Posts Tagged ‘Fulton Chain’

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Holls Inn On Fourth Lake (Part II)

1915a 638k_Pratt charles carolineIn 1896, Charles O’Hara had come from Glenfield and built Inlet Inn along the channel from Fifth Lake on land purchased from David Frank Sperry in 1897, operating it as a boarding house.

In November 1907, O’Hara purchased the Arrowhead from Albert C. Boshart and operated both hotels.  But on the morning of September 23, 1913, the hotel originally established in 1893 on the shores at the head of Fourth Lake by Fred Hess, renamed in 1898 the Arrowhead by William Moshier, burned to the ground.  While determining whether to rebuild, O’Hara leased the Eagle Bay Hotel for the 1914 and 1915 seasons. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

A Short History Of Holls Inn, Fourth Lake

1960 holls inn P000094 Aerial View of Holls InnOn the south shore of Fourth Lake near the Herkimer – Hamilton County boundary is Holl’s Inn.  According to a real estate ad in the Adirondack Express, the three story hotel on the six-acre parcel closed in 2006. However, Holl’s Inn continued to advertise rooms and meals as late as 2008 and housekeeping cottages until 2009 in the local summer guides.  The hotel sold in 2013.

Operating as Holl’s Inn since 1935, the hotel and its property has had a long history beginning with the first travelers to the head of Fourth Lake.  One of those travelers was Charles Pratt of Brooklyn, NY. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Town of Inlet Beginnings (Part II)

1892 fulton chain club 1_0For many property owners in Inlet, the abstract of title invariably lists James and Jennie Galvin as early, if not the first, owners.  But until I began researching this narrative, I believed, as have other Inlet landowners and early 20th century newspapers, that the Galvins were sole owners of the 6,000 acres surrounding the Head of Fourth Lake.  I learned that Galvin was an agent for the Fulton Chain Club and it was through his efforts that the land was sold for hotels and camps, and ultimately to the first residents of Inlet.

James Galvin, the son of an Irish immigrant, was born in 1835 in Wilna, Jefferson County.  His father Edward was a successful farmer and also managed a prosperous charcoal production trade.  James was listed as a farmhand and a farmer on the 1850 and 1860 censuses, respectively, but from the age of fifteen, he dealt in horses and cattle and became successful in buying stock both in New York and Canada.  He commanded large credit with banks in both regions. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The Origins Of The Town of Inlet

scythe herrershoff manor_2On November 27, 1901, the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an act that created a new town from northern Morehouse, with the South Branch of the Moose River dividing the two towns.  Afterwards, Inlet held its first town meeting on January 14, 1902.  Presently (2009), the Adirondack Park Agency reports that Inlet consists of 42,446 acres of which just under 4,000 acres is not state land.

But this narrative is about the over 6,000 acres in the northerly Part of Township 3 of the Moose River Tract surrounding the “Head of Fourth Lake”, as Inlet was formerly known, and the connections among the speculators who owned it prior to Inlet’s creation.  This square tract covers the lands from Fourth Lake to Seventh Lakes down to Limekiln Lake at its southwest corner. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Forge House History Conclusion: Thomson Years

1870 butvauell Abstract adc from forge company003 - CopyThe Old Forge Company, Thistlethwaite now its president, sold the Forge House to Charles I. Thomson and his son, Raymond E. Thomson in August 1915.  Thistlethwaite would soon establish the Adirondack Development Corporation to which the heavily mortgaged Old Forge Company in January 1916 would transfer remaining unsold tract lots.

The new company would open a store front on today’s Point Park triangle.  Unbelievably, the deed acquired by Thistlethwaite’s company still included the 1871 right to raise the dam three feet that belonged to the state since 1879.  The state certified the dissolution of the Old Forge Company in 1919. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Forge House History: The Forge Company Years

1870 buuell 1897 P418 1 Map Old Forge village026In October 1895, Victor Adams assembled a group of investors together in Little Falls and secured an arrangement with Garmon and Crosby to purchase a 50% interest in the Forge Tract properties. The group’s business plan was to enlarge and improve the Forge House, to build a two-mile railroad from Fulton Chain Station to the Forge House dock and to begin development of the tract into a resort town.  They would eventually also establish a transportation company that would buy the independent public steamers on the lower four lakes.

The name of the syndicate would be The Old Forge Company, often referred to as the Old Forge Improvement Company.  In addition to Garmon, Crosby and Adams, the directors would also include Nelson R. Gilbert, J. Judson Gilbert, Homer P. Snyder and Hadley Jones.  Samuel F. Garmon was the company’s first president and Titus Sheard was a director in the new railroad company.  The company soon completed surveys of the Forge Tract, laid out the first streets named after most of these individuals in Spring 1896 and filed the first village map with the Herkimer County Clerk’s Office. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Forge House History: The Garmon And Crosby Years

1880 front porch forge houseP323AEunice B. Lamberton sold the 1,358 acre Forge Tract in 1888 for $10,000 to Dr. Alexander Crosby and Samuel Garmon.

Dr. Crosby was born in Martinsburg in 1836. He began his medical practice in 1862 and moved to Lowville in 1867.  He rapidly built up a large practice and was for many years considered one of the most skilled physicians and surgeons in the state, often called in to testify at criminal cases.  In 1875, Crosby was elected to the State Assembly, was later a Democratic Party state chairman and was on both the State Board of Charities and Lewis County pensioners’ board.  Crosby died in 1911. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Forge House History: The Country Hotel Years

1909 forge house from pond_0If any image represents early Fulton Chain history, it is the Forge House atop the elevation overlooking the pond as a king viewing his realm. When the hotel burned in 1924, prominent citizens planned to quickly rebuild it but the era of the big summer hotel had ended, replaced by smaller, shorter stay motoring hotels to cater to the automobile tourist.

Today, its location is a grassy knoll across from the Old Forge Fire Department building, down the street from the Old Forge Hardware store and behind the Forge Hotel sign.  But while the Forge House existed, the traveler was given the name of an individual there who would not fail to provide necessary comforts.  This narrative is about the hotel’s owners, and about the proprietors and managers who usually were not the owners. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Adirondack Kids Day in Inlet On Saturday

IMG_5773Inlet’s Adirondack Kids Day will be held this Saturday, October 4 from 10 am to 3 pm. Organized by the Adirondack Kids book series authors Gary and Justin VanRiper with the assistance of Kiwanis of the Central Adirondacks, Adirondack Kids Day offers a chance for families to meet children’s authors and illustrators, learn new skills and enjoy a day of free activities.

The day kicks-off with a pancake breakfast at the Inlet Fire Hall benefiting the Inlet Common School Parents/Teacher Partnership. It’s a delicious way to start off a day full of activities. There are only a few activities that have a fee and food is one of them. Two other activities that require admission are playing mini-golf at Putterfingers and building a stuffed animal at the Inlet Youth Animal Workshop. Both are reasonably priced, but there are also enough free activities to fill the rest of they day. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, September 11, 2014

The Fulton Chain and Raquette Lake Steamboat Company

photo 4During the summer of 2014, on the lawn at the Goodsell Museum in Old Forge, Kyle Kristiansen, using a metal detector, discovered a metal object. Digging it up, he uncovered a buried metal luggage tag containing the intials “F.C & R.L.S.B.CO.”

These letters stand for the Fulton Chain and Raquette Lake Steamboat Company, a short-lived and relatively unknown concern established for carrying passengers and cargo from Fourth Lake to Raquette Lake in the days before automobiles connected the region.

This is a history of that company and its successors to that trade.  We will probably never discover how that item arrived on the lawn in the Town of Webb. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, September 4, 2014

Charlie Herr: The Holls Inn Tavern Plates

1935 holls inn tavern with wedding plates PC2249In 1935, Hans and Oscar Hall, German-born brothers with extensive  European and American hotel culinary and management experience, purchased the Araho Hotel property and began a long period of home-away-home customer service lasting until shortly after 2006.  The main hotel building, which they named Holls Inn, was architecturally the same as the hotel built by Charles O’Hara in 1923 and years later would be expanded.   The Araho Hotel was located on the south shore of Fourth Lake in the town of Inlet on a tract previously owned by Astral Oil (later Standard Oil) Brooklyn millionaire Charles Pratt.  Pratt’s Camp, built in the 1870s, was among the first on the Fulton Chain. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, August 31, 2014

Historical Biographies and William West Durant

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhat follows is a guest essay by Sheila Myers, who is working on a historical novel based on the life of William West Durant.

In science there is an expression that theories can never be proved, only disproved. I teach science, and that may be why a comment I read while researching William West Durant for my novel about his life provoked me to find out where this famous builder of Great Camps in the Adirondacks drew his inspiration. This then led me to uncover some fallacies in his biography.

It started with the dissertation by Mary Ellen Domblewski (Cornell University, 1974). In it she conjectures that Durant, having no formal training in architecture, may have visited the Bernese Oberland during his time abroad. It would be there, she believed, he would have observed the Swiss cottage style that he emulated at great camps Pine Knot and Sagamore.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Plein Air Paint Out, Auction Planned At View In Old Forge

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABeginning on Thursday, August 28th, artists will be found creating their works at View’s Plein Air Paint Out along the Fulton Chain, the Moose River, at the Farmer’s Market or in Old Forge.  Visitors to View during regular hours on Saturday, August 30th can see the Adirondacks National Exhibition of American Watercolors, preview the Annual Art Auction items and peruse the consignments works on sale.

At 5:30pm on August 30th, the View will hold its annual art auction. Over eighty original works of art, by the likes of Judy Soprano, Martha Deming, Catherine O’Neill, Stephen Fletcher and more, will be available. In addition to the auction there will be a raffle of a basket filled with over $1,400 worth of prizes, including an original painting by Joyce Hanson. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, August 14, 2014

Alexander Lamberton:
Old Forge Pioneer And Nature Preservationist

Alexander Lamberton Medallion B 100_2137Lamberton Street, among the shorter (and newer) streets in Old Forge which  connects Park Avenue to Fulton Street at the Fire Station, is named for one of Old Forge’s earliest historical figures, Alexander Byron Lamberton.

Unknown to most Fulton Chain residents, Lamberton is usually mentioned only as the family who sold the Forge House and Tract to Dr. Alexander Crosby and Samuel Garmon in 1888.  But if you go to the popular Lamberton Conservatory at Highland Park in Rochester, you will see his image memorialized in a large bronze medallion above its entrance.  The crest to the right of the medallion contains a cross, deer head, crest and scroll.

Lamberton’s single entry in the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Adirondack Bibliography is for an 1876 article about his adventures bringing salmon fry to the John Brown Tract.  His role in Fulton Chain and Adirondack history is largely unheralded, but more important than many realize.   » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Fourth Lake House Tour By Boat Planned

HouseTourByBoat_logoThis Saturday, August 16th, twenty pontoon boats will depart from the Old Forge Lakefront at 10 am and take passengers on a tour of some of the most fabulous camps on the Fulton Chain. The annual House Tour by Boat provides an inside look into the camps that boaters can only observe from the water.

This year the tour will visit six camps on Fourth Lake that include Mountain Phoenix, Evergreen House, Tall Pines Lodge, Ladair Camp, Morris Point, and the Murphy Camp. Owners from each property will be on site to assist with tours and answer questions, pontoon boats are provided by gracious volunteers. The tour has a limited availability to allow for enough time at each property. » Continue Reading.



Conditions
Conditions

The Adirondack Almanack

The Adirondack Almanack is a public forum dedicated to promoting and discussing current events, history, arts, nature and outdoor recreation and other topics of interest to the Adirondacks and its communities

We publish commentary and opinion pieces from voluntary contributors, as well as news updates and event notices from area organizations. Contributors include veteran local writers, historians, naturalists, and outdoor enthusiasts from around the Adirondack region. The information, views and opinions expressed by these various authors are not necessarily those of the Adirondack Almanack or its publisher, the Adirondack Explorer.

General inquiries about the Adirondack Almanack should be directed to editor Melissa Hart. To advertise on the Adirondack Almanack, or to receive information on rates and design, please click here.
Web Services & Search Engine Optimization By: Suloff Designs

Wait! Before you go:

Catch up on all your Adirondack
news, delivered weekly to your inbox