Hint: Not the kind of tanning you might expect. A look at the twin trades of leather-making and tourism in Caroga Lake
Story and photos by Tom French
When I signed up for the AARCH (Adirondack Architectural Heritage) tour of Caroga Lake, I didn’t look at the title. It was the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round in the picture that caught my eye. So given the times, please excuse my first thought as I read Tanning, Tourism, and the Arts on the program when I arrived for the tour.
Tourism and tanning are two words that often go together, but creating leather out of hides is definitively not a recreational activity. Necessary to prevent hides and skins from rotting, civilizations have been tanning for almost 10,000 years using various trees (and other materials including brains), but hemlock became the bark of choice for the tanning moguls of 19th-century New York City. As supplies dried up in the Catskills and along the Hudson, operations moved into the Adirondacks.
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Many Adirondack communities have roots in tanning, the fifth largest industry in the United States by the 1850s. One of the most well-documented and largest in New York was in Wheelerville, 12 miles north of Gloversville (where close to 90% of all gloves in the United States were manufactured until the 1950s). Caroga is also unique because the businessman behind the operation, future governor and congressman of Massachusetts, William Claflin, had a vision beyond resource extraction toward creating a vacation destination.
Caroga is also unique because the businessman behind the operation, future governor and congressman of Massachusetts, William Claflin, had a vision beyond resource extraction toward creating a vacation destination.
The AARCH tour began at the Caroga Historical Museum along the London Bridge Road off Routes 10 and 29a – a collection of buildings, some moved to the site, that include an historic family homestead, cobbler’s shop, ice house, and the Arcade, a substantial collection of artifacts from the heyday of Sherman’s Amusement Park.
The pegged barn, a 150-year-old structure with a history of two farms and a Girl Scout camp, includes a significant display about the tanning history of the area. Much of the exhibit is based on research by Barbara McMartin, renown author of the Adirondacks who died in 2005. In addition to her guidebooks, McMartin, a lifelong resident of the area, was considered an authority on the history of tanning in the Adirondacks and published Hides, Hemlocks, and Adirondack History in 1992.
Denny Fincke, a museum trustee and guide for the tour, began by explaining how his house, built in the early 1850s and part of the AARCH Tour, may be the “first vacation home” in the Adirondacks.
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While touring glove factories in Johnstown and Gloversville in the late-1840s, Claflin, co-owner of a shoe and boot business with his father, fell in love with the area, purchased land, and built a summer home. Years later, in 1865, realizing his Massachusetts hemlock supplies were dwindling, he purchased 20,000 more acres with an abundance of hemlock and established a tannery along an inlet to Canada Lake. In addition to building company houses and a store (later the Nick Stoner Golf Course clubhouse that burned in 2020), he converted his vacation home into a boarding house. Jonathan Wheeler, among others, was tasked to run the operation.
Wheelerville became the largest tannery in the state, but by 1888, with a declining hemlock supply and other changes in the industry, it closed. All that remains of the leaching sheds and drying barns is a historic marker, a few houses, and overgrown troughs in the woods next to the golf course.
But Claflin’s venture with a five-story, grand hotel on the shores of Canada Lake, built in 1866 at the same time as his tannery operation, demonstrated the area’s potential as a resort. After his hotel, the first Canada Lake House, burned in 1884, he began subdivided the shoreline into “cottage lots” for “summer residents and excursionists.”
Claflin’s Canada Lake House burned in 1884, but other hotels were built. Claflin was not the only wealthy entrepreneur to recognize the potential for tourism. James Fulton’s Canada Lake House opened in 1888 followed by the Auskerada in 1893. By the 1890s, several steamers plied the waters.
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In 1897, Alfred Dolge, founder of Dolgeville, created the Auskerada Park Club. The brochure renamed the lakes and created a fictional Native American hero. Unfortunately, poor business decisions resulted in bankruptcy. In 1904, Dolge’s properties were acquired by future U.S. Rep. Cyrus Durey and others who planned to harvest timber and further develop the area’s potential as a summer resort. Durey is often associated with road building in the early part of the 20th century which made it easier for tourists to visit.
Between the tanning industry and later lumber mills, significant amounts of timber were harvested by the 1920s. Fincke shared photos taken from the 12th hole of the golf course in 1935 “without a tree in sight right down to Sherman’s (Amusement Park)” over a mile away.
By the 1920s, Durey’s interest turned toward a “recreational park” including an airfield for sightseeing rides. When that venture failed, he focused on what would become the Nick Stoner Golf Course – the oldest, continuously-operated, 18-hole golf course in the Adirondacks. Named after the Revolutionary War veteran and backwoodsman, the first six holes opened in 1925. Holes seven and eight were finished by 1926, and the back nine were added by 1929. Because of a proviso written into the deed, the course was prevented from closing during the depression and war years.
The New York State Conservation Department (now the DEC) opened the Caroga Lake Campground in the late 1920s, and three amusement parks opened in the area as well, including Sherman’s, where an operating carousel, lighted Ferris wheel and a bumper car pavilion can still be seen as part of the Caroga Arts Collective.
The Caroga Historical Museum is open from late June until through August, 1:00 to 4:00 Thursday through Sunday. More information can be found at https://www.carogamuseum.org/.
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Although I have lived in Western NY for many yany years I grew up in Fort Plain and have many pleasant memories of time spent at Caroga Lake and Shermans. Although the years have brought many changes It is nice to know that Caroga Lake community is preserving its history.
While most of the article is accurate, the paragraph near the end regarding the founding of the Nick Stoner Golf Course contains both wrong and misleading information. As a consequence your readers will conclude that Cy Durey was the founder of the golf course when, in fact, he was not. The true founder of the Nick Stoner Golf Course was my grandfather, Alfred Dudley Dennison. He first came up with the idea for a golf course for Caroga to help Caroga grow as a destination for visitors and vacationers just as Claflin had envisioned. The only involvement Durey had was to accede to my grandfather’s request that he, Durey, donate land for the first six holes, which Durey did. My grandfather then donated his own land for additional holes, hired Channing Floyd to design and build the course, and then become its first head pro. In its early years my grandfather along with a few of his associates (not including Cy Durey) managed the course until my grandfather turned it over to the Town of Caroga in 1936. Also the dates in the article are wrong. The first six holes opened for play in 1926 (not 1925), the next three holes in 1929 (not 1926), and the second nine holes in 1935 (not 1929). To get the true story about the founding of the Nick Stoner Golf Course your readers should read the article in the Leader Herald by the County Historian dated June 23, 2003. It was my grandfather’s philanthropic work for Caroga in a number of areas that brought Claflin’s vision for Caroga to fruition.
Hello Denny — Thanks for reading and commenting. My information regarding the golf course comes from Barbara McMartin’s “Caroga: An Adirondack Town Recalls Its Past,” available on the Caroga Museum website (https://www.carogamuseum.org/?page_id=1837), pages 217-219. My apologies if more recent information regarding the dates has come to light.
I must have been on this same tour! Even though I have been to the Adirondacks many times (grew up near Watertown, NY) I never knew about Caroga Lake and its history. I was very impressed with all that is being done to preserve the history of the tanning industry and Sherman’s Amusement Park.
Thanks for sharing.
Hello Denny — I double checked the dates in the June, 2003, Herald Leader article that you cite, and it seems to confirm the McMartin dates. The Herald Leader article says, “The first six holes were completed and put into use in 1925.” The article goes on to say that “holes seven, eight, an nine were completed in 1926,” and “the second nine holes… were completed… in 1929.” If you have different information, it would be good to know the source. Thanks again for your part in the AARCH Tour and help with the article.
I would like to add that as the former Town Historian for Caroga Lake and the Confidential Secretary to the former Town Supervisor, Scott Horton, I have discussed and researched what Denny Fincke provided to you in his follow-up before this article was written. In fact Mr. Fincke provided a well tuned overview of the history of the Nick Stoner Municipal Golf Course this past summer. I believe that accuracy of dates is critical now more than ever, as most folks won’t go back and fact check current reporting. The golf course was opened in 1926, not 1925, by Denny Fincke’s grandfather Alfred Dennison. This made Dennison the sole founder of the Nick Stoner Golf Course. There are records that show Cy Durey donating the land for the first six holes to Alfred Dennison. The next three holes opened in 1929, and the second nine holes opened in 1935. I hope this helps.
Hello Tor — Thanks for reading and commenting. I agree that the accuracy of history is important. As I replied to Mr. Fincke, the source he cited and the well-established Barbara McMartin confirm the dates in the article. If new, additional, and/or different information has come to light, it’s important to know the source of the that information.