In 1924, the Seventh Lake House’s builder Duane Norton returned at age 80 to view the changes at the hotel built when he was a “young feller” of 52!
He remarked that “the same boards were in the counter at the desk that he had put there and also the clock was one which had been put on the wall when the hotel opened” in 1898.
The writing room still contained a table built by Norton with logs from the trunks of small trees of the same shape and size which took him considerable time to find.
He was accompanied by his grand- and great-grandchildren.41
Frank Breen was one of the Inlet residents chosen for the jury that convicted guide Ernest Duane for the murder of Eula Davis in 1927, a trial which received as much local attention as the Gillette trial.
In 1929, the highway ending at Seventh Lake was finally extended to Raquette Lake, Blue Mountain Lake and points northward.
The extension of the state road followed the aforementioned turn to the right that stopped abruptly in 1916 and directed drivers onward through the woods past Raquette Lake.
Tourist traffic now travelled north past the turn for the Seventh Lake Bridge and the Seventh Lake Hotel.
Breen’s health forced him to return the hotel ownership, including a large mortgage to Charles Williams to Charles’ son Fred Williams in February, 1944.42
Later in 1944 Fred sold the hotel to J. Perry (Pitt) Smith who operated the hotel until 1954 when he sold his interests to Joseph Spiotta.
Pitt’s daughter Lynda Smith Kellogg recalled that, during her father’s management, a highlight of the summer season was the weekly cookout on Buster Bird’s boat “Osprey.”
The food included steak, fried potatoes, corn on the cob and a dessert, cooked by guide Red Perkins.43
Elizabeth “Nibs” Williams, Pitt Smith’s wife, was the granddaughter of Charles Williams, the 1903 purchaser of the hotel from Duane Norton.
Her mother, Mary Breen Williams, was the sister of Frank Breen.
In 1956, Joseph Spiotta sold the buildings and property to Charles Vosburg and the hotel was auctioned on August 4, 1956.
A description of the property given was “300 acres of land with a 1500 foot front including a bathing beach and boat pier. There are five furnished lake front cottages with fireplaces. The five service buildings house the laundry, coolers, garages, shop and employee dormitories. The hotel building has 30 sleeping rooms and several bath and service rooms.”44
Shortly after the auction, the hotel building was taken down (some say burned), the property was subdivided and the original buildings either have been remodeled or have suffered the same fate.45
The Seventh Lake House suffered the same fate as many of the large hotels built by the turn of the 20th century.
Vacationers who used to take trains and steamers to reach the lake resorts, staying a month or so, now drove from destination staying a day a weekend or a week, or even now owned a camp with all of the conveniences of home.
With the automobile, they stayed at smaller “motoring hotels” with parking lots for their vehicles, later called motels.
Large hotels like the Seventh Lake House were no longer sufficiently profitable while being expensive to maintain.
But for its time, the hotel was a popular destination at a mostly private location on, even today, a still somewhat remote lake.
To those current camp owners and others who have given me assistance with this article, I wish to express my thanks and appreciation.
Photos are from my collection and the Goodsell Museum.
—
1 Before There Was Inlet I”, Charles Herr, June 20, 2011; The Privately Held Adirondacks, Barbara McMartin, p.22, Lake View Press, 2004.
2 Map of the Lands of J. Milton Buell at the Old Forge on Moose River and the Fulton Chain of Lakes, Brown’s Tract, N.Y.”, 1875, Adirondack Museum Library.
3 Annual Report of the Forest Commission For the Year 1893, Vol. II, 1894, James B. Lyon, State Printers.
4 Utica Sunday Tribune, July 16, 1899.
5 “Canoing the Adirondacks with Nessmuk”, p. 101, Dan Brenan, Editor, 1993, Adirondack Museum/Syracuse University Press.
6 Syracuse Daily Journal, Mar. 15, 1878.
7 Nessmuk, p.102;”The Story of a Wilderness”, Joseph F. Grady, p. 188, 2002, North Country Books; Rome Daily Sentinel, Aug. 23 1886.
8 Rome Daily Sentinel, Aug. 23, 1886.
9 “Before There Was Inlet II”, Charles Herr, January 31, 2009.
10 Grady, p. 188; Boonville Herald, June 7, 1887; Boonville Herald, May 28 1891; Rome Daily News, June 1, 1901; Utica Daily Press, June 12, 1903.
11 Geneva Daily Times, Sept. 2, 1920.
12 Boonville Herald, Oct. 26, 1893; Utica Weekly Herald, Aug. 6, 1895.
13 Maloney, p. 106.
14 Utica Weekly Herald, Feb. 14, 1889; Watertown Times, March 8,1890; Syracuse Daily Herald, Sept. 6,1896; Lowville Journal & Republican, Sept. 19, 1907; Utica Morning Herald, Aug. 31, 1896.
15 Prospectus of the Fulton Chain Club 1891-1892, Adirondack Museum Library.
16 Watertown Daily Times, July 21, 1899; Lowville Journal & Republican, Sept. 19 1907.
17 Utica Sunday Tribune, July 16 1899.
18 Abstract of Title (for the Galvin Allotment purchased in 1889), Elmer Ostrander, clerk, Dec. 20, 1900.
19 Boonville Herald, Spring, 1898; Hamilton County Deeds, James and Jennie Galvin to Isaac C. Goff, 12/26/1900, Book 36, p. 483.
20 Syracuse Daily Standard, Aug. 13, 1899.
21 Utica Sunday Tribune, July 16 1899.
22 Lowville Journal and Republican, Jan. 10, 1935, June 7, 1888, Sept. 8, 1880; Black River Democrat, Jan. 10, 1935; Lewis County Democrat, Sept. 8, 1880.
23 Utica Observer, April 12, 1898; Utica Daily Press June 10, 1898, July 4, 1898 and Aug. 31, 1898;, Lewis County Democrat, May 4, 1898; Lowville Journal & Republican, June 2, 1898.
24 Utica Observer, April 12, 1898; The DeRuyter Gleaner, August 18, 1898.
25 Lowville Journal and Republican, Sept. 29, 1899; Hamilton County Deeds, 2/24/1900, Duane Norton, et al foreclosure, and 12/27/1900, E.J. Westcott to Carthage Savings Loan and Building Assoc., Book 36, pp. 486-490; Utica Daily Press, 6/15/1901; Syracuse Post Standard, 7/6/1902.
26 Hamilton County Deeds, to Carthage Savings Loan and Building Assoc. to Charles Williams, 3/6/1903, Book 40, p.311.
27 Lewis County Democrat, April 1, 1903; Lowville Journal & Republican, February 5, 1903.
28 Syracuse Post Standard July 7, 1911; Lowville Journal & Republican April 3, 1919;Black River Democrat Jan. 10, 1935.
29 Lowville Journal & Republican, July 2, 1903.
30 Utica Daily Press, July 15, 1903.
31 History of Hamilton County, pp. 569-570, Ted Aber & Stella King, Great Wilderness Books, 1965; Utica Daily Press, Aug. 4, 1906; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 29, 1906; Adirondack Echo, Aug. 26, 1992.
32 Rome Daily Sentinel, July 9, 1906; Syracuse Herald Journal, January 1941.
33 Utica Daily Press, November 23, 1906; Utica Herald Dispatch and Daily Gazette, Nov. 22, 1906.
34 Boonville Herald, October, 1913.
35 Ted Aber and Stella King, p. 574; Mary Jane Hasemeier email, March 22, 2013.
36 Syracuse Herald, June 18, 1916.
37 Hamilton County Deeds, Charles Williams to Frank Williams, 5/16/1916, Book 51, p. 77; Lowville Journal & Republican, April 12, 1917, March 9, 1916, Syracuse Herald 1916.
38 Hamilton County Deeds, Frank Williams