—Part fIVE —
As agent for his partners, James Galvin sold shore lots to many Seventh Lake pioneers whose names appear in the title abstracts of today’s camp owners.
I would like to mention a few: Lewis H. Lawrence (1891-camp was already built), Captain Elmer E. Sawyer, a 97th N.Y. regiment veteran and prominent camp builder on the lake, (1894); N.S. Mead and Emory L. Mead (1895); D. D. Warne and F. L. Warne (1896), superintendents of the Fairfield Seminary and Military Academy that would close in 1901, purchased land to build a rustic camp and establish a tented summer school and military camp; Myron Sanford (1896); Henry, John and Charles Bowes (1897); Helen Bowden and Anna Perry (1897); Chloe Kellogg (1897); Homer and Alice Traffarn (1897); again Henry, John and Charles Bowes (1899); a small island to Frank Riley Johnson, mason (1899); Georgianna Wood, wife of William T. Wood (1899); William Wheeler (1899); and in 1900, Dr. Richard Woodruff, Everett Barto and Lucian Rowe.18
In a transaction dated February 3, 1898, recorded two years later, Isaac C. Goff of Cleveland, Ohio, purchased from James and Jennie Galvin the westerly four acres of the island which would now be known as Goff Island.
A newspaper report mentioned that eleven remaining acres of the island were State land. Goff hoped to be able to purchase an adjoining lot for a Dr. Kellogg.
The Galvin abstract does show a purchase by Chloe Kellogg in 1897, but not the Goff purchase which had not been recorded yet.19
But it does include a purchase by Duane C. Norton in 1898.
Before a bridge was built at the inlet from Seventh to Sixth Lake, a steamer tour of Seventh Lake in 1899 was described in another report:
“[Seventh Lake] is reached from the head of Fourth Lake by a carry three- fourths of mile along the shore of Fifth Lake (which is not navigable) to the outlet of Sixth Lake, where a little steamer [probably the J.G. Moshier] is taken for Seventh Lake. From Sixth Lake we pass through a narrow, winding channel into Seventh Lake. Most of the camps are on the north shore of the lake.”
This 1899 traveler described a new hotel kept by Duane Norton with its trail up to a mountain peak, and then the Bowes-Meade camp, the abandoned Warne military camp and others until they’ve reached William T. Wood’s Woodholme cottage (which probably opened that year).
Beyond Woodholme were the Sherwood’s Ossahinta Lodge and the Traffarn’s White Birch Camp. Passed next was the island containing the camps belonging to Goff, Boshart and Miller.
On the south shore, the traveler viewed only three camps: Lawrence, Smith and Charles Stone of Syracuse.20
Another account that year, perhaps ghost-written by Moshier’s transportation company due to its length and glowing descriptions, included viewing the Bowes, Perry, Saxon and C.M. Williams camps, then the “snow-white” tents of the Fairfield camp, near that camp the Mead Brothers and Dr. Kellogg’s camps, next the Sherwood, Captain Sawyer and E.E. Mallard camps.
The above mentioned three (Goff, Boshart and Miller) island camps are again noted, then a paragraph describing Lawrence’s care of camps here and at Fourth Lake.21
According to a deed dated May 2, 1898, Duane Norton purchased sublots 48,49, 50, 51 & 52, lots 49-50 and part of 51 in Great Lot 8 and part of lot 51 and all of 52 in Great Lot 19, all being still then referred to as the “Munn Tract” purchased by James Galvin’s group in 1889.
An additional 5 acres were purchased by Norton to the rear of these lots. Who was Duane Norton?
Duane Norton was born in Turin and had been a well-known farmer and lumber mill operator in Greig when he bought the land from James Galvin.
His first wife Emma Johnson (age 32) died in 1880 and Norton remarried Carrie Corwin a year later. Before Norton remarried, he had the care of four children: two daughters (Allie and Nellie) and two sons (Raymond and Clifford).
He later suffered the death of one of the daughters, a bride of one year, in 1897.
Two additional children (Maude and Louis) were born from his second marriage.
To be continued…
Past columns can be found at weeklyadk.com and adirondackalmanack.com