William West Durant

William West Durant (1850–1934) was a designer and developer of camps in the Adirondack Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas, Camp Pine Knot and Great Camp Sagamore which are National Historic Landmarks. He was the son of Thomas C. Durant, the financier and railroad promoter who was behind the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Biography William West Durant was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1850. He attended Twickenham School in England and was privately tutored. Although in his biographies William states he was educated at Bonn University, the University has no record of his attendance between 1866-1875. A review of his collection of letters housed at the Library of Congress does not reveal any indication that he undertook a formal education while living abroad. He did however travel extensively as a youth in Europe. He toured Egypt in the years 1869 and 1873. While in Egypt he was escorted by a tutor. At 24, his father, Dr. Thomas C. Durant, summoned him home from Egypt to help develop the central Adirondacks where the Durants owned 1/2 million acres. While working to complete the eastern half of the First transcontinental railroad in 1869 as vice-president of the Union Pacific, Dr. Thomas C. Durant formed the Adirondack Company in 1863, accumulating half a million acres of land at State auctions for five cents an acre. He also sold a large parcel of land in Brooklyn for the development of Prospect Park for two hundred thousand dollars. His goal for the Adirondack Railroad was to cross the Adirondacks to Canada and the Saint Lawrence River. By 1871, tracks had been laid from Saratoga to North Creek, New York, at which point, financial problems and the 1873 Depression caused the project to stall. In 1876, Durant built a rustic compound on Long Point in Raquette Lake in the center of the Adirondacks to entertain potential investors in the railroad and in his land development schemes. William had first seen Raquette Lake the summer before and spent the following winter living there in a tent. This group of simple cabins would become Camp Pine Knot, which would be hugely influential in the development of the Great Camp style. William had a hand in its development from the start, but especially after 1879, when tourism to the area exploded following the publication of WHH Murray's Adventures in the Wilderness.