— Part THREE —

Also on the transportation schedules page that appeared in a July 1900 issue of The Adirondack News, were the following lines…

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Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad

This line was established by consolidation of other lines in 1853.

Originally a transporter of anthracite coal, the line diversified under Jay Gould’s leadership in the 1880s and added increased merchandising traffic as well as commuter cargo.

New leadership in 1899 resulted in upgrading of its programs.

In late October 1899, the railroad appointed a travel agent, W. B. Hunter, to travel to the region with noted photographer W. H. Jackson to obtain images for travel books planned by the company.

According to the schedule, lines connected to Utica as far south as Philadelphia and west to Elmira and Binghamton. 

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7th Lake Transportation Company

After travelers reached the head of Fourth Lake, the journey to Raquette Lake had been a series of walks, stages and boat rides.

It involved a 3/4 mile hike or stage to the foot of Sixth Lake, then a steamer over Sixth and Seventh Lakes to the carry for Eighth Lake, a walk over the short carry, then another boat through Eighth Lake, then take the stage over the carry’s 1.5 mile trail to the Brown’s Tract inlet where a third steamer took the inlet to Raquette Lake.

Charles Bennett, of Raquette Lake’s Antlers and Hemlocks hotels, purchased a right of way in 1893 from James Galvin’s Fulton Chain Club association which owned over 6,000 acres situated between Fourth, Seventh and Limekiln Lakes, for a steamer and stage line through their lands for that section of this route.

In 1896, Dr. Gerster’s journal mentions a “Brown’s Tract Line” which may have been Bennett’s.

In 1896, Ephraim Myers, another association member, established two corporations with similar names: Fulton Chain and Raquette Lake Transportation Company stage line and Fulton Chain and Raquette Lake Steamboat Company steamer line.

Two years later in May 1898, the steamer company’s boats were auctioned at the Hess Inn (soon renamed Arrowhead) where the hotel’s owner William D. Moshier obtained them.

In July 1898, papers reported that Moshier and Bennett were associated together in the steamer company. New names appear a year later.

In 1899, lodgers at the Arrowhead could take a stage to Sixth Lake, where a new steamer “J. G. Moshier” would take them to the Eighth Lake carry, where the stage took them to the foot of Eighth Lake where the steamer “Gazelle” would take them over Eighth Lake to the carry for Brown’s Tract inlet where a third stage took them to a steamer run by a company called the Eighth Lake and Raquette Lake Transportation Company.

In 1900, a newspaper identified the firm handling the Sixth and Seventh Lake route as the 7th Lake Transportation Company managed by William Moshier. Perhaps the other company was managed by Bennett.

These companies became obsolete when the Raquette Lake Railroad began service.

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Long Lake and North Creek Stages

Dr. Webb’s railroad, now the N. Y. Central’s Adirondack Division, opened remote areas of the Adirondacks, taking away most of the business for the Delaware & Hudson’s Adirondack Railroad built in 1870 by W. W. Durant’s father Thomas C. Durant from Saratoga Springs to North Creek.

The National Express Company’s stage line provided a 30 mile, nine hour stage trip from North Creek to Blue Mountain Lake.

The Long Lake stages referred to was the ten mile stage line available to that destination from Blue Mountain Lake.