Arnold’s Manor would begin an architectural decline that terminated with its burning in May 1896.

Cyrus advertised the new hotel as a “first-class country hotel” and that supplies, guides and boats were available.

The hotel’s business started slow and was beginning to pick up when Cyrus drowned at Limekiln Lake in November 1872.

He and his 10-year-old son Will were deer hunting with Daniel Sears, Sam Dunakin and Jack Sheppard.

His son watched from the shore as his dad faltered after tipping his boat on the lake.

The newspapers described Cyrus as noted “for his good qualities, as well as for his skill as a guide, hunter, trapper and fisherman.”

Jane Sperry ran the hotel for a brief period in 1873 and returned to Boonville that year.

She and Will later built a camp on Fourth Lake and she married a guide named Andrew Alexander.

Jane Alexander died in Boonville in February 1903. Will Sperry became a guide, a steamer pilot and camp builder.

After Mrs. Sperry, the Forge House was managed in 1873-1874 by guide Bart Halliday (sometimes spelled “Holliday”) who was joined in 1875 by Ed Arnold.

The Utica Morning Herald announced in July 1873 that Charlie Phelps and Halliday were “postal carding” the Forge House.

An 1874 Syracuse newspaper described the manager of the “Old Forge Hotel,” Mr. Halliday, as having come to the region as a consumptive twenty years before, regained his health, became a competent guide and now kept the hotel.

After Ed Arnold’s term as proprietor, he guided and operated Fulton Chain camps, and died in 1906.

During this period, changes also occurred in the ownership of the Forge Tract. Buell & Desbrough had mortgaged the tract to the Lyon Estate for $1,700 to pay for improvements.

Due to a resurgence of his health problems, Desbrough left the partnership and purchased a summer residence in 1875 at Port Bay in Wayne County that grew into a health resort for his patients.

Desbrough still administered to the Lyon family in the 1880s and also expanded his drug business overseas.

He organized a mica mining company in 1886 that achieved modest results from minerals extracted on Township 7 lands.

His tract today at Port Bay still carries the name Desbrough Park.

On August 15, 1874, the partnership dissolved and its assets were obtained via auction by J. Milton Buell; his bid was $11,700.

In addition to the Forge Tract, Buell also acquired the 250 acre Grant Lot “at the old landing at the head of Third Lake” and assumed the outstanding mortgage.

On September 27, 1875, Buell conveyed the Forge Tract to his daughter S. Addie who in January 1876 sold the hotel and tract to Alexander Byron Lamberton of Rochester for $30,000.

Lamberton assumed the Lyon Estate mortgage and an additional one to an L. C. Thompson for $4,500, both due for payment at the time of the sale.

S. Addie sold the Grant Lot to Albert G. Buell a few months later.

J. Milton Buell moved to Rochester and worked as a coal agent, retired, died in 1901 and was buried in Westmoreland.

S. Addie also lived in Rochester, taught music, died in 1917 and was buried with her parents.

Continued Next Week….