Natural Bridge Caverns

Useful Information

photography — Entrance. Natural Bridge Caverns, NY, U.S.A. Public Domain.

Location:	44022 Lime St, Natural Bridge, NY 13665. North of NYS Rte 3, east of Carthage and Fort Drum. (44.070699, -75.493026)
Open:	closed. [2023]
Fee:	closed. [2023]
Classification:	Karst cave river cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	L=134 m.
Guided tours:	L=400 m.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Natural Bridge Caverns, David Morgan, Manager, 44022 Lime St, Natural Bridge, NY 13665, Tel: +1-315-644-4810
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1812	Natural Bridge discovered by the hunter Aleaser Carr.
1818	hamlet Natural Bridge settled.
1828	visited by Josef Bonaparte.
1829	second summer residence of Josef Bonaparte built.
1905	a fire destroys several buildings including the residence of Josef Bonaparte.

Description

The hamlet Natural Bridge in New York State was named after an actual "natural bridge" which is located in the middle of the small village. The Indian River, which runs through the village, goes underground through a cave for a short distance. There is an above-ground river course, but a part of the water branches off into the cave, and flows back into the river on the other side. But despite the name, this is actually not a natural bridge, it is a river cave. Natural bridges are short enough to see the sky on the other side, which this cave is not. The underground passage is 134 m long.

The name was given to the place by the hunter Aleaser Carr in 1812, when he first came to this area. He crossed the Indian River and continued hunting, which obviously involved a rather twisted route through the dense forest. After a while he reached the Indian River again, but the weird thing was that he reached it on the same side, which is easy to see from the direction in which the water flows. So he had obviously crossed the river without noticing, which seems impossible. After some searching, he found that the river goes underground at some point, and he had crossed the river back where it was flowing underground. So he named this location Natural Bridge, because there was a sort of natural bridge across the river. When the area was settled several years later in 1818, the settlement kept this name.

To the northeast, 11 km as the crow flies, lies Lake Bonaparte. It was named after the king of Spain, Josef Bonaparte, known in America as the Count de Survilliers, who owned a square mile of ground here. He was the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, and after the defeat and exile of his brother in 1814 he fled from Europe. It seems he took a trove of diamonds and jewels from the Spanish royal treasure with him and lived from selling the jewels. He heard about the cave and visited it in 1828, then built a house only 200 m from the cave, and lived here with his wife for many years. The wooden house burned down in 1912, together with two hotels and several other buildings. According to local lore, there was an underground connection from the cellar of this house to the cave, which was his secret escape route. There are several local legends that hired assassins tried to kill him. A forest on the northern side of Lake Bonaparte is named Bonaparte's Cave State Forest because there are local legends that he hid from the assassins in small caves in the area. There are also rumours that he hid treasures in the caves. The underground escape route was never found and most likely does not exist, and most of those stories are fictitious.

The cave was a show cave some time ago, operated by David Morgan under the name Natural Bridge Caverns. The tour through Natural Bridge Caverns was an underground boat trip on the Indian River which was about 400 m long. The wooden hut, which was the ticket office and gift shop of the show cave, is still unchanged. There is even still the huge sign with the name Natural Bridge Caverns. The cave entrance is at the rear of the building. The cave runs in the form of a Z under the road. The boats were entered on a jetty in the cave entrance, and after the boat ride left at a second jetty at the end of the main chamber. Here the cave was left on foot through an artificial exit. The ceiling lowered here, and the end of the cave is a sump, so this is actually not a through-cave.

This site is, despite the fact that it is closed for good, actually often mixed up with other sites, a result of the rather common name. There are two Natural Bridge Caverns which are still open to the public, one in Virginia and one in Texas. And there is another site in New York state named Natural Stone Bridge & Caves.