Centennial exhibit honors Lake Carnegie

Lake Carnegie, one hundred years young, is celebrating its centennial this year with a special exhibition on its construction.

"The pleasure [Carnegie's] gift has given the town and University cannot be overestimated," Constance Greiff, local author and preservation consultant, said at Sunday's opening ceremony.

The exhibition's title, "O, what a place for a lake," is taken from Andrew Carnegie's words upon seeing the Millstone River Valley. The exhibition depicts the landscape before, during and after the lake's creation using 60 photos taken at the time of construction, as well as historical documents from the Mudd Manuscript Library.

One of the photos on display shows a man who frequently used to sail on Lake Carnegie, Albert Einstein.

Carnegie, a Scottish-American steel magnate and builder of lakes in Scotland, was a devoted philanthropist, giving $350 million away during his lifetime. Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, pursued Carnegie in the hopes of securing funds for graduate or undergraduate quadrangles, but Carnegie's interest in promoting gentler sports than football enticed his purchase of land to create the lake for the University crew.

Carnegie once deemed Harvard and Yale too rich to benefit from his generosity, so Princeton was lucky enough to draw his attention, Greiff said.

By serving both the University crew and the local community, "Lake Carnegie has lived up to its creator's hope," Greiff said.

Centennial ceremony

Sunday's ceremony began in Betts Auditorium with speeches by Greiff and Kenneth Miller '72, Andrew Carnegie's great-grandson. The lecture was followed by the opening of the exhibit in the Milberg Exhibition Gallery in Firestone Library.

Greiff, founder of the first historic preservation firm in New Jersey, supervised the 1987 proposal that enabled Lake Carnegie to enter the National Register of Historic Places. "As a longtime resident and sometimes sailor I have always enjoyed Lake Carnegie," she said.

Dale Roylance, Catherine Macdonnel and Joan Ellis, residents of Princeton, said they enjoyed the presentation of one of the town's historic attractions.

"It was a wonderful lecture," Macdonnel said.

Dan Linke, curator of the exhibit, invited 140 households from what he calls the "lake district," the Friends of Princeton Public library and over 250 members of the Carnegie rowing association to the opening ceremony.

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The photos, 200 glass plate negatives still in their original boxes, were found in 1996 in a storage closet in MacMillan Building. The identity of the photographer is unknown but, Linke said, "We knew immediately that they were priceless."

Miller, who was born in Princeton, recalled his time on the lake that was funded by his great-grandfather and spoke about the importance of libraries, museums and historical sites in educating future generations.

"When I was three, I went ice skating on Lake Carnegie," he said.

A lake in the making

One hundred years ago, Lake Carnegie was a dream in the mind of Howard Russel Butler of the Class of 1876. As coxswain for Princeton's 1874 crew, he hoped University rowers would one day be free from the Delaware and Raritan canal, which was then crowded by boat traffic traveling from New York to Philadelphia.

Carnegie first heard about Princeton crew's need for a body of water in 1902, when Butler was painting his portrait.

"Part of Carnegie's motive was to promote gentler sports like skating and rowing," Greiff said. He was attracted by Princeton's need for a suitable place for crew to practice, since Butler's 1874 team practiced on a commercial traffic route and had to duck every time they came to a bridge.

"It was hard to obtain a steady rhythm," Greiff joked.

Crew at Princeton was disbanded in 1886, leaving Yale, Harvard and Columbia to grow as rowing powerhouses until 1906, when the University team officially began practice on the first man-made lake for competitive rowing.

"The creation of the lake was laborious," but "the project was minutely and beautifully recorded," Greiff said of the photos of the lake's construction.

With Carnegie's final donation of $450,000, four times the estimated cost and $9.5 million in today's dollars, the lake was completed with a dam where the Millstone River and Stony Brook converged.

At the dedication ceremony, held in Alexander Hall on Dec. 5, 1906, the deeds to the lake went to the Carnegie Rowing Association. Lake Carnegie did not officially become University property until 1943.

By the time of the dedication ceremony, Lake Carnegie had frozen. William Butler attended the ceremony in place of his brother and wrote in a letter that when Carnegie pulled up to campus on the Dinky, he was "absolutely thrilled" to see a crowd of 100 boys skating on the lake.

"My earnest hope is that Princeton will win great laurels in future intercollegiate contests upon this loch," Carnegie said in his speech at the dedication ceremony.