells for drinking water on the property, a tennis court, and a garden. There is still a good stand of raspberries, blackberries, and even gooseberries.

Judge Hook was a federal judge in Leavenworth, Kansas, and achieved fame in 1909 by levying a fine of $19 million against the Standard Oil Company. There were four children: Ruth, Louise, Dorothy, and Ingraham. Judge Hook died at Plum Lake on August 11, 1921, and T.W. Goodspeed preached the funeral service under the trees on the point. [Goodspeed Island - see the Writings page for more]

Sharing the point was Paul Staley’s family from Springfield, Ohio. Their two-story log house had been built by Dad Cockrill, an avid fisherman and a loyal fan of the Sayner Resort. He was a wheat farmer from Kansas and a partner in Cockrill and Herman, restaurateurs in Kansas City. His sister, Mrs. Spratley, who also came from Kansas purchased the home from him, and the Staleys bought it from her son, John, for whom Little John Lake was named. (Right: Staley residence)

Paul Staley had two daughters by his first wife, Kate and Ruth, both of whom became university professors. They spent the summers with him at the cabin. Mr. Staley later married a school teacher who was employed in Wausau and whom he met through the Scholfields. [the Scholfield’s sold CH the property we refer to as The Lodge, Mary Elizabeth Scholfield Hickey is the auther of this excerpt!] They had four children: Mary, Louise, John, and Paul Jr.

The Herman Langs came from Missouri and had three children: Jul, Ashford, and Lydia. The Lang’s house was in the same compound.

Access to the point was always by boat, and Ruth and Kate Staley were famous for their Spartan Living . They bathed in the lake each morning, no matter what the weather, and read by kerosene lantern. They rowed across the lake for groceries. There was no running water, only a pump, and an outdoor privy. [As late as the 1970‘s, they would also row over to CH for Sunday Assembly!]

At the time of the tornado in 1953, most of the virgin pine was blown down on the point, and a lumbering operation was imperative. A road was built in from the Star Lake road to haul out the logs. The homes were not damaged, but the property was greatly diminished. The road was an invitation to vandals, and in the early 1970’s all of the point was sold to the State of Wisconsin, and the structures were eventually demolished. Only those grandchildren who were taken yearly to visit aristocratic Louise Hook in her log mansion will retain any memory of the galleried dining room with its brick floor and french windows.

From a contribution to Lake People by Willis Wilmot (Wilmot’s Island):

Judge Hooks’ place, his house, was built around 1908 [second and final structure], as nearly as I can remember, and I remember seeing this cottage which was really a work of art. It was built of pine logs over two-and-a-half feet thick - tremendous things. How they ever got them in place I don’t know, and it took about 18 months to finish this house. Judge Hook later died up there. T.W. Goodspeed preached the funeral sermon, a beautiful service which all of us remember, under the trees there. Then the body was taken over to the train and carried back to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he lived. The Judge received a great deal of publicity in 1909 by rendering a decision against the Standard Oil Company for being a trust, and he levied a fine of $19 million, an unheard of sum in those days. Today it would be chicken feed.

Above: The view to Camp’s historic diving towers from Hook’s Point. The Hooks would have enjoyed watching Doctor Frew coach CH divers. Walking within the Hemlock forests back in from the tip of the point is the most profound way in this world to experience nature as beyond time. One can almost hear the footsteps of dinosaurs. There is a sense of connectedness to the eternal charge radiating throughout the browns and greens and rays of light that these enchanted woods cast a spell with.

From the Kansas Historical Quarterly:

William Cather Hook was born in Pennslvania at Waynesburg, on September 24, 1857. He died at his country home at Plum Lake, Wisconsin, August 11, 1921, after a service of 18 years upon the federal appellate bench. He was the son of Enos and Elizabeth (Inghram) Hook, and was descended from Thomas Hooke, who settled near Providence, Maryland, in 1668. The family is of mixed English, Scotch, and Irish descent. Judge Hook was the great nephew of Enos Hook, a member of Congress from Pennsylvania, in the sessions of 1838 and 1840, and the great, great grandson of Captain James Hook of the Continental Army who saw active service in the Thirteenth Virginia regiment until the summer of 1778. His parents moved to Nebraska in 1863 and across the plains to Colorado by ox and mule team in 1866, and then back to Leavenworth where they finally settled in 1867, and Leavenworth was thereafter his home.

Judge Hook was buried at his old home in Leavenworth, Kansas, but services were held at his sumer home in Wisconsin, in the beautiful pine grove on Plum Lake for those of his many friends who had known him there for a generation. The late Dr. Thomas W. Goodspeed, of the University of Chicago, presided at the services. In speaking of his old friend, Dr. Goodspeed quoted from the 92nd Psalm, saying:

“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a
cedar in Lebanon,” and then said, “Verily, my friends, one of the Cedars
of Lebanon hath this day fallen in our midst.” [This might have been
paraphrased, in the writer’s judgment, by saying, “One of the tall pines
has fallen.”]

Judge Hook’s opinion in the Standard Oil case was largely written at Plum Lake, in the beautiful lake district of northern Wisconsin. Here, about 1900, he had built a slab cottage on a point jutting into the lake inaccessible by land. Later, [1908] he built a log house of the large pine trees cut principally from his own property. The French windows on three sides of the floor of the house looked out on the lake or the adjoining pine grove, and on the fourth side was a great fireplace, many stones of which were sent to the judge by his friends from all parts of the Unites States.

When he arrived, in July, at Plum Lake, he usually brought with him some four or five government mail sacks of briefs and records. While he was on vacation, the Judge usually spent his mornings at his library in the cabin working on the briefs and records which he had brought with him. His afternoons on vacations were partly spent in the planting and cultivation of his beautiful flower garden which thrived luxuriantly in the damp, sandy soil of a knoll not far from the house. Judge Hook took pride in his flowers, knew their botanical names, and himself did almost all the work of their cultivation.

Occasionally lawyers interested in the various railroad receiverships which the Judge was conducting, would come to his home at the Lake to present various matters and secure various orders. At these times, court was held in the pine grove and justice rendered far away from the noise of the city.

Above: Hook’s point with piers and boathouse, late ‘20s? The boathouse pictured here, on the southwest side of the point, belonged to the Langs. The Hook boathouse was tucked into the slight hook at the northeast tip. (Not visible here; many people think it is called Hook’s Point because of this little bay/hook.) The pilings are still there, a lone scar. (The pilings are also still there on Five Pines Island, but we will save this story for another day!) The CH peninsula , with its two bays, is directly across, and Razorback Lake is in the distance. The islands of Razorback are also connected to CH!

In 1908, federal Judge William Cather Hook and his wife Louise Dickson built their dream home just off the tip of what we still refer to as Hook’s Point. The home took a small army of craftsmen 18 months to build. The size and charm of the structure will never be fully conveyed through an image. (The logs pictured on the left were 2 1/2 fee thick in real life!) For those of us at CH who mischievously toured the home during its abandoned years, it defined magic. This home, as well as the homes of the Staleys and Langs, were demolished by the State of Wisconsin in 1980...