OK, here's one more pic of Sagatagan Lake at St. Johns College. I had to post this so I could share a couple of more stories about the lake from Austin Murphy's book "The Sweet Season." These are some of the sad stories.
This beautiful body of water, the source of so much happiness, has seen its share of tragedy down through the decades. In the fine print at the back of Barry's book can be found the sad story of Sylvester Sheire, a student from St. Paul who in 1869 unwisely taunted Murro, a domesticated black bear the monks kept as a pet. When the beast lunged at him, Sylvester fled to the lakeside, jumped into a boat, and began rowing. Murro, mightily pissed off, swam after him, climbed into the boat, "threw his forelegs around the boy and bit him in the neck. Father Wolfgang arrived on the scene too late to save the boy's life."
Here's another sad story about the lake from Austin Murphy.
In the summer of 1872, the monks began construction of the Stella Maris Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, on the south shore of the lake. "The chapel had no bell," one monk told me, repeating his version of one of the lake's dark legends, "and one fervent young monk felt it should. He took it upon himself - some say against the wisheds of the abbot! - to raise the money and buy the bell." Upon purchasing the bell, the monk loaded it onto a boat and set off proudly (sin!) for the chapel. The boat never made it. "No one knows what happened," says the monk. "A sudden wind? A huge fish? A vision from the underworld because of his pride? At any rate, neither the bell nor body were ever recovered. Every fall, on the anniversary of the tragedy, one can hear the mournful pealing of a bell in the vicinity of the chapel . . . that has no bell."
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