attended Geneva
College (now Hobart College) on Lake Seneca from 1840-1844.}

The Lake Gun

by

James Fenimore Cooper

The Seneca is remarkable for its "Wandering Jew," and the "Lake Gun."
The first is a tree so balanced that when its roots are clear of the
bottom it floats with its broken and pointed trunk a few feet above the
surface of the water, driving before the winds, or following in the
course of the currents. At times, the "Wandering Jew" is seen off
Jefferson, near the head of this beautiful sheet; and next it will
appear anchored, as it might be, in the shallow water near the outlet.

{"Wandering Jew" = The medieval legend of Ahasueras, who mocked Christ
on his way to the cross and was condemned to live until Judgment Day,
is widespread throughout Europe, though he was only identified as a
"Jew" in the 17th century--students at Geneva College (now Hobart
College) applied the name to a supposedly unsinkable floating log in
Lake Seneca, identified as the legendary "Chief Agayentha"; Jefferson =
I have been unable to locate any "Jefferson" on Lake Seneca}

For more than half a century has this remnant of the forest floated
about, from point to point, its bald head whitening with time, until
its features have become familiar to all the older inhabitants of that
region of country. The great depth of the Seneca prevents it from
freezing; and summer and winter, springtime and autumn, is this
wanderer to be observed; occasionally battling with the ice that makes
a short distance from the shore, now pursuing its quiet way before a
mild southern air in June, or, again, anchored, by its roots touching
the bottom, as it passes a point, or comes in contact with the flats.
It has been known to remain a year or two at a time in view of the
village of Geneva, until, accustomed to its sight, the people began to
think that it was never to move from its berth any more; but a fresh
northerly breeze changes all this; the "Jew" swings to the gale, and,
like a ship unmooring, drags clear of the bottom, and goes off to the
southward, with its head just high enough above water to be visible. It
would seem really that his wanderings are not to cease as long as wood
will float.

{Village of Geneva = now the City of Geneva, at the northern end of
Lake Seneca}

No white man can give the history of this "Jew." He was found laving
his sides in the pure waters of the Seneca by the earliest settlers,
and it may have