— Part ONE —
On the south shore of Fourth Lake near the Herkimer/Hamilton County boundary is Holl’s Inn. According to a real estate ad in the Adirondack Express, the three story hotel on the 6-acre parcel closed in 2006.1
However, Holl’s Inn continued to advertise rooms and meals as late as 2008 and housekeeping cottages until 2009 in the local summer guides.
The hotel sold in 2013. Operating as Holl’s Inn since 1935, the hotel and its property has had a long history beginning with the first travelers to the head of Fourth Lake.
One of those travelers was Charles Pratt of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Up until the middle of the 19th Century, whale oil had been the predominant fuel for lamp lighting, its success due to its cheapness, despite it being quick burning and with a strong odor.
But in the 1850s, kerosene, distilled from coal and shale, was being developed on a wide scale.
Its longer burning and better smelling properties quickly made it a popular replacement for whale oil.2
In midcentury, Charles Pratt (1830-1891) worked initially in Boston, then New York City, for companies specializing in paints and whale oil products.
Recognizing the growing potential of lighting fuel from petroleum distillates, he became a pioneer in the new industry with the advent of new wells established in Western Pennsylvania.
In 1870, he and his partners formed the Astral Oil Works in Brooklyn, advertising kerosene that was “pure,” “unexplosive” and “free from objectionable odor.”
Competition with John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil resulted in Rockefeller’s suggestion of a merger, which occurred in 1874, with Pratt and his partners becoming officers and very wealthy.3
By the time this occurred, Pratt had discovered the Fulton Chain.
According to Joseph Grady, Jack Sheppard and Sam Dunakin built a camp for Charles Pratt in 1870 next to the Sheppard Camp on the south shore of Fourth Lake.
The Pratt Camp would be the fourth of what Grady termed the first four Fulton Chain “permanent” camps (the others being Snyder’s Cold Spring, Stickney’s and Albert Buell’s, later Bald Mountain House, camps).4
Traveling authors such as A. Judd Northrup and George Washington Sears witnessed the Pratt Camp being occupied by guides, guests and caretakers over the years.5
Pratt summered with his family at the camp for years until his death in 1891.
But Charles Pratt evidently did not have title to his camp’s land.
Originally included in a patent from the state in 1844 by Farrand N. Benedict and Marshall Shedd, Jr. for speculative purposes, the “Pratt lot” was part of a 6,000 plus acre portion of Moose River Tract Township 3 that was later owned by Permelia Munn and her heirs for over twenty years.
On March 13, 1889, James Galvin, Ephraim Myers, Allen Kilby, Charles Emery and Theodore Basselin signed an agreement as equal partners in the purchase of the Munn Tract, acreage encompassing a rectangle including the head of Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, two thirds of Seventh Lakes and a portion of Limekiln Lake’s shores.
For convenience purposes, the investors entrusted James Galvin to sign documents for this and subsequent land sales as their agent.
In a transaction dated May 1, 1889, the Munn estate (Permelia died in 1876) sold the tract to the group for $10,000.
The buyers planned to form a preserve called the Fulton Chain Club with membershiprules similar to the neighboring Adirondack League Club.6
To legitimize his ownership of the family camp of twenty years, in January 1890 Charles Pratt reportedly had purchased from Galvin twenty acres of lot 55 whereon his camp was located.
Surveyor Earl Phelps and guide Richard Crego would soon arrive on site to perform the necessary survey.
However, the report of the purchase also indicated an unnamed party had offered to purchase the Pratt Camp lot but had been refused by Galvin.
To be continued….