—Part four —
In September 1920, a Geneva Boy Scouts troop named their Seventh Lake location “Camp Griffith” on the Manhattan Club site.
They camped on the “site of a cottage formerly owned by the Manhattan Club of New York City, and it is generally believed that this cottage was burned when the forests were taken over by the state. The stone fire places, the only remnant of the cottage…” were used for their bonfires.11
In 1893, Friend Bristol of Remsen had begun construction of a hotel on Seventh Lake’s state land, “high on a bluff.”
He may not have completed the building by the time he died suddenly only two years later at his Remsen hotel.
As mentioned earlier, the State would not have permitted it on forest preserve land.12
Mr. Maloney’s history mentions the names given to the Seventh Lake Island: “White” (for trapper Green White), “Indian Pines,” “Seventh Lake Island” and later “Goff Island.”13
I have found another name: “Gloria Island.”
In April 1889, F.E. Brahmer, Brayton B. Miller and Albert C. Boshart, prominent Lowville businessmen, began construction of the Miller Camp on the “Gloria Island.”
The camp was completed the next year and their families continued to summer at the camp for the next ten years or so.14
Examining an abstract for the Galvin lands, I could not find a sale of the island property to Miller or Boshart.
Furthermore, the 1889 Deed of Sale from the Munn Estate to the Galvin group mentioned no exclusions to the property sold other than the land taken for the Sixth Lake dam.
However, some accommodation must have occurred because the 1891–1892 Fulton Chain Club Prospectus identifies the Miller Camp on the tract and includes an illustration.15
Boshart would marry Caroline Moshier, sister of William D. Moshier. Often, John G. Moshier, their father, would join them at Miller’s island camp before he died in 1899.
William Moshier, with brother Charles, would acquire Fred Hess’s Hess Inn in October 1896.
A fire had occurred that summer and Moshier hired Boshart to make necessary repairs in the winter of 1896-1897.
In 1903, financial conditions resulted in Moshier losing the hotel, named The Arrowhead in July 1898 when Fred Hess built Hess Camp, and Boshart acquired it in 1904.
Boshart was the owner when Chester Gillette was captured in the Arrowhead lobby.
I did find where Brayton Miller had a new camp in 1899 and built a “modern” new camp during 1907 on the island.16
For the route from Fifth Lake to Raquette Lake, a steamer/ stage line of relays became by 1899, the Sixth and Seventh Lake Transportation Company run by William D. Moshier.
Disembarking, passengers and their cargo used the Eighth Lake and Raquette Lake Transportation Company operated by Charles Bennett for the rest of the trip. *17
To be continued…Past columns can be found at weeklyadk.com and adirondackalmanack.com