Seneca Ray Stoddard

Merrill House, ca. 1890s

MANY have wanted me to write a book about the Merrill House. Indeed a book could be filled with stories of this famous old hotel, but I never found the time even to start such a book. Now I am asked to write an article on its history. It is rather late in life for me to undertake anything more than a brief sketch.

Darius Merrill, founder of the little hamlet of Merrill, came into this area from New Hampshire and selected a choice spot in the wilderness on the shore of Upper Chateaugay Lake, a short distance above the Narrows, which connects the Upper and Lower lakes (Upper Chateaugay Lake lies in Clinton County; Lower Chateaugay lies in Franklin County). Here he cut down the trees and built a log building — all the logs hewed by hand and dovetailed together — with a boat house underneath and two rooms above. This he lived in until he built what was the beginning of Merrill House, a building of huge logs to be used as a fishing and hunting lodge.

Soon it became so popular that more room was needed and he added to it. This was over 100 years ago. There is no one left now who knows the exact date. In 1869 a large addition was built and also a cottage at the end of the hotel for a Dr Angell from New Jersey. This was attached to the hotel by a porch.

When Darius Merrill died, his son Shepherd Merrill came into possession of the property, and he, about 75 years ago, sold it to my father, Oliver Young, who spent the remainder of his life in it.

My father enlarged the hotel, putting up a three-story addition. He established in the hotel a post office, telegraph office (there were no telephones here then), a general store, and ice cream parlor. In connection with the hotel he ran also a boat and horse livery, later a car livery. It was a very busy, lively place, for it became the point from which all cottagers embarked for their camps across the lake.

In early summer, men from New York, New Jersey, and even as far away as California brought their wives and families, accompanied by nursemaids for the children. With them came many wardrobe trunks full of clothes, for they used to dress “classy” on their vacations in those days and they came to spend the whole summer.

The husbands came for weekends by train. Sleepers came into Lyon Mountain, where they were met by our stages, drawn by horses over the deep-sand road. The horses used to stop and rest when climbing the Sand Hill. Drivers allowed them to do this, and the horses soon learned where their resting places were.

In the early years a steamboat came from Lower Chateaugay Lake, where it connected with a stage from Chateaugay village, bringing mail and express. The steamboat stopped at the Merrill House and two other hotels on Upper Lake. On the Fourth of July a band played on the boat at all stops. People from many miles around came to the Merrill House landing to hear it play.

probably Seneca Ray Stoddard

A view of the Merrill House dock at Upper Chateaugay Lake, showing Moffitt’s Island, the southwest shore, which at this writing (2007) remains in its natural pristine state of wilderness. The “Adirondack” steamboat (above) was built by Millard Bellows; its Chateaugay Lake debut was in 1882.

My father’s Merrill House advertisement in Stoddard’s 1895 Adirondack guide book gives the cost of board as $2.50 per day, $10 to $14 per week, and “special rates to families for protracted stay. ” I remember a lady once asked my father what the rate per day would be if she ate no breakfast. Dad replied, “Same price, whether you eat it all in one meal or in three. “

Celebrities from many parts of the world found their way to Merrill House, where they always found an old-fashioned welcome awaiting them. They called it their “second home.” Plain, wholesome, home-cooked food attracted them, as did also the hotel’s sand beach, one-fourth mile long, which provided many hours of safe wading and swimming for both children and adults.

Among the celebrities who came here were Geraldine Farrar, metropolitan opera star; movie actress Evelyn Thaw and her son Russell; President Grover Cleveland; Seth Thomas, clock manufacturer; Charles Schwab, steel magnate; General Stephen Moffitt; Congressman John Moffitt; Robert White, member of the Canadian parliament; Judge George Smythe; Russian composer Tschaikovsky; and even “Dutch” Schultz with his lawyer and body guards en route to Malone for his trial for evasion of income taxes.

Piano at The Merrill House, where Tchaikovsky *heard the news.

Millionaires and paupers, we might say, received the same welcome, and they all mingled as one family. There was always an atmosphere of good will. It was a second home for lone bachelors and maiden ladies as well as families, and they returned year after year to have their “reunions.”

I remember that, when I was a child, after supper, as was customary in the Gay Nineties, the women donned dresses with long trains, which they carried over their arms. They vied with each other to be the best dressed. Arm in arm they walked the length of the long veranda, holding up trains or long skirts. They got their exercise this way, counting the number of times across the veranda and figuring the miles they walked.

Evenings were spent in the large living room around the fireplace, singing songs, playing cards, and talking. Older ladies would be knitting by the fireside.

Croquet was always one of their games on the front lawn. Many a friendly argument would develop but was soon forgotten when the dinner bell sounded.

In 1933 Oliver Young passed away at the age of nearly 79, and I returned from California to take over the old place. I continued to run it, in the same way that my father did, until 1963, when ill health compelled me to give up. I then rented it to a family of about twenty people, including in-laws. They care for themselves, cottage style, and they love the place.

I hesitate to part with it, having lived here most of my life. Years ago, as I was driving through Bloomingdale, I asked a man what town it was. He stood up to his full height and proudly said, “Bloomingdale, the Paradise of America.” Such we think of Merrill.

Merrill House was the center of activity for all the cottagers around the lake. They came here with their problems, joys and sorrows. We always were happy to lend a helping hand or share with them their joys and sorrows.

Children came back, grown up, married, and with children of their own. Though they may have been absent for many years, they returned—couldn’t wait to get here, so they said—and were at once “at home”, where their parents had come so many years ago.

The Merrill House in 1964.

I tried not to change the interior. When people returned after being absent for some time, they would exclaim, “Same old place. Not changed a bit.” And I was glad, for in these days of many changes, it pleased them to find one place still the same.

* a musician joke.