Home away from home on Valcour Island

Jan. 23—PLATTSBURGH — Valcour Island ranks as one of the most spectacular summer destinations, past and present, on the Adirondack Coast.

The Clinton County Historical Association presents "The early 20th Century on Valcour Island" by Roger Harwood 6:45 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 31, at Lake Forest Senior Living Community, 8 Lake Forest Dr., Plattsburgh. Admission is free.

Roger Hardwood was among the CCHA members working on the lighthouse restoration in the 1990s.

"We realized we were looking for something to put in the lighthouse rather than just have a blank structure that we had restored," he said.

"So, we got interested in the other buildings that were on the island. There was really only one other building, and that's the Seton House, which was a summer camp. In looking around, we realized and talking to people there were lots of them out there. There were 20 altogether. So, I stated doing research. I started talking to people that were still alive that had camps out there."

SETON HOUSE

The Bluff Point Lighthouse and Seton House are the only two remaining buildings on the island located about a half mile from the Peru Dock.

Harvard paleontologist Henry Seton built this home in 1929 on his 129 acres of land, according to the Valcour Island Heritage Trail Guide.

"He was a fairly wealthy person," Harwood said.

"I have stories about him. The state eventually took his property. We have pictures of the inside of it. It's a stone building. The reason why it's there is because the state wasn't able to tear it down very easily. It will fall down eventually. Because it's in the Adirondack Park, because of land (constraints), there couldn't be any buildings out there because it's 'Forever Wild.' I might not have the right terms, but basically there couldn't be any structures out there. The lighthouse was exempt because that was federal property. It was an aid to navigation."

The stone for Seton House was quarried along the shores of Valcour Island. The two-story home has three bedrooms on the second level with a full bath. Downstairs is a kitchen, dining room and living room.

"The master bedroom is almost half the house and so is the living room," he said.

"It was a big project at its time. I did meet his daughter. She lived in Shelburne. She had property over there and her own church. I think All Souls or something like that on Shelburne Point. I had the good fortune to meet her at a presentation that I did at the (Lake Champlain) Basin Program in Vermont. Several of the people didn't live here.

I'm comparing it to the people that built those mansions in the Thousand Islands. They were great summer places, even though they were from much larger areas."

MEMORY LANE

In gathering information on Valcour Island's inhabited past, Hardwood spoke with Donald Derby, owner of the Old Lantern Gun Shop across from the boat dock.

"His dad spent time out there, and he spent time out there as a kid," he said.

"His dad helped tear down some of the camps that were out there. I knew Harney Davey whose family had had the farm and other buildings out there. That's how we got started and it turned into a much bigger project."

Anthony "Tony" Tyrell was a caretaker on Valcour Island for decades.

"He had stories and knew some of the people," Harwood said.

"I was fortunate to have an opportunity to gather the data while these people were still alive. Addie Shields was another contributor. She knew some of the people, grew up with some of the folks, who were out there and that's another part of the story. There were a lot of the people that pitched into this thing, and we put it together. I've done the presentation several times. I haven't done it in eight years or so now."

The late City Historian Jim Bailey also contributed to Harwood's research.

"Jim had access to county records and could find out who lived where at what time based on the tax rolls," he said.

"There were a lot of people that contributed to this thing. Now, it's kind of a history lesson as to what went on because it's all gone. The state owns the entire island now. Parks started buying and burning properties in the early '60s and finished in the '80s I believe. They were burning or tearing them down. When the Adirondack Park was formed, the Blue Line was drawn around Valcour Island to preserve it. That's why it's all public land there."

CAMP HAVEN

The camps on the island included Dr. Otto Raboff's Great Camp, Hudson, Moore & Yager Camps (SUNY Plattsburgh geology professor Dr. George Hudson, Msgr. Robert Edward Moore, and M.H. "Doc" Yager),

Hitchcock/Trombley Camp, Harney Camp (Thomas Harney and his sister Rita Davey), Charles Kilbourne Camp, Washbourne Camps (Robert, Lynn, and their father John Washbourne), Grant Camps (Kent and his son, John).

"Some camped," Harwood said.

"Some lived out there as long as the season permitted. I will show people evidence that this was actually a community. Clinton County Historical Association has a picture of a birthday party. There was a community, about a 1,000 acres.

The bottom line is there was a community based on the pictures that we have and the stories that we have."

Island dwellers had their own boats to go back and forth.

"It wasn't far unless they were going to the other side of the island, and then that was a bit treacherous," he said.

"There was a large camp on the other side of the island. I talked to a man who grew up there. Originally, it was built by a priest and then he left it to the Grey Nuns (of the Sacred Heart) organization that had Champlain Valley Hospital at the college. Part of it was torn down, and then they merged with Physicians Hospital. They inherited this camp out there, and they didn't want anything to do with it. So, they sold it to a man from Albany."

Harwood spent time out there when his children were small.

"It's been in private hands since it was surveyed," he said.

"I believe (Zephaniah) Platt owned it. It was surveyed in three or four parcels in the 1800s, and then divided up and people owned pieces of property."

By 1870, Orren Shipman of Colchester, Vermont, had purchased the titles of two parcels, according to the guide.

He sold a portion of Bluff Point, on the western side of the island to the federal government for a lighthouse, which was constructed in 1874. That year, Shipman also sold property to the Dawn Valcour Agricultural and Horticultural Association, a Utopian community that failed. Its founder, Colonel John Wilcox, "attempted to create a commune here based on the concepts of spiritualism and free love during the summer of 1874. His short-lived dream, with only a few active members, was confined to a small one-room structure. That fall, the Dawn Community succumbed to financial challenges, legal issues and the coming winter. All that remains is a partial foundation of their building."

"There are two wells on the island, and at least two springs that we know of that the Dawn Community used," Harwood said.

"It was a free love community out there. It's hard to believe but they weren't out there long. People make a lot about it. It was 1874-75. They were going to have a utopia place out there. It was kind of scam, but a lot has been written about it, and I try not to. I do know where they were located. We did find part of their house. They were only there for a year."

GIRLS/BOYS CAMPS

Brown Ledge, a girls camp established in 1926, is now located in Vermont and its campers continue to have overnight stays on Valcour Island.

Camp Penn/Shuttleworth Cottage was an early 20th century boys camp.

"We have lots of images of them," Harwood said.

"They were from Philadelphia, I believe. They were there about 20 years. We know where they were. We have pictures of some of the buildings. Lots of pictures of the kids out there building things. It was a military-type camp, which were popular in the '20s after World War I."

ISLAND FARMS

The Gill Farm used to deliver milk to Camp Penn. The boys there worked on the farm when the camp operated in the early 1900s, according to the guide.

"The boys camp I think raised most of their food on the farm," Harwood said.

The Harney family owned about 600 acres on the north end of the island. The Harney Farm is sometimes referred to as the "Pioneer Farm."

"The farm was there way before 1874 when the lighthouse opened because they used animals from the farm, rented them, horses and oxen, to build the lighthouse," Harwood said.

"Shipman sold the property for the lighthouse in the early 1870s. He owned that whole north end. At some point, the Harney family got it. The story began with the lighthouse partly because the lighthouse was a camp at one time."

Harwood's presentation recounts the tale of what was there, what happened, and why it happened on Valcour Island.

"There are a lot of stories attached to this place," he said.

Email: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com

Twitter@RobinCaudell