Posts Tagged ‘Inlet’

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 18, 2014

Inlet Boat Gathering Unofficially Breaks Record

OneSquareNBIt looks like Inlet is headed back into the Guinness Book of World Records.

On Saturday, more than 3,000 boats gathered on Fourth Lake for the One Square Mile of Hope cancer fundraiser in an attempt to form the world’s largest raft of canoes, kayaks and guideboats. The record still needs the approval of Guinness officials, but it looks to have beaten the current one of 2,099 boats set last year by a group on Sutton’s Bay on Lake Michigan. » 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.


Thursday, September 4, 2014

Paddle Flotilla Seeks World Record On Fourth Lake

2013 Suttons Bay Michigan Paddle Flotilla - World Record 2099 paddlersIn August, 2013 a flotilla in Suttons Bay, Michigan set a new Guinness world record for the “Largest Raft of canoes and kayaks” at 2,099, breaking the record of 1,902 set in on Fourth Lake in Inlet two years before. Now, the Kiwanis Club of the Central Adirondacks and the One Square Mile of Hope 2014 committee have formed a strategic partnership with the goal of retaking the record on September 13th, while raising funds to aid breast cancer research and awareness.

$10,000 of the proceeds will benefit Breast Cancer research at the Upstate Cancer Center at University Hospital and another $10,000 will be directed toward pediatric cancer care thru the Clara Condie Fund at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital. The major beneficiary for this year’s event, which hopes to reach $100,000 in total donations, is The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. To participate visit the One Square Mile Of Hope website. » 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, May 20, 2014

Inlet History: A Short Biography of Philo Clark Wood

5d Philo C. Wood 002In December 1899, owner Dwight B. Sperry had just completed his first season of operating his newly built Hotel Glennmore and determined to lease it.  He selected two men from Constableville, NY.

One was George B. Conant who would be the hotel proprietor.  Conant’s hotel manager would be his brother-in law, Philo Clark Wood.  For Philo, this began a career of almost fifty years of hotel management, town development and civil service to the Towns of Webb and Inlet.

Philo’s ancestors, originally from Chatham, Middlesex County, CT, moved to the Town of Turin in Lewis County, NY sometime after the 1810 Census.  Philo’s grandparents (Nathaniel and Electa Caswell Wood) and great-grandparents (Joel and Mercy Clark Wood) are buried in the Constableville Rural Cemetery (West Turin).  » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Inlet History:
The Contributions of William D. Moshier

Moshier Fam cir1902Any discussion of Inlet’s early history brings to mind the names of those who sold land, who built the hotels, and who lived in the first dwellings that later became Inlet.  We often read about Tiffany, O’Hara, Kirch, Harwood, Kenwell, Delmarsh, Hess, Boshart, and others when speaking of the pioneers who were the building blocks of the village at the “head of Fourth Lake”.

An unheralded individual often encountered when examining the history of the Fifth Lake sawmill, the Arrowhead Hotel, the death of Burt Murdock when the “Marjorie” sank and even Inlet’s Chapel of the Lakes is William D. Moshier.  Your response may be – “Who”?

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Fred Hess: Inlet Guide and Hotel Builder

hessphotoMuch of what we know of Fred Hess is from the books by Joseph Grady (The Story of a Wilderness) and David Beetle (Up Old Forge Way): that he was born in 1840, came to the Fulton Chain in the 1870s with his family and built three lodges, one at Cedar Island and two on the shores of Fourth Lake.  Successful as a builder and guide but a failure financially, Fred left Inlet and died years later in Augusta, Maine.

Using census data, the newspapers of his era and contemporary travel journals, I have constructed a life history of Fred Hess and his family which corrects some of the above.  The biggest surprise for me was discovering his connection by marriage to three notable pioneering families of Boonville and the Fulton Chain region: Grant, Lawrence and Meeker. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Some Of The Best Adirondack Winter Carnivals

2014 Ice Palace (Mark Kurtz Photo)Though my family and I have not attended the entire top ten winter carnival venues touted in National Geographic Traveler, I can say we have attended all the winter carnivals in the Adirondack Park listed below. Each festival holds its own special charm and each celebration is an opportunity to enjoy those unique corners of the Adirondack Park.

Saranac Lake may place second on the National Geographic Traveler’s list, but it tops the list for East Coast winter carnival fun. First held in  1897, the Saranac Lake’s winter carnival has a convoluted history. With over a century of experience to draw from, it has grown into a ten-day festival of sports, races, parades, live performances and fireworks. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Shopping Small in the Central Adirondacks

scan0001We try to find the time to make sure some of the items being sent to family and friends are “made in the Adirondacks.” That special moniker indicates a range of products from maple treats or rhubarb concentrate to elaborate bark-trimmed furniture. Since we live in the Adirondacks we are fortunate to be able to share some of the bounty with other family members not so fortunate.

The advertisements for Black Friday specials come at such a steady stream of daily flyers and commercials that my head starts to ache. Black Friday may be the day to brave the mall, but Small Business Saturday is the day that I support the backbone of the Adirondacks: the downtown shops, business owners and restaurants. » Continue Reading.


Monday, October 21, 2013

Fulton Chain Steamers 101: The Pickle Boats

Fulton Chain Pickle BoatDuring the first half of the 20th century,  campers along the Fulton Chain welcomed the whistle of the steamer “Mohawk”, signaled to the pilot and knew that their meat and grocery provisions would soon be replenished by the Marks & Wilcox “floating supermarket”, known as the “Pickle Boat”.  Today few people realize this name was borrowed from an earlier steamer built by Fred Kirch in Inlet.  There were also other supply boats.

At an “Old Timers’ Banquet” held at Louis Sperry’s Riverside Inn in July 1934, pioneer guides and businessmen with names like Thistlethwaite, Sperry, Parsons, Rivett and Christy spoke of the good old days.  At that gathering, a man named John McConnell “told of operating a supply boat for his father, a row boat he used for trips around the lakes.” » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, October 2, 2013

In Inlet Saturday is Adirondack Kids Day

ADKKidsDay_newFor the second year my family has been asked to join Adirondack Kids Day October 5 from 10 am – 3 pm in Inlet as a fun, interactive way to encourage other families to get outside and be creative.

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 local children’s authors, learn new skills and enjoy a day of free activities.

According to Town of Inlet Department Head Adele Burnett this year’s Adirondack Kids Day will be bigger than the first with the addition of new activities such as the Word of Life Petting Zoo, a inflatable bounce house and Magician Jim Oakey. » Continue Reading.


Monday, August 12, 2013

‘An American Tragedy’ Opera Preview at View

gillette-011View will present Francesca Zambello and the Glimmerglass Festival preview of the opera An American Tragedy on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 5:30 p.m. in Gould Hall. Glimmerglass Festival Artistic & General Director Francesca Zambello and singers from the 2013 season will present a program about the opera, An American Tragedy, by composer Tobias Picker and libretto by Gene Scheer.

Based on the Theodore Dreiser novel about the murder of Grace Brown, whose body was found in Big Moose Lake in 1906, An American Tragedy had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005, directed by Zambello. It will be given an original new staging at Glimmerglass in 2014, with a score revised by the composer and librettist. Zambello will talk about the process of bringing this opera to the stage at the Met and the exciting revisions that will be premiered at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2014. Excerpts from the opera, including a new aria, will be performed. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Short History Of Big Moose Landing And The Carry Trail

1909 big moose carryBefore the automobile, the railroads and the steamers, those who traveled from “the Forge” to Big Moose Lake disembarked on the north shore of Fourth Lake at a location known as “Big Moose Landing”.  Another landing to the west was used that took the traveler past First (called Landon, then Rondaxe) and Second (called Foster, then Dart’s) Lakes to the Third (called Sherman, then Big Moose) Lake, north branch, Moose River.  Guides with their sportsmen would usually head for Elba Island and bear north towards the shore where a landing developed that led to a trail through the woods.  This trail was called the “Carry Trail”.

After unloading at Big Moose Landing, you would carry your belongings up a hill and quickly come to what Edwin Wallace called “a lovely little pond” which we today call Surprise Pond.  Continuing another three-quarters of a mile past today’s Route 28 and the bed of the Raquette Lake Railway (now the hike/bike trail) you come to Bubb Lake. » Continue Reading.



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