He worked as a hunter, guide and cook in the Adirondack Mountains, becoming noted for his culinary skills after being hired at Moon's Lake House near Saratoga Springs.

His cuisine was in high demand among Saratoga Springs' tourists and elites: "His prices were…those of the fashionable New York restaurants, but his food and service were worth it…Everything possible was raised on his own small farm, and that, too, got his personal attention whenever he could arrange it.

Mr. Vanderbilt once was obliged to wait an hour and a half for a meal...With none but rich pleasure-seekers as his guests, Speck kept his tables laden with the best of everything, and for it all charged Delmonico prices.

[13] The New York Tribune ran a feature article on "Crum's: The Famous Eating House on Saratoga Lake" in December 1891, but mentioned nothing about potato chips.

"[18] In a 1932 interview with the Saratogian newspaper, her grandson, John Gilbert Freeman, asserted Wicks's role as the true inventor of the potato chip.

They became wildly popular: "It was at Moon's that Clio first tasted the famous Saratoga chips, said to have originated there, and it was she who first scandalized spa society by strolling along Broadway and about the paddock at the race track crunching the crisp circlets out of a paper sack as though they were candy or peanuts.

She made it the fashion, and soon you saw all Saratoga dipping into cornucopias filled with golden-brown paper-thin potatoes; a gathered crowd was likely to create a sound like a scuffling through dried autumn leaves.

"[21] A 1973 advertising campaign by the St. Regis Paper Company, which manufactured packaging for chips, featured an ad for Speck and his story, published in the national magazines, Fortune and Time.

[14] During the late 1970s, the variant of the story featuring Vanderbilt became popular because of the interest in his wealth and name, and evidence suggests the source was an advertising agency for the Potato Chip/Snack Food Association.

[14][22] A 1983 article in Western Folklore identifies potato chips as having originated in Saratoga Springs, New York, while critiquing the variants of popular stories.

[23] Vanderbilt was indeed a regular customer at both Crum's Malta restaurant and Moon's Lake House, but there is no evidence that he played a role by requesting or promoting potato chips.