—Part six —
Shortly after the Galvin purchase, the newspapers reported on the new Fulton Chain hotels: Hess’s Hotel (soon to become Hess Camp, then the Wood and presently the Woods Inn), Charles Williams of Watson’s Lake View Hotel at Big Moose Lake and Duane Norton’s Seventh Lake hotel.
Norton’s hotel was described as the “main part to be thirty-two by sixty feet, with a wing thirty-four by forty feet, the whole structure two and half stories high.”
Norton’s sons Clifford and guide Raymond D. Norton were part of the construction team.
New furniture purchased for $1,000 from Lowville’s George Haberer was received in June.
The Seventh Lake House opened July 1, 1898.
Norton’s primary competition for public lodging during the inaugural season in newspaper ads was Charles Traffarn’s summer cottage.23
During the 1898 season, Thomas Edison, Jr., son of the famous inventor, temporarily camped at Seventh Lake, though using the newly named Arrowhead to communicate with his New York offices.
He experimented with a chemical process that saturated sponges with a sulphuric acid compound, attaching them to the piazza posts of hotels to exterminate the black flies.
He with three chemists hoped this would work to keep the bugs at a distance of 100 feet.
Unfortunately, they could not solve one problem: the solution induced the hotel patrons to sleep.24
Just a year after opening, the Lowville Journal and Republican reported in September 1899 that several lawyers were in court regarding Duane Norton and the Seventh Lake House.
The First National Bank of Rome filed a mechanics lien foreclosure against Norton, Peter Ossont, Edward Sholes, Christopher VanArnam, John Sprague, Henry Utley, Dwight B. Sperry, Carthage Savings Loan and Building Association, John Gasser and Herman Chapman.
A State Supreme Court proceeding decreed a property auction, which was held in August 1900 at Hess Camp, with the Carthage Savings and Loan Building Assoc. acquiring title with a bid of $4,200.
Under the bank’s ownership, Duane Norton and son Raymond continued to operate the Seventh Lake House until February 1903.25
In a transaction dated February 13, 1903, the bank sold the hotel property to Charles Williams of Big Moose Lake and Frank Williams, his brother, became proprietor.26
Raymond Norton continued as guide to service the guests.27 Duane Norton returned to his Lewis County farm and mill operations, also becoming the first Game Warden for that County. He died at Otter Creek in 1935.
After working at the Seventh Lake House for a few years, Raymond leased camps at Fifth Lake and Limekiln Lake (later the site of Delmarsh Inn), continuing service as a well-known local guide and camp caretaker.
Raymond died in 1919.28
Among Frank Williams’ first improvements was assisting with the July 1903 installation of a telephone line from his brother Charles’ hotel to Eagle Bay station, Hess Camp, Sixth Lake Dam house to the Seventh Lake House.29 When Frank advertised the Seventh Lake House in 1903, the only road was through the new town of Inlet to the Sixth Lake dam.
He was still offering the same directions Norton gave for the hotel: Raquette Lake Railroad connection to Eagle Bay Station, two miles by stage to Sixth Lake, then one mile by steamer (J.G. Moshier) to the hotel.30
But road improvements soon changed positively, though temporarily, for the hotel and eventually negatively for the steamer company.
Before selling the hotel, Norton petitioned the new town of Inlet in 1902 to build a bridge over the Seventh Lake outlet to improve access.
The town approved the building of a bridge for year round traffic over the outlet of Seventh Lake in October 1904 and Charles Williams was given the task for expanding the road from Sixth Lake Dam to the Seventh Lake House.
The bridge was in place by 1906 when newspaper accounts reported A.H. Barber using his launch to reach his camp, coming up through the channel and just under the bridge at the outlet.
The Seventh Lake House added a new boathouse for the1906 season.31
In early July 1906, a major fire occurred at Seventh Lake.
Esther and Edwin Sherwood were rescued in time from the balcony of their father’s burning camp.
This fire destroyed both Dr. Sherwood’s and the neighboring Charles Traffarn camp.
The children were saved by Woodholme’s William Wood who used a ladder to reach the children in time.
Wood later died in 1941; his obituary noted his operating Woodholme for 26 years.32
To be continued…