Before there was Inlet II: James Galvin and the Fulton Chain Club

PART ONE

For us and many other property owners in Inlet, the abstract of title invariably lists James and Jennie Galvin as early, if not the first, owners.

But until I performed the research for this narrative, I believed as have other Inlet landowners and early 20th century newspapers that the Galvins were sole owners of the 6000 acres surrounding the Head of Fourth Lake.

I learned that he was an agent for the Fulton Chain Club and it was through his efforts that the land was sold for hotels and camps, and ultimately to the first residents of Inlet.

James Galvin, the son of an Irish immigrant, was born on March 6, 1835 in the town of Wilna, Jefferson County.

His father, Edward, was a successful farmer and also managed a prosperous charcoal production trade. Edward was also a founding trustee of Carthage’s St. James Church.

James is listed as a farmhand and a farmer on the 1850 and 1860 censuses, respectively.

But from the age of fifteen, he dealt in horses and cattle and became successful in buying stock both in New York and Canada.

He commanded large credit.

To be continued..

Before there was Inlet I: Farrand Benedict, the Shedds and the Munns

PART FOUR

In 1848, the Shedd brothers built a “gang-mill” utilizing 32 saws on the Moose River a mile from its junction with the Black River.

In 1855, the Shedds were sued for damages by Lyman R. Lyon, then owner of John Brown’s Tract.

Apparently they hired Ed Arnold to drive logs in 1848 cut from the Inlet area.

Evidently, Arnold and his coworker named Sutton cut a section from the Forge log dam on Lyon’s lands and drove 300 logs down the Moose River to Shedds’ Mills (Utica Semi Weekly Herald).

The Shedds lived in Leyden where Henry would become Greig’s town supervisor (1857-1859).

In the 1850s, Henry became joint owner of the lands his brother received from Benedict.

They also sold hundreds of acres to the Sacketts Harbor and Saratoga R.R.

Failing financially, the Shedds obtained funds from their stepmother’s sister living in Willsborough, Johanna Pember-ton, who obtained a $7000 mortgage in 1857. Continue reading →

Before there was Inlet I: Farrand Benedict, the Shedds and the Munns

PART THREE

Two years after Benedict submitted his report (1848), the railroad baton was passed as the Sacketts Harbor and Saratoga Railroad was chartered and its directors accepted Benedict’s data for their route through the Eckford Chain, Raquette Lake and Fulton Chain in the western Adirondacks.

Also in 1848, Benedict with David Read purchased Township 40 (Totten & Crossfield Purchase) from the state which includes Raquette Lake. Read later sold his interest to Benedict.

Lack of surveys of this acreage later resulted in the uncertain title issues of that region for property owners today.

In 1855, Benedict provided survey data to groups looking for additional supplies of water for the Erie and Black River Canals. Benedict recommended dams for storage reservoirs at Old Forge and Sixth Lake that were not built until 1880.

In 1860, Benedict’s 1846 study was listed as a source for a successor to the Sacketts Harbor and Saratoga R. R., the Adirondac Estate and Railroad Co., which planned to use Benedict’s “proposed system of inland navigation.”

Three years later, this company dissolved and its lands and rights were obtained by the Adirondack Company, builder of the railroad to North Creek.

The Utica Morning Herald in 1865 referred to Benedict as that company’s “engineer.”

At this time, Utica was seeking railroad extensions of the Black River R. R. to the Fulton Chain to obtain cheap fuel for the city and lumber for construction and railroads.

Benedict advised this “Wilderness Project” leader, Rutger B. Miller, in December 1865 that the Adirondack Company railroad from Saratoga was complete for 14 miles and another 25 miles would be finished in a month. Continue reading →

Before there was Inlet I: Farrand Benedict, the Shedds and the Munns

PART TWO

Marshall S. Shedd Jr.’s father, Rev. Marshall S. Shedd, was born in Cambridge, MA in 1786, married Eliza Thayer, whose father Obadiah was also a minister, in April 1818.

The Shedds had six children, three of whom were sons Marshall, Jr. (1822), Henry (1824) and William (Greenough Thayer) G. T. Shedd (1820).

Two children died young and an invalid daughter Elizabeth would die in Willsborough in 1872, the same year Rev. Shedd died.

Rev. Shedd had graduated from Dartmouth in 1817, was a member of Rev. William Green-ough’s Congregational Church in Newton, MA and became pastor of the First Congregational Church in Acton, MA in 1820 where his children were born.

Though successfully starting a temperance movement in Acton, parochial differences between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism resulted in a decision to resign and he moved to Willsborough (Willsboro), NY in 1831.

Eliza’s father also moved with the family.

Rev. Shedd was a founder of Willsborough’s First Congrega-tional Church and preached for two years.

Eliza died in February 1833.

In 1835 Rev. Shedd married Mary Elizabeth R. R. Pemberton, a daughter of Boston teacher Ebenezer Pemberton, who moved with her husband to Wills-borough, bringing her unmarried sister Johanna Pemberton and a brother, William Whitwell. Ebenezer had been principal of the Phillips Academy that Rev. Shedd attended as a youth in Andover, MA. Continue reading →

Before there was Inlet I: Farrand Benedict, the Shedds and the Munns

PART ONE

On November 27, 1901, the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an act that created a new town from northern Morehouse, with the South Branch of the Moose River dividing the two towns.

Afterwards, Inlet held its first town meeting on January 14, 1902.

Presently (2009), the Adirondack Park Agency reports that Inlet consists of 42,446 acres of which just under 4,000 acres is not state land.

But this narrative is about the over 6,000 acres in the northerly Part of Township 3 of the Moose River Tract surrounding the “Head of Fourth Lake,” as Inlet was formerly known, and the connections among the speculators who owned it prior to Inlet’s creation. Continue reading →

Fulton Chain Steamers III: The Fulton Navigation Co. Years, 1901–1932

Part III-Conclusion

After 1910, the motor car became the favored mode of transport in the region and across America and to this day has not been replaced.

This reduced the steamers to excursion or freight duties.

They were advertised as being free from sharks, submarines and torpedoes during World War I.

When the Old Forge-Eagle Bay highway was paved in 1926, the “Clearwater” was in its twilight and soon retired with the “Mohegan,” “Nehasane” and a few years later, the “Old Forge.”

When three steamers burned in the 1927 Raquette Lake village fire, there were discussions about moving the “Clearwater” to that location.

But highways soon completed to Blue Mountain Lake removed that need.

A 1934 Boonville Herald article recalling the “Nehasane” indicated that the steamer was scrapped “a few years ago,” the boat cut in half and towed to Old Forge and burned. Perhaps the “Old Forge” and “Mohegan” were destroyed at that time.

The Hollywood Hills Corporation leased the “Clearwater” in 1930 and ran “Friendship Tours” on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The Fulton Navigation Company ceased operations in 1932 with only the steamers “Irocosia” and “Clearwater” remaining.

A year later, the “Clearwater” was purchased by the Hollywood Hills Corporation, repainted and restored from its “mothballs.”

The organization planned to use it for moonlight cruises from their development’s dock. Continue reading →

Fulton Chain Steamers III: The Fulton Navigation Co. Years, 1901–1932

PART TWO

A few years after purchasing the “Adirondack,” the Company shipped it to Raquette Lake for use with the “Killoquah” and it later burned in 1927 in a village fire that burned both steamers and the “Sagamore.”

The Raquette Lake Railroad diverted the patronage previously relying on the Fulton Chain steamers.

But another mode of transportation would seriously impact steamer and railroad patronage.

In 1908, the boats operating on the Chain lakes were “Clearwater,” “Nehasane,” “Mohegan,” “Old Forge,” “Myra” and “Marion.”

The latter two were later transferred to Raquette Lake. In 1910, the “Irocosia” was shipped from Raquette Lake to the Fulton Chain.

In 1922, Old Forge Village was able to obtain approval for building a dock to the left of the Codling meat plant near the state dam on land leased from the state, twenty years too late for John Sprague.

Agitation for a public dock had been growing for years as campers and motor boat operators had to dock at the Company’s docks or those of private camps.

In 1923, Maurice Callahan and his associates purchased the Fulton Navigation Company steamers from the heirs of the Raquette Lake Railroad and continued to run its operations as well as those of the Raquette Lake Transportation Company.

Continued Next Week…