Depicts several well-to-do vacationers in dress attire staging a mock hanging at a makeshift gallows in Cascade, New York at Owasco Lake. Accessible by rail and steamboat, the town was known for its resorts and casinos.
It is possible that the photograph was made in response to a death that occurred in June 1887. A well-dressed man, Willie Van Vleet, was found dead in Owasco Lake with wounds to the head and a rope tied around him.