1870-1890
Text excerpted from: Aber, Ted, and King, Stella, The History of Hamilton County. Lake Pleasant, NY: Great Wilderness Books, 1965 and Aber, Ted, Adirondack Folks. Prospect, NY: Prospect Books, 1980
THE VILLAGE
By 1863, Richard B. Jackson had built his Arctic Hotel, which later became the Cedar River House. It was of so-called timber frame construction; the walls were made of two-by-fours placed vertically, with the four-inch side outwards, bound on the inside by horizontal girths lodged between corner posts. The annual town meeting of February 21, 1864 was held therein. A liquor license was issued to him in 1866. At a dance held on opening night, Jackson was said to have taken in $1,200 at the bar.
About 1870, Milo E. Washburn built the Indian River Hotel at Indian River and operated a store. While engaged in the hotel’s construction, Aaron Osgood fell from the roof and was killed. On January 20, 1871, Washburn was appointed the village’s third postmaster and the post office continued in the Indian River location. In 1875, Washburn sold the property to Patrick Moynehan and left to attend to his mill and store near the present Wilderness Lodge at Big Brook. Moynehan, in turn, sold the hotel to John Sault, who operated the establishment for many years.
CHURCHES
Organized religion first came to Indian Lake in the same year that the town was formed. Cedar River Mission was organized August 21, 1859. A small amount of money appropriated by the district missionary society brought occasional preaching at Indian Lake.
During the next eight years, the Rev. Ira Gleason of North Creek came occasionally to conduct services and Samuel Stannard, an exhorter, came on foot the fifteen miles from North Creek once monthly to hold meetings during the summer of 1867.
These were difficult times for the young church group. A low point seems to have been reached in the winter of 1870-’71. "The sisters of the little charge became concerned for the salvation of their husbands, who were living beneath their privileges as Christians, and their sons, who were growing up wicked and profane," the records state. "They banded together to pray for the salvation of their loved ones." A revival followed. "Men were convicted while at work in the woods, others while pursuing the game. Many were converted and the church quickened and many added thereto."
ROADS
Always it was Roads. Roads in Hamilton County were much like wagon tracks --- sandy in spots, rocky in others, and dangerous always. They were snow-clogged in winter and mud-bogged in spring. Transportation was hampered. Communications was difficult. Trade was next to impossible. Left to their own isolation, the people of Hamilton County watched progress and prosperity pass them by. Instead, they remained in semi-self-sufficient agrarian status, their manners and mores reminiscent of a bygone year.
But if getting in and out of their immediate areas to the trading centers was a major problem, there was another. No highways existed to tie the county together. At mid-county, a miserable sort of road moved into the mountains from the Glens Falls area though that Indian Lake Village and to Blue Mountain Lake. For years, there was no direct route from the county seat at Lake Pleasant to the towns to the North. Attending court or a meeting of the Board of Supervisors on the part of the people and officers of the Towns of Long Lake and Indian Lake was a major undertaking, requiring three days of travel. The route was to Glens Falls and Albany, back to Amsterdam by train, and by stagecoach to Lake Pleasant. Board meetings continued to be moved to Wells to save the last torturous fourteen miles of hazardous travel.
Men who sought to take their fish and game to market in trade for the needed household supplies were forced to hoist their burdens in a pack basket on their shoulders and trudge some 50 miles one way. Due credit must be given to the exceptional strength of the rugged mountain men. Yet when Aaron Sturges would refuse a wagon ride along the road from Lake Pleasant toward Amsterdam with the remark, "No thanks, I’m in a hurry," his judgment was sound. He could actually make the trip faster on foot.
The trip by horse-drawn carriage was a discouragement to the sports-men coming to the Adirondacks. Each complained bitterly about the mountain roads as the worst ever encountered.
The poor condition of the Lake Pleasant - Indian Lake road caused sleds to be used in every season. Sledge Harbor was the place where the change was made from wheels to runners.
Supplies were brought from Glens Falls by teams and lumber wagons. After 1871, when North Creek became a railroad terminus, the supplies were "freighted" over the dirt roads by lumber wagon in summer time and by sleigh in the winter. These "freight" teamsters supplied the little town for many years, usually making three trips a week to North Creek on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, returning alternate days.
The mail was brought to the hamlet in the same manner, although after the railroad was built, the stages were often used during summer. Passengers rode in and out with the mail stage in complete discomfort.
It was the opening of Dr. Thomas C. Durant’s Adirondack Railroad in 1871 from Saratoga to North Creek that gave the village of Indian Lake its first generous start. Durant was primarily interested in the development of Raquette and Blue Mountain Lakes, but Indian Lake Village was on the route of the stage coaches to these resorts and stops were regularly made at the local hotels. By the mid-1870’s, the summer tourists had begun to move into the area.
Hamilton County found itself able to make its first significant appropriations for the repair of little-used roads in 1878. The amount was $4,000 and the choice was indicative. It was to be used for initial work on a road leading from the Town of Lake Pleasant to Long Lake by way of Lewey, Indian and Blue Mountain Lakes. It was a noble undertaking at best, but a mere drop in the bucket of the immediate needs. Much of the route cut directly though raw wilderness territory, over rocky ledges, up the steepest of grades, though swamp land and across often swollen streams.
FIRES
Fires took their toll and the changing economic circumstances of the hotel and store owners caused flux in the composition of the business life of the village. Only the store of Oliver Ste. Marie remained in its present location throughout the years.
Beriah Wilbur’s hotel on the southeast corner at the village center was destroyed by fire in the middle 1880’s. The last town meeting to be held there took place on March 15, 1881. A new hotel was built in its place by P.R. Ordway. First known as the Ordway House, it later assumed the name of the Commercial Hotel.
Again, this establishment burned. Then James Hickey, who ran a drug store across the street around 1894, moved the building to the Commercial Hotel site, built an addition and made it higher, and by 1899 was in the hotel business.
Source: Aber, Ted, and King, Stella, The History of Hamilton County. Lake Pleasant, NY: Great Wilderness Books, 1965 and Aber, Ted, Adirondack Folks. Prospect, NY: Prospect Books, 1980
Photographs courtesy The Indian Lake Town Museum, Indian Lake, NY 12842
Web design by: Dylan Smith
2002 The Indian Lake Central School District, Indian Lake, NY