Saturday, June 1, 2002

Sampson State Park has a military past

Pieces of the Past

By CAROL U. SISLER
Special to the Journal

                        World War II brought mixed blessings to the southwest portion of Seneca County. Searching the eastern United States for an immense tract of land abutting a large lake safe from potential bombing raids on which to build a training base, representatives of the U.S. Navy selected a 2,535-acre site in Seneca County with four-and-a-half miles of frontage on Seneca Lake. 

                        Before construction began on June 30, 1942, 75 cottages, 20 farms, 12 houses and two general stores in the Village of Kendaia were purchased, some by eminent domain. In fact, all that remained of the farming community named for the Iroquois and its adjoining burial ground, Kendaia, was a bronze plaque mounted on a granite boulder. 

                        Within 270 days, the Navy constructed the second largest U.S. Naval Training Station in the United States. It was named for Rear Adm. William T. Sampson, a native of Palmyra, who commanded the naval squadron that defeated the Spanish armada in Santiago Bay, Cuba. This Herculean task involved 12,000 to 14,000 workers, the delivery of 30 carloads of lumber by mid-June and the arrival of other building materials on barges, which were tied to the Willard dock. 

                        When the first recruits arrived by train on Oct. 17, 1942, they found a huge base composed of barracks to accommodate 35,000 men and women, six immense drill halls, four school buildings, 26 central storehouses, two chapels, laundry, bakery, a 1,500-bed hospital, and a brick brig, all connected by 53 miles of road. On the lakefront was a long shed housing 100 whale boats on which the recruits would learn basic handling skills, navigation and sounding techniques. 

                        The 400,000th trainee arrived on July 19, l945; however, with the surrender of the Japanese in August, on Sept. 15, 1945, Sampson became a separation center. 

                        Sampson's second life began as a two-year college to accommodate the overflow of veterans who wanted a college education. Gov. Thomas E. Dewey proposed that 124 barracks be adapted as classrooms and dormitories for 10,000 students. 

                        Sampson College closed in June 1949, but the Korean War caused the former naval base to become a training site for U.S. Air Force recruits. About $18 million were spent to create an air field with a runway 5,000 feet by 150 feet, a control tower, hangars, and to upgrade the buildings. 

                        With the end of the Korean War, the extensive property on Seneca Lake began its fourth life as a placid, idyllic state park. On June 7, 1960, the state purchased 1,265 acres of the base for $500,000. It later acquired more land, bringing the total acreage to 1,852. Meanwhile, like crows pecking on a carcass, various state agencies bid for the usable buildings on the site. Three drill halls were dismantled and rebuilt to be used as field houses on the state campuses at Brockport, Cortland and Oswego. A fourth was reconstructed at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and a fifth was removed to the Batavia area to begin a second life as a dairy barn. 

                        Thousands of trees have been planted where the barracks once stood, and the open drill field is dotted with picnic tables. A group of volunteers oversees a museum of the military days in the former brick brig. 

                        Carol U. Sisler is a local author and board adviser to the DeWitt Historical Society. She is the author of Seneca Lake: Past Present, and Future, available at the Tompkins County Museum.