Pratt Rock - New York's Mt. Rushmore

Ripley's 'Believe it or not" called "New York's Mt. Rushmore." Another, less generous appraisal termed it "a monument to vanity." Pratt Rock Park, by the side of Route 23 on the outskirts of Praftsville, like many other points of interest in the Catskill Moutains, seems to attract widely varying opinions. And its story, like the Catskills themselves, is cloaked in legend.



The story goes that a poor stonecutter passing through the village of Praftsville in 1843 panhandled the town's foremost citizen, wealthy landowner/entrepreneur/statesmen Zadock Pratt, who was known for his largess. But Pratt was also known for his belief in the salutary effects of hard work, and in return for his modest donantion (reportedly fifty cents), set the man to work carving the Abraham Lincoln-ish profile of Pratt high above the village in the town. The poor stonecutter must have wished he had hit someone else up for four-bits.



Pratt liked the stonecutter's work so well (the story goes), and his vanity was so tickled by his likeness now presiding over the fertile valley of the Schoharie Kill, that he retained the stonecutter to carve emblems depicting Pratt's life's story in the rock surrounding his profile: a horse and a hemlock tree (key resources in the building of the Pratt leather-tanning fortune), the tannery itself (with the legend ONE MILLION SIDES OF SOLE LEATHER TANNED WITH HEMLOCK BARK, IN TWENTY YEARS, BY Z. PRATT), the Pratt coat of arms with the motto DO WELL AND DOUBT NOT, and a wreath containing the names of two of his children, George W. and Julia H. (a third child, unmemorialized in rock, had died in infancy). The wreath originally contained the hopeful paternal blessing: LET VIRTUE BE YOUR GREATEST CARE/AND STUDY YOUR DELIGHT/SO WILL YOUR DAYS BE EVER FAIR/AND PEACEABLE YOUR NIGHTS. The verse was later removed, sometime after George was slain in 1862 by confederate cannon fire during the second battle of Manassas (Bull Run).



Destroyed, along with George, in that rebel fusillade, were the elder Pratt's dreams of turning over his vast commercial (almost baronial) empire to his son and heir. Whether the relief sculptures of Pratt Rock Park began as a result of the whimsy of the moment, a chance encounter with an intinerant stonecutter, or whether they had benn planned for years as a monument to himself by a man who had already imprinted his name on a village and a township, the rocks, with George's death, became a father's memorial to a dead son.



The verse blessing (now painfully inappropriate) was removed from the sandstone wreath, and a large heroic bust of George was carved just to the left of the earlier, smaller, bust of Zadock. Under the bust of Zadock is the brief legend, ZADOCK PRATT/BORN OCT 30, 1790, while George was given much more copy: HONG G.W. PRATT, Ph. D., / COL XX Regt., N.Y.S.M., ULSTER Co., BORN APR. 18 1830 /WOUNDED AUG. 30, IN THE 2nd BATTLE OF/ MANASSAS, VA. DIED AT ALBANY, N.Y. Sep 11TH / GOOD BRAVE HONORABLE 1862.



George was a boy of 13 when the sculptures were begun. No doubt the elder Pratt often took his son to the park to watch the familiar features of his father, a horse, a tree and the tannery that defined his small world in Prattsville form like magic form the featureless gray rock. No doubt, also, the elder Pratt would tell his son how his accomplishments aslo (and his sons' after him) would one day be carved in the rocks to testify to their adherence to doing well and doubting not.



The pact was sealed, George did well (a doctorate and a Union colonelcy), and he doubted not, as he left for Washington and points south at the head of a regiment of militia. Afterwards, his father duly commissioned George's vital statistics carved in the rocks where their sandstone images look at each other for eternity. Between them was carved an uplifted right hand and the motto: THIS HAND FOR MY COUNTRY.



There are other carvings in Pratt Rock Park (including one of an arm raising a hammer, not unlike the baking soda emblem, perhaps an anonymous stonecutter's memorial to himself?), but the father and son tableau holds center court. There is even a small recessed chamber at path level by the cliff, carved as a tomb for Zadock. That idea was abandoned, it is said, because the stonecutter found the task too difficult, and water leached into the chamber. But perhaps as the years progressed and the rocks became more of a memorial to George than to Zadock, the surviving Pratt stepped out of the spotlight and chose conventional interment in the village's Benham Cemetery.



A dynansty-in-the-making died with Zadock a few years later in 1871. He had come to the western Catskills as a small boy in the early years of the 19th century. He worked hard, saved his money, and built from scratch a huge tanning business, which made him very wealthy in just 20 years. The he retired from tanning to pursue various othercommercial enterprises, squire abot his grand 350-acre farm, and a campaign for public office (which he did successfully, including two productive terms in congress.)



The family fortune was made, the family was well connected and esteemed, and the heir apparent was groomed and educated for greta things, but the war that could have launched a formidable political career for a conquering hero of the Republic, had George survived, instead brought down the House of Pratt like a house of cards. George was just one more casualty of a brutal war, and Zadock became a footnote to history.



Pratt Rock Park is open to the public every day, and there is no admission fee. The climb to the rocks is steep, and may be unfit for young children, but the path is clear and ascends is a series of gently graded inclines to the carved cliff wall 500 feet above the road. The stonecutters hacked chairs and benches out of rocks along the way, and a picknicking is permitted, so take your time and enjoy the ascent in a relaxed and thoughtful manner. The sculptures and the view of the valley make the short climb more that worth the effort.



For more information, call (518) 299-3395, or go to the Pratt Museum in the center of town, on Main Street in Prattsville.