The Forge House: Owners, Proprietor & Managers, Part VIII The Old Forge Company Years: 1896-1915
In October 1895, Victor Adams assembled a group of investors together in Little Falls and secured an arrangement with Garmon and Crosby to purchase a 50% interest in the Forge Tract properties.
The group’s business plan was to enlarge and improve the Forge House, to build a railroad from Fulton Chain Station to the Forge House dock and to begin development of the tract into a resort town.
They would eventually also establish a transportation company that would buy the independent public steamers on the lower four lakes.
The name of the syndicate would be The Old Forge Company, often referred to as the Old Forge Improvement Company.
In addition to Garmon, Crosby and Adams, the directors would also include Nelson R. Gilbert, J. Judson Gilbert, Homer P. Snyder and Hadley Jones.
Samuel F. Garmon was the company’s first president and Titus Sheard was a director in the new railroad company.
The company soon completed surveys of the Forge Tract, laid out the first streets named after most of these individuals in Spring 1896 and filed the first village map with the Herkimer County Clerk’s Office.
The Old Forge Company owned the Forge House until it was sold to the Thomsons in 1915.
The Company would undergo several changes in corporate leadership during this period.
The Old Forge Company’s corporate life and dealings are a topic unto itself and will be dealt with in more detail in another article.
The company did determine to hire an on-site superintendent to oversee the operations of the Forge House, the new Fulton Chain Railroad and the Crosby Transportation Company. Before returning to the hotel’s proprietors, a brief mention of the people in this management layer who did have some say in hotel operations seems appropriate.
In 1896, the “superintendent” was Capt. John Crowley, a prominent Little Falls government buildings superintendent whose son published the Little Falls Times.
Subsequent superintendents would concentrate on the railroad and steamer companies.
He was succeeded in May 1897 by Harry G. Dale, a long time station agent for the New York Central in Little Falls.
In March 1899, Dale was succeeded by Clarence Rivenburg, a conductor on the Mohawk & Malone railway between Montreal and Utica.
Rivenburg performed this function for the Old Forge Company until the railroad and steamers were sold to Dr. Webb in April 1901.
He continued with the Fulton Navigation Company until his resignation in March 1902.
