The Underwood Farm was purported to originally consist of 80 acres, which included the property on both north and south sides of the inlet to Lake Underwood, extending to the dam on the south side of the lake and to the Slocum property line below Harlow Road, later Lake Underwood Road on the north side of the lake. The farm buildings consisted of a saltbox farmhouse with a porch on the front, a large garage, a small barn behind the garage, and a boathouse and springhouse on the lake shoreline. The buildings probably date to the 1860′s-1880′s. At the time of the purchase by the von Storch’s, Joe Slocum was building his home on the neighboring lakeshore east of the property.

The Slocum and von Storch families were pioneering families in Scranton. The von Storch parents were Ferdinand and Caroline (Slocum) von Storch. Ferdinand was the founding principal of the von Storch Coal Company. The family was involved in farming, lumber, coal, merchandising, railroads and canals, introducing burning of coal for heat in Philadelphia and the New York harbor and arranging its transportation. As they disposed of surface land, they retained the underground mineral rights for lease.

There were 10 children who lived to maturity. Two of the von Storch brothers married Rogers sisters. There are family records of the father of Arabell Rogers (Mrs. Robert Miner I) coming from Maine to homestead in Wayne County “in the woods near Damascus” on the Delaware River. The family had moved to the Wyoming Valley when the sisters met and married the von Storch brothers and moved to Scranton. Belle’s knowledge of Wayne County might have been the impetus for the families to search out their vacation retreat at Lake Underwood.

When the Underwood property with the buildings was purchased near the turn of the century by Robert Miner von Storch I, Corrington von Storch and Ellen von Storch Sawyer, the house had no indoor plumbing, and a two-story addition and a wrap-around porch were built in 1913. The addition to the back of the house included the kitchen with a wood-burning cook stove, half bath, storage rooms and master bedroom on the ground floor and bathroom and two bedrooms were in the addition on the second floor. Robert Miner von Storch I and Arabell (Belle) and Corrington and Harriet (Rita) used the home as a vacation retreat. There is record of interest in the property held by Ellen von Storch Sawyer, a sister who lived in Yonkers, NY. Her husband, B.F. Sawyer, was a principal in the coal company and their location near the harbor on the Hudson River played in the marketing of the coal burned for steam for ocean liners.

Title to the property was held by the heirs of the brothers and Mrs. Sawyer, the wives, Belle and Rita, and then subsequently by the children of Robert Miner the 1st, Harry Ferdinand von Storch, Alice von Storch Lourdel and Madge von Storch Hughes. Ultimately, Madge Hughes and Alice Lourdel sold their interest to their mother, Arabell, and their brother, Harry. Robert Miner von Storch II inherited the property from his father in 1941 as his sisters, Marion von Storch Bender and Virginia von Storch Butner had sold their interests to the estate. Harry Ferdinand von Storch sold the farmland section of the property, the south side of the lake from the dam to the inlet during the ’30′s. Access to the lake and membership to the Lake Underwood Nimrod Club were not included in the property deed. The remaining property was listed for sale by Bob von Storch when his family moved to Utah in 1953. The buyer, Donald and Helen Peterson later subdivided the remaining property, which is the 18 acres with the original buildings owned by the Slick family and the 36 acres including the northern lakefront owned by the Marshall family.

James Hosie Hughes, husband of Madge von Storch, was an engineer who was a principal in the engineering firm of Hughes, Moore and Sterling. He was responsible for the oversight of the coal mining operation and royalties related to the mineral rights of the von Storch holdings. He designed the water system installed at the lake home in 1913. It included a hydraulic ram at the spring at the lakeshore which pumped the water to a concrete cistern above the house, and then into the plumbing system incorporated in the addition on the back of the original farmhouse. Power did not reach the property until the mid 1950′s. Kerosene lamps were used for light, wood for heat, gasoline powered saw for cutting wood and gasoline powered washing machine for laundry. Irons heated on the wood stove were used to press clothing…even play clothes. The overflow from the spring on the lakeshore provided drinking water for the lakeshore cottages. Rowboats docking on the shoreline to fill their water jugs were recognizable from the house on the hill by their shapes and characteristics of the cottagers.

The von Storch family were sportsmen and experts in hunting the land and fishing the lake. They fly-fished and cast plugs for bass from a rowboat on the shoreline, still fished with live bait for pickerel at the head of the lake and hunted birds and deer in season, as the cultivated farmland returned to native forests. Harry von Storch had lost an arm as a teen in an accident at the von Storch colliery. He later owned the Parker Gun Store in Scranton and became a renowned one-armed marksman. Bob the 2nd hosted many hunting retreats at the farmhouse through the ’40′s, and the routine for guest families through the summer was the sunrise lakeshore tour to cast for bass along the shoreline of the lake or anchoring at the lily pads to enjoy the sunset and watch the bobbers on the bamboo poles for a pickerel on the line. The first order of business on arrival in the spring was to take seines to the creek to bring in a summer supply of “shiners”, live bait to live in the concrete tank on the shoreline through the summer. If the catch of a fishing trip didn’t find its way to the table immediately, it was held in cold storage alive in the second tank fed by the spring.

The von Storch children were educated during the depression, Bob in engineering at Penn State, Virginia in merchandising and Marian in nursing, and their parents retired and moved year-round to the Lake Underwood home during these years. After their workforce of children had cleared rocks for a garden, building a rock wall below the road, they cultivated a garden in the pasture below the house. Maude and the children spent summer harvesting and canning vegetables and picking berries for jam and baking. Harry and Maude tapped maple trees for sap in the early spring, boiling it down to syrup on a stone fireplace. Since there was no electricity to the property, and no central heating, it was told that they lived in the addition to the house, which incorporated the plumbing during the winter, heating it with the wood stove. They were able to store meat frozen in the front section of the house. They initiated the plan when Harry bagged his deer during the fall season and hung it to age in the unheated portion of the house, and it froze.

The next generation took up summer residence at the lake home during World War II, the von Storchs traveling from Waverly and later from their permanent home in Kingston. The fathers worked in industry essential to the defense, coal and steel, and Jessie Maude, widow of Harry, maintained the summer residence, caring for grandchildren, sharing chores with daughters some weeks, welcoming the men on week-ends and for their vacations. Gas was rationed and cars weren’t made, so the men had the cars in town, and those at the summer residence walked, rowed or swam. The weekend visit brought ice for the icebox on the porch. The diet was pretty much chicken, fish and garden vegetables, fruit from the trees in the yard, apples that ripened in succession and plums, and blackberries, huckleberries and strawberries from the fields. Eggs, milk and chicken came from the farmer on Sy Slocum’s property up the road. Sometimes a day was set aside to walk to Lakewood or Lake Como to the store, pulling a wagon to return with supplies, along with fresh reading materials. Lisl, Robert the 3rd, and Judith Bender, as well as cousins visiting regularly from the family of Agnes Mathews von Storch, Mrs. Robert M. the 2nd, learned every inch of the land and water, swimming, hunting with b b’s and fishing. They would net turtles sunning on logs in the morning, tie a string on their foot and swim with them at the sandbar at the clubhouse in the afternoon, then turn them loose to find their families again. They learned to still-fish and cast for bass, becoming skilled at the oars. The girls reigned in a playhouse they constructed in the pasture out of pieces of flat slate under a canopy of willows.

The fourth of July was a memorable event for the von Storch family as well as the Nimrod Club. It was the day of the annual meeting and clambake. While club members met in the clubhouse building, children swam at the sand bar, mothers kept their watchful eye, clams and corn on the cob steamed away in a pit near the beach. The meeting was followed by a feast and at some time for the family a few blasts from their cannon, which was shot only once a year. It was a miniature version of the real thing and shot standard shotgun shells. These children were brought up shooting…not only cannons, but all sizes and shapes of firearms. They were taught early on how to properly handle firearms and the principles of hunter safety. The game at the summer birthday parties was target or trap shooting…for prizes, followed by a campfire with hot dogs and s’mores. No game was taken that did not find its way to the table, and some trophies decorated walls as modern versions do today in a family California lodge home.

It should be remembered that the Lake Underwood Nimrod Club was named for the Biblical character, Nimrod, described in Genesis 10:9 as a mighty hunter. There is Babylonian and Assyrian art from the dynasty of this king, the founder of the kingdom of Babylon, picturing hunting scenes. It might be concluded that the Nimrod Club founders identified with this aspect of the dynasty of King Nimrod.

Bobby von Storch was drowned in Lake Underwood in August 1948, the month of his 11th birthday. He went down in deep water off the Slocum shoreline. A search and rescue/recovery was staged from the Slocum lawn and dock and the body brought up within hours, but too late to resuscitate him. Christina Miner von Storch was born to the family the following year. The family continued to week-end and vacation at the property, returning each winter for their annual Christmas tree cutting expedition until their move to Utah with U.S. Steel and Lisl’s entry in college in Connecticut in 1953. Bob von Storch retired in Pittsburgh as Director of International Projects with U.S. Steel and maintained a consulting office in Colorado in his retirement as well as a winter home in Palm Desert, California.

In 1973 Lisl von Storch Hicks traveled east from her California home with her husband, Mark, and five children. They arranged to meet her father, Robert Miner von Storch II, at Lake Underwood for a visit, a chance to reminisce with her dad and introduce her children to her childhood experience. They stayed at the clubhouse, and Bob parked a motor home on the clubhouse property. They walked through the Underwood cottage as it was listed for sale at the time, and they met the realtor and Mrs. Slick there. They found many of the original furnishings in place. Their visit was an important experience for them all. Bob von Storch lived to be 93 and became as good on the golf courses of southern California and the western canyon lands and ranches on his Arabian horses as he was in the forests, fields and lake at Underwood.

Both Judith von Storch Bender Swift and Lisl Mathews von Storch Hicks have managed to raise their children at a lake home, Judy in Minnesota at Turtle Lake where her mother, Marian von Storch Bender has retired and Lee in California at Lake of the Pines. The generations following exhibit among them outdoorsmen and women, strong swimmers, competitors, athletes, coaches, triathletes, marksmen and sportsmen. There are dogs trained to hunt, following a family tradition not ever known in first hand experience. The families look forward each year to big game hunting expeditions, hunts at a pheasant club, and fishing trips such as those enjoyed in generations past.