In the year 1842 the Town of Caroga was created by act of Legislature and its boundaries were defined. Before its creation, Bleecker and Stratford were adjacent towns. The line between them passing north and south thru Canada and Caroga Lakes. Ephratah and Johnstown, prior to that time had extended further north; so that the land embraced within the boundaries of the new, had been before parts of Ephratah, Stratford, Bleecker, and Johnstown.
At that time, 1842, Garrett A. Newkirk was member of Assembly from the Fulton-Hamilton District. He lived at Newkirk Mills, now a small collection of houses but at that time a busy little village. Mr. Newkirk had been for some time Supervisor of the Town of Bleecker. There were then in the Town of Bleecker, several sawmills and small tanneries and in the western part, was the Caroga Lake settlement and besides, in the 30's Newkirk had come into town and started business at Newkirk Mills.
He had there two sawmills, a tannery and a glove factory. A. O'Dell had a large hat factory. Wooster had a stave factory and there were two general stores, besides a considerable population. The distance between the Bleecker settlement and the Caroga Lake and Newkirk settlements was so great and the roads so bad that there was difficulty in conducting the Township business. Sometimes all the town officers were elected from the eastern part and then again sometimes from the other part.
The creation of the new town was therefore a natural result when Newkirk went to the Assembly and was in position to bring it about. The western section became part of the new town and the east remained in Bleecker. All of the town north of E. Caroga Lake is a part of the Glen-Bleecker & Lansing Patent. West of Caroga Creek and south, almost to the Stephen Fuller place and also in that patent. South of the Fuller Place and west of the Creek was a strip of the Lott & Low Patent which was included. It had been bought from the Indians and patented by the King, in 1761 considerably prior to the Revolution.
On the east bank of the creek, opposite the Lott and Low strip, lies the western part of the Kingsboro Patent, owned by Sir William Johnson, since 1758. North of the Kingsboro, on the same side of the creek, and reaching north to E. Caroga Lake, is the western end of the Mayfield Patent, which had been granted to Johnson and his colleagues in 1770.
The Johnson lands were leased to the settlers for a nominal rental but it is not definitely known whether this corner was settled or not before the Revolution and the same is true of the lands in the Mayfield Patent; also owned by Johnson. The only transfer of land in the town, recorded prior to the Revolution was a deed from Preston, one of the patentees, to Sir William Johnson, of lot #98 in Mayfield Patent which lot I now own.
It is also uncertain whether or not any of the Lott & Low lands were settled before that War. It is true that there was a considerable settlement around Rockwood and south and southwest thereof. During the Revolution the house of Captain Nicholas Rector, near Rockwood, had been fortified and was used as a refuge for the neighboring settlers. Immediately succeeding the War, there was a road which ran from Rockwood north thru Wolf Hollow over Royal Hill, striking the old Indian path in the Glasgow Ravine and another road following the creek north on the old Indian path to the Lakes, but there is no transfer of any of this land in the town on record and while tradition says it was settled before the War, there is therefore no official proof of the fact.
The first positive date of settlement was at the time of the erection of a sawmill on the Conyantag Creek in 1786, by Van der Cook, which sawmill was afterward known as the Mills sawmill. There was also a grist mill in connection with it.
The only land in Fulton County owned by the Indians at the outbreak of the Revolution was the Northeastern part of Fulton County, afterward patented to Glen-Bleecker & Lansing and a 10,000 area tract enclosed by the former and patented to Chase. When the Revolution was over, and peace declared, one of the conditions of the treaty with the Mother Country and with the Indians was the relinquishment of title to such lands as the Indians still owned. The title to this tract by the treaty of peace, accordingly became vested in the State of New York.
In 1792, 10,000 acres was sold to Captain Chase, being the tract now known as the Chase patent in the Town of Bleecker. The balance of the Indian land was patented to Glen-Bleecker & Lansing in 1794. They paid to the State for title to the land, 18 cents per acre and promised to settle one family for every thousand acres of land within eight years from the time purchased. There were 89,000 acres in the tract. This condition was fulfilled.
James McClellan settled that year on lot #54 bordering on Caroga Lake. Reubin Brookins, the same year settled on lot #56, and built his house where Stephen Fuller now lives. Nicholas Stoner who since the close of the War had been trapping on the Lakes from Caroga to Piseco, was living on lot #56, along what is now the old Glasgow Road, but what was then the Old Indian trail to Canada.
The Town of Caughuwawaga in the year 1796, in laying out the highway from the Brookins corner, now the Fuller corner, up thru the Glasgow place to Emmonsburg in its official description of the road says, 'commencing at the house of Reubin Brookins and then running across lot #56, following the old Indian path, past the house of Nicholas Stoner.' That description proves Stoner's residence there in that year.
Stoner was thus one of the first permanent settlers of the Town. The Van der Cook Mills in the Mayfield Patent and the Gage settlement in the Kingsboro Patent were earlier than this. Prior to the existence of Stoner's house in 1796 mentioned in the road description, he had been living on a 50 acre tract in the Kingsboro Patent, in the neighborhood of the Gages and the Van der Cook mill.
About 1810, he bought the McClellan place at Caroga Lake, where he remained until 1838, the most active period of his trapper life, when he sold that place to one Wagner for a hotel site, and built a house at Newkirk, where he died.
His daughter, Mrs. Mills, was born in the house built on that 50 acres about 1788. These families who settled in the south and southeastern part of the Town in 1786, or immediately afterward, were New Englanders. Three or four of them had been Continental Soldiers stationed at Johnstown during the War, who at the close of the War, or soon afterward, brought their families to this neighborhood to make their homes.
The families who settled there and a little later at Caroga Lake, were Brookins, Gage, John, Samuel and Marvel Lovelass, Jeffers, Van deer Cook, Peckham, Christancy, Roberts, Johnson, Miller, Mitchell, Smith, Mason, McClellan, Foster, Leslie, Newton, Hardy, Dean and Haggart.
These families were all settled in the Town, probably prior to 1800. They soon discovered the lack of fertility in the soil and the difficulty in making a living by farming. If it were not for the products of the forest, existence exclusively from farming would have been impossible. The woods supplied the settlers with game. The streams and lakes with fish. The Maple trees with sugar and the clearing operations produced potash from the burned timber, which commodity found a ready sale. Shingle making by hand shaving was the support of many families.
As early as 1796, the Town layed out a highway from Johnstown to Caroga Lake past the Van der Cook Mill and over the Beech Ridge. In 1810, this road was improved by the State with a view to future military operations and for the opening of the country in this vicinity and farther north to Piseco and then to Canada.
In 1796, a road was officially opened from Caroga Lake, east to Chase's settlement, now Lindley's Corners in Bleecker and another road was opened, running from the 'Five Point' near Caroga Lake, past the Morey Place, thru Potter clearing west of Caroga Lake, past the Grosshielts and the Caldwell Place, thru Newkirks and directly west until it struck the old Indian road up the Glasgow Ravine.
These roads gave some sort of an egress for the settlers around Caroga Lake. At about the same time a road was layed out running from the Van der Cook Mill, westerly, crossing the Caroga Creek, at the Muzzy Bridge and proceeding west until it struck the old Indian road back of Pines Rest. A connecting road was also layed out a little later on the east side of Caroga Creek, running from the Muzzy Bridge north to Newkirks.
In 1796, a road had been officially layed out from the Reubin Brookins place, easterly past the school house and church and the Gage Place, crossing the Creek by ford, thru the Gage settlement and reaching the State road at the Wiley School House, just below the Gage place, later owned by Pedrick. These roads would now be called trails and it was with the greatest difficulty and by the slowest progression that they could be travelled by vehicles for more that one generation.
In the early days there was a sawmill and grist mill at Van der Cooks, afterward known as the Mills place. There was another grist mill and sawmill, owned by Gage on the Durey Creek in the rear of the house where Mrs. John Dorn now lives. The Durey Mill was not built by Robinson, its first owner, until 1832. There was a sawmill built in the 20s by Robert Stewart at the outlet of Otter Lake and in 1794, the patentees had built a sawmill and gristmill on the old mill site just above the present Town house. This place was afterward owned by James McKinley and later by Jay Watts Cady of Johnstown, who was a lawyer and served a term in Congress. On the same stream at the outlet of Irving Pond, a mill was built by Martin in the early 40s.
About that time, Garrett A. Newkirk came into the Town, and built a sawmill just below the outlet of Caroga Lake and a tannery and another sawmill a little further down the stream and with those industries and his glove business, built a considerable little village and secured a post office, which was called Newkirk Mills.
Alteron O'Dell, had a beaver hat shop there and employed half-a-dozen workmen. In those days, everyone wore a beaver hat. The difficulty of conveying his lumber and hides to market over the horrible, so-called roads, induced the enterprising Newkirk to form a corporation, of which he was a principal stockholder, for the building a plank road from Fultonville to Newkirks and Caroga Lake.
A few years prior to the construction of this road, he had secured the passage by the legislature of a law to improve the road from Newkirks, north to Piseco and imposing a heavy tax for the purpose on all lands within four miles of the road.
The improvement was in the hands of a Commission which did not function properly. The plank road was built in 1849, and was officially opened on the 4th of July in that year. The following is the story of that celebration as told by an eye witness:
CELEBRATION AT CAROGA LAKE
MR. EDITOR: As I did not see you at Caroga on the 4th to participate in the interesting exercises of the occasion, I must relate a little of what transpired. Considering the place and the distance from the densely populated portions of our country, all were astonished to witness the immense assemblage. There were probably not less than 600 vehicles of every description, each and all loaded to their utmost capacity. It was a strange scene, Sir, in the wilds of Caroga, not long since the abode of the savage and its shores frequented only by the panting deer and the thirsty moose pursued by the hungry wolf, to see some fifteen hundred Montgomery and Fulton ladies, rustling in their silks and satins, anxious to get a tin cup full of muddy water from the well which was utterly inadequate to supply the unwonted demand.
The ground was well selected on the north west shore of the sulvan lake, and would accommodate as many as could be reached by the sound of the human voice, while hundreds more were so remote from the stand as to loose the tones and sentiments uttered by the speakers. The preliminary exercises being concluded, the orator of the day, S. Sammons, Esq., was introduced, and in his energetic manner entertained the audience for about an hour.
The speaker portrayed in vivid colors, the wonderful man, who first became thoroughly imbued, with the idea that there was land beyond the mighty Atlantic, when standing on the shores, the waves threw up at his feet two human bodies unlike any species known in the old world. Confirmed in his impressions, he pursued his favorite project and boldly crossed the big waters, until the light of the new world filled the desponding crew with joy. He sketched in an able manner the spirit of the enterprise and thirst for Liberty which brought the English to Jamestown, the Pilgrims to Plymouth, and the Dutch to Manhattan. While he omitted, as we think in good taste, the details of the Revolutionary struggle, familiar now to all, he descanted with much interest on the spirit which seemed to pervade the Convention which declared our Independence, and which spread from that consecrated Hall until aroused and united the thirteen colonies in their great struggle for liberty. He also painted in glowing colors the spread of that spirit in its progressive moments, until it embraced the continent from ocean to ocean, and thus furnished an asylum for down-trodden Europe --and extending across and reaching back to the old world was now shaking Europe its centre.
The whole was a happy effort, and long, we hope will be the period when orators yet unborn shall on the 4th of July address their thousands as the free and happy citizens of these United States.
But, Mr. Editor, I must not forget to tell you how this immense throng were found at Caroga Lake. -A little north of the Fonda Hotel, Sir, our carriage wheels rolled on a smooth plank floor; and without a jolt or a jay, we rolled along thru ravines, up the valleys, over the hills, thru the woods and swamps until the fold of the star spangled banner across the lake announced the terminus of this magic ride. This, Sir, was a ride over the Fonda and Caroga Plank Road. We will venture to say that not one of the thousands who returned from that pleasant ride, but wondered by what magic such a road was constructed thru such a country in so short a space of time. Its able and indefatigable Directors have demonstrated, as Samuel Patch long since said, that "one thing can be done as well as another."
AN OBSERVER
I have heard my Mother tell of that day. Every man, woman and child of its vicinity was present and next to the Speaker of the day, the most conspicuous celebrate, as she remembered the day, was old Major Nicholas Stoner.
The first school house in the Town was at the Caroga Lake Settlement on the corner. In 1831, James Leslie deeded to the school district trustees, who were Nicholas Stoner, Jno. Meade and Jacob Meade, an acre of land at the 'Five Points' where the old burying ground is now situated for the purposes of a site for a school house. The school house was already on this acre of land.
Prior to this tie, a Methodist Society had been formed and Samuel N. Foster was class leader and was licensed to preach. The Society was formed by Evangelist Parkes. In the southern part of the Town, there was no public school house built until the North Bush school house in 1818. Before that time, the children were schooled by Mr. Holcomb, a private teacher, who lived at the edge of the present North Bush burying ground. The settlers had come from New England where the burying grounds are adjacent to the Churches. Church services were held in the School Houses hence the site of every old School House is neighbored by a burying ground.
The location of teacher Holcomb's house undoubtedly was the reason for the location of the North Bush cemetery. A mile or more north of this cemetery is the old Peckham burying ground, which was used in very early times. The Wiley School House was located just below the Pedrick place and some of the children were sent to that school. The location is just over the line in the Town of Johnstown. There is an old burying ground there. There is another burying ground on the summit of Royal Hill along side the road mentioned before, that rand from Rockwood across the hill to the Indian Road.
The School House at Caroga Lake was erected in 1851 on a plot on the Morey Road, and was used until 1868, when a new school house was built at Wheelerville, is now in use. The Newkirk School House, was built by Newkirk about 1838 and the Durey School house was not built until 1850.
The first Church edifice was built by Newkirk and was supplied by Dutch reformed ministers. Newkirk was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The little Church at Wheelerville was built by Governor Claflin from Massachusetts at his own expense in 1873 and was donated to the Methodist Church.
The North Bush Church was not erected until 1900. Church services had been held there in the School House ever since its erection in 1818 and prior to that in private houses. The present road from Caroga Lake toward Johnstown was laid out in 1838 by Commissioners appointed by the legislature for the purpose. The Commissioners were Nicholas Stoner, Ralph Simmons, and Chauncey Orton. This route was used when the plank road was built. Before that time the Beech Ridge Road was mostly used, In 1836, six years before the division of the town, most of the Town officials came from the Caroga and Newkirk section. Newkirk was Supervisor. W.W. Collins of Newkirk was Town Clerk. Silas B. June, lived on the old Jno. Gage place, was justice of the peace. Amasa Stevens living on the Frank Sherman place and Eldred Nutting, of Newkirks were Assessors.
Nicholas Stoner was Commissioner of Highways, Jno. Meade was overseer of the poor and Stephen Smith was Collector.
With the building of the tanneries at Bleecker, factories at Pecks and at Newkirks, men skilled in tanning were required. The owners were obliged to go out of the Country for such employees. There was a considerable German emmigration into the country about that time and German emmigrants were land hungry and purchased land of the tannery, sawmill owners, giving labor in return.
Prior to the influx of tannery men, the inhabitants were exclusively Yankee, with New England names. One German settler induced others to come and in a few years the majority of people living in the Bleecker end of Town and many in the Caroga end were Germans. In the Town records, the first appointment of one of these Germans to a public office was the naming of Bartholemew Stockamore, an educated German, in 1841, for Commissioner of Common Schools.
Andrew Schneider and Bernard Schuler's names appeared a couple of years later; Frederick Frick was the next German name to appear as a Town official, followed by Frederick Klein, Peter Miller, Oscar Richard, J.C. Zeyst, became Supervisor in 1869. By that time the Freemans, the Reiths, Peters, and Rheinhart, Frank, and Unger names appeared. From that time on the German element predominated in the Town and furnished most of the Town officers and the business activities of the Town. They were a hard working frugal, law-abiding lot of people. Most of them were first brought there by Newkirk. Newkirk was one of the influential Democrats of the County and most of these German took their politics from him when they became naturalized and voted, and Bleecker became a Democratic stronghold.
The town was named for Rutger Bleecker of Albany, N.Y., who was one of the three original Patentees of the Glen-Bleecker & Lansing Patent. When the Town was formed in 1821, which was 27 years after the granting of the patent and the commencement of its settlement, it was named for him.
When Caroga was formed, the new Town took its name from the Caroga Lakes and the Caroga Lake settlement surrounded the Lakes. There have been two ways of spelling the name. It is said to mean in the Mohawk tongue, "Yellow Water." At least, a Mohawk Indian gave me once that information. There is no English sound exactly corresponding to the Mohawk "K". "C", or "G". The difference in spelling with a C or a G, undoubtedly arose from the misunderstanding ear of the early "Whites" in having the name spoken in Mohawk.
There are old maps giving the spelling with a "G" but the spoken word of the inhabitants of the vicinity was spelled with a "C". The Creek, the outlet of the lakes, passed thru the Town of Palatine for its entire length. In the records of that Town, in the 1890's, the Creek is spelled Caroga and from the time of the settlement of the Glen-Bleecker and Lansing Patent, the Lake and the upper reaches of the Creek were always spelled with a "C".
The Legislature in forming the Town, settled the spelling for all time; although, in the '50's, a little Post Office on the Creek was established, spelling with a "G" and a Masonic Lodge was erected in which the name was also spelled with a "G". It is not the first time that the pronunciation of the Iroquois gutteral has caused the same confusion in names.
Aside from the two Caroga Lakes, there are thirteen other lakes within its boundaries. Canada Lake is the largest with about a square mile of surface. The lakes are all surrounded by hills, arising to the dignities of the mountains in some places; the highest of which is "Pigeon Mountain" 2750 feet in height across the summit of which, passes the Bleecker-Caroga line. Round Top, northeast of Pine Lake has an elevation of 2520 feet and a dozen mountains are between 22 and 23 hundred feet high. Most of these mountains take their name from some peculiarity about them, like Camel Humps and Round Top; Sheeley Mt. takes its name from an early inhabitant on its south shoulder. Rooster Mt. from the Rooster Echo, that it gives back with wonderful distinctness. I do not know the derivation of the name Kane Mt.
The range of hills west of the Caroga Creek is known as Royal Hill, deriving its name from the Lott and Low and Magins Patent, which covered the territory from the creek westwardly to the Canada Creek, except for a tract in the south eastern part of the Town, which is comparatively level. The entire town is a jumble of hills and valleys along the streams and lakes, which exist in the notwithstanding its physical aspects, an astonishing number of settlers came there and made their homes, while some of these early inhabitants soon left town in search of more fertile fields.
There are many descendants of these early settlers, who still reside in the Town. Perhaps the most distinguished native of the Town was Isaac Peckham Christiancy; the son of Thomas Christiancy the neighborhood blacksmith and his wife who was the daughter of Isaac Peckham. Both of his Grandfathers had served in the War of Independence, hailing from New England and settling here in the '80s. He was born on the old Mills Place in 1812. During his entire school days he attended the school at Wiley's Corners, not to exceed six months in all. Like Lincoln, he read the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress and sundry other standard writings in the evenings after his daily labors were finished and acquired an astonishing culture from the study of those books. As the age of eighteen, he was employed as a teacher in neighboring schools and spent one winter in attendance at the old Kingsboro Academy.
At the age of 21 years, he left the Town, migrating to the new territory of Michigan. He soon became a lawyer there and eventually the chief judge of the highest court in that state and a United States Senator, succeeding Zach Chandler in that national body. He aided in the formation of the Republican party and was nominated for governor by the first State Convention of that party held in any State in the Nation; although he was not elected at that time.
I am told that specimens of his writings are used in the schools of that State in the study of English by every student of the Public Schools there. In his old age he wrote a manuscript, describing in detail the Town in which he was born as remembered it between 1812 and 1833. His tribute to the people of the Town contains the most beautiful thoughts couched in equally beautiful English. I quote:
I left them at the age of twenty-one, and it has been my lot in the course of a busy life to become acquainted with the people of many other localities and of every grade from the highest to the lowest, but I have never found, anywhere, a community where the average standard of morality was higher, or the general sense of justice and moral obligation stronger or more uniform; where all the domestic virtues and genial social qualities were more general or more attractive; where a better or more cordial feeling of brotherhood or a purer spirit of charity or benevolence pervaded the mass of the community. No crime was ever committed during my remembrance, and my memory of those times is very distinct and clear, in any part of the country or among any of the people I have described. The country was poor in resources and unproductive. Unremitting industry and strived economy were required to extort a living from the ungenerous soil. The virtues induced by necessity had become habitual; they produced sobriety of thought and habits do more to humanize and civilize mankind and to purify the heart from all the sermons ever preached, always excepting the Sermon on the Mount. It is among such a people that such practical teachings are most readily appreciated and most likely to become the controlling principles of action in social intercourse and in all the practical affairs of life. And could I be granted the privilege of beginning my life anew, with the hope of improving upon that I have now nearly passed (a boon which I would gladly accept) I should wish to pass my childhood and youth in just such a community as that in which I made the first experiment, subjected to the same privations, the same necessities for exertion; and relying upon the same maxim of doing the best I could and leaving the rest to providence.
I. P. Christiancy
While he was born on the Mills Place, yet in 1814, his father purchased the 100 acres now the Lind Durey place, he lived there until the place was bought by Sexton (the father of the late Ralph Sexton) when he bought 140 acres, the south western part of lot 105 and built the old house still standing and known of years as the "Fry House" which I now own.
After the Senator had become fully established at Lansing Michigan, his father's family followed him to Michigan. His relatives who died in the preceding 40 years, are buried in the old Peckham burying ground. Others, of less distinction but men of great ability, character, have been produced in the Town or have lived a sufficient of years therein to become a part of its history. There were several Revolutionary Soldiers who ended their days there: Rubin Brookings, Jno. Gage, W. Lovelass, Nicholas Stoner, Amasa Stevens, Wm. Mason, Isaac Peckham and possibly others.
The Town furnished its share of Civil War veterans. Viz: Samuel Stearns, Charles Lamb, Jacob & George Kennicutt, Jno. Coselman, Jno. W. Lane, Michael . Dorn, Ralph Sexton, Abner Ballau, Fred Brunix, Jos. Van der Pool, Wm. Hille, Andrew Frye, Geo. W. Waite, Peter Brandt, Edv. Bradt, Seth Moak, Jno. Durey, Jno. A. Karg, Lorenzo E. Bradt, Charles Allen, Scott De Witt, Abram Muzzy, Wm. Doty, and Eliaphas Stearns.
It will be seen from the above list that practically all fit men of military age went to the Civil War. The only commissioned officer in the list was Lieutenant Ralph Sexton, who was Supervisor of the Town at the time and who on is return from service was again elected Supervisor. Sexton's father had bought the Christancy Place but afterward went to Caroga Lake and there conducted a store, now owned by Ungers. He served several years as Supervisor, removed to Ephratah where he conducted a cheese factory and served that Town as Supervisor and then removed to Johnstown and was finally elected Supervisor of the Poor, defeating Layton S. Capron of Broadalbin, who ran for the third time and met with much party opposition. After his term in the Poor House, Mr. Sexton moved to Gloversville, where he was continually elected Commissioner of Charities in that Republican City.
At the close of the Civil War, Jonathan W. Wheeler of Becket, Mass,, a tanner of means, came to the Town and purchased from the owners, practically two-thirds of its acreage and several thousand acres in the adjoining parts of Stratford, Bleecker, and Arietta. He built at the Canada Lake Inlet, where the Cady Mill stood, what was said to be the largest "upper-leather" tannery in the world. He repaired and enlarged the Cady Mill, the Martin Mill and the Mill in the Town of Stratford at the outlet of Canada Lake, formerly owned by the Stewarts and built a large sawmill at Pine Lake. W. Claflin, a a governor of Massachusetts, became associated with him in this undertaking and the latter continued in the business after he had purchased the Wheeler interest in 1873, until the exhaustion of the supply of hemlock bark.
It was because of this natural product of the woods that the tannery was built here; it being better economy to bring the hides to the bark than to transfer the bulky bark to the hides. Claflin built a tannery at Arietta and constructed a road to it from Wheelerville, which was the name given to the little village where the tannery was located.
The transportation of the skins and the manufactured leather, as well as the products of their lumber mills and the supplies required of their little army of workmen, passed over the old road to Fonda, through Sammonsville.
When the F.J.& G.R.R. was built to Gloversville, Wheeler and Claflin cut a road from Caroga Lake down through the woods to Pecks Pond and thereafter this road was used for their business. It shortened the distance to the shipping point on the railroad by eight or nine miles.
During their activity, the population of the Town was quadrupled. Their largest sawmill was at Pine Lake and was in charge of Milton Barnes, who also came from Becket, either as foreman or by rental from the company. That mill turned out a large product for that period. The Claflin Company left the Town in 1890 and removed its activities to Olean, N.Y. They retained ownership to most of their real estate holdings until 1904, except for a strip surrounding Canada Lake, which they had sold to Alfred Dolge, the founder of Dolgeville who saw the possibilities of the Lake as a Summer place.
In 1904, the Caroga Lumber Co., a corporation which I organized, bought the Dolge lots from the receiver in bankruptcy proceedings and later it bought the balance of the Wheeler-Claflin holdings. The first move toward summering at Canada Lake came from my father [Josiah], who in 1853, being the owner of the land at the east and north shores of the Lake, built the first frame house on the Lake for the purposes of a hotel. The building is still standing [the house burnt in August, 1932] and is the old red house just east of the Auskerada Dance Hall.
After Wheeler and Claflin acquired the lands hereabouts, they built a larger summer hotel on the site of the dance hall and invited summer guests. Their manager was William Tunnicliff and experienced hotel man, but the long distance from the railroad and the bad condition of the roads, militated against the plans, and the adventure was not financially successful.
Their hotel burned down and was replaced by a smaller one and yet of considerable size by J. Fitch Van Ness of Gloversville, N.Y. The property eventually came into the possession of Frank Kathan, when the hotel again burned and the present dance hall has been built on its site. Directly opposite the Auskerada, Jas. Y. Fulton of Johnstown, built another hotel in '89 and did a considerable business.
In the 90s several summer camps were built on Canada Lake and when I became interested in the property in 1904, the lakeshore was placed on the market and the lake soon became encircled by a row of cottages.
There were no cottages at this time on the Caroga Lakes. About 1900 a few cottages were erected. Mosher of Utica, building the first one. I recollect the building of Sherman's Hotel which was the first place on either of the Caroga Lakes; although Major A.Y. Crocker, who had been in the English Army, had come to the Town and built a hotel where Mr. Willetts Boarding House now is. This is the old Nicholas Stoner Place.
Major Crocker had built a half mile race track on the flats back of Vroomans, which track was used by horsemen. I recollect when a boy, attending a fourth of July race meet on this track in 1876, There were easily 100 people on the track and some good horses raced. In the 30s, when the village of Newkirks was started, a hotel was built there, called the Norther Hotel. These were the only hotels in the early days of the Town. After the Newkirk bankruptcy which occurred in the financial panic of '57, the only business in the town was lumbering, conducted by John Francisco at Newkirks; he having bought most the Newkirk property, and by my father, who owned the Mill on Durey Creek, the Fisher Mill on Caroga Creek and the Cady Mill at Wheelerville.
Their operations were continued during the Wheeler-Claflin business days but were dwarfed by the latter's business. After Claflin's removal from the town, scarcely any business was done and the population sank to lowest point.
When my company erected its mill at Green Lake in 1904, there was a recurrence of industrial life and since the timber available for the use of that mill has been cut, the life of the Town lies in its summer business which business has marvelously increased since he construction of the improved roads into the Town.
A group of lakes that are scattered over the north end of the Tine are the finest cluster of lakes in the south Adirondacks. Their nearness to the population of the Mohawk Valley and hence their accessibility to that population with their surroundings of wooded hills and rocks and ravines have made them so attractive that during each season, they are visited by more people that any other section or place in the entire Adirondack region.
When I was elected Supervisor of the Town in '89 the assessed valuation of the Town was $54,000. It is now a million in round figures. Practically all valuation of summer places. The Supervisors of the Town, since the formation had been G. S. Newkirk, William Mills, Lewis Rider, Jno. R. Martin, Abner Swan, Lemuel Wooster, James D. Foster, Ralph Sexton, and Daniel Francisco, Alanson Morey, S.M. Foster, Z.J. Smith, Thos. Bradley, Jos. Sherman, Van Reansellaer Caldwell, Cyrus Durey, Felix Kiernan, Cha. Bradt, Lafayette Van der Pool, Edw. Vrooman, Truman J. Whitman, Guy Durey, the last name has been Supervisor for twenty-two years, the longest service of any Supervisor in the history of the County. For over thirty years the Town has been consistently Republican in its politics; prior to that, it was consistently Democrat.
The most conspicuous of the early settlers was Nicholas Stoner. His father had come to Fonda Bush in 1762 as a settler on Johnson's lands, bringing with him his wife and two boys, Nicholas and John.
At the outbreak of the War, the father and both boys enlisted in the Continental Army; Nick's first service was a drummer boy. He was present at the battle of Saratoga in the Rhode Island campaign; was at West Point when Major Andrews was captured and was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered. After Yorktown, his father returned to Johnstown, where the two boys remained until the army was disbanded.
In the succeeding Spring, after his return, the father Henry Stoner was tomahawked and killed while planting his crops on the Quilhot farm at Albany Bush. Soon after Nick's return, he married Elizabeth Mason, whom he knew before his army experience. The couple started housekeeping in one of Johnson's houses located in the ravine north of the Hall. The next year, he bought from the State, from the confiscated Johnson lands, a hundred acre lot on what is now the County Home. Stoner was a natural hunter and trapper, a successful trapper could make a much more comfortable living than by clearing land for farming. He maintained a trapping line from the Caroga Lakes to Piseco Lake.
In 1788, he had sold a hundred acre lot and bought a fifty acre piece at the Gage settlement, known as Albany Bush, building a house upon it. This was nearer his trapper's line.
When the Glen-Bleecker & Lansing lands were opened for settlement, he built a house on the old Indian road to Stratford and later bought the McClellan place on Caroga Lake, where he passed most of his life.
In addition to his trapping, the county and Town had put a bounty on wolves and panthers, which bounty added to his sale of furs gave him a much larger income that most of his neighbors.
When the War was again declared against Great Britain, in 1812, he again enlisted and served during that War. His service was a Plattsburg and Sacketts Harbor.
It was currently believed during his life, that he was the original of James Fenimore Cooper's leather stocking. His knowledge of the woods from Caroga to the St. Lawrence, his dislike of the Indians, one of whom had killed his father, which killing he avenged by openly killing the Indian who at the moment was boasting of Henry Stoner's killing and the belief that he was an Indian nemesis, made him an extraordinary figure and as the Revolution itself receded into a memory only and the other participants had passed away, at the latter end of his long life, he came more interesting still.
J. R. Simms was clerk in the Argersinger store at Newkirks; Stoner was a daily visitor at the store. Simms jotted down the gist of his conversations with Stoner and finally wrote a book known as the Trappers of New York , which included the story of Stoner's life.
The book ran into three editions and when Stoner died in 1853, almost the last county survivor of the Revolution. His body was taken to Kingsboro, the funeral procession passing through Johnstown to Kingsboro and was joined by practically the entire population of the county. It was a great tribute to the personality of the old fighter and was more over a celebration of the result of the two Wars in which he participated and of the transformation of the County from a wilderness to a civilized and settled community.
Of the other Revolutionary Soldiers, Amasa Stevens and William Mason are buried at the Caroga Lake burying ground; Lovelass is buried at the Wiley burying ground, Christancy at the old Peckham burying ground and Brookins and Gage at the North Bush burying ground.