Lamont's Smith's Lake Hotel

As more and more sportsmen visited Smith’s Lake during the 1870s, Beaver River guides developed well-appointed camps there consisting of multiple shanties for sleeping, complete with dining shelters and rustic furniture. The camps were situated at various scenic spots along the lakeshore near fresh water springs. They could be used by anyone so long as no damage was done and with the understanding that should the guide who built the camp show up, any other occupants would move elsewhere. For example, when H. Perry Smith and his party stopped at the Syracuse Camp during their visit in 1871, they saw the eight members of the Syracuse party and their guides “sweeping up the outlet” and promptly vacated the camp.

By 1878 S. Boyd Edwards, one of the guides who helped build and maintain the Syracuse camp, had erected a two-story log bunkhouse on the west side of the lake near the Syracuse camp. He called it the Smith’s Lake Hotel. This rustic accommodation is mentioned in the 1878 edition of Wallace’s Descriptive Guide and in Seneca Ray Stoddard’s The Adirondacks: Illustrated, 1880 edition.

Sometime before 1886, the James Lamont family acquired the Smith’s Lake Hotel. By that time the hotel compound included a cabin for the family, additional sleeping quarters, an indoor kitchen and several guest cabins in addition to the original two-story log dormitory. According to Raymond G. Hopper, who visited in 1890, the hotel could accommodate up to forty people “in an always comfortable but decidedly back woods style.” [Forest and Stream, Vol. 36, June 18, 1891, pp. 432 – 433.] Other travelers described the Lamont’s rustic hotel as comfortable and beautifully situated.

James Lamont was born in Diana in Lewis County around 1850. He married Ella Gordon, also a Lewis County native, in March 1872. They had a son, Carroll, and a daughter, Nina, who accompanied them to help run the hotel at Smith’s Lake. Raymond Hopper described Ella Lamont as “an educated and superior woman, and [who] with two grown children, assists materially in making the backwoods lodging comfortable and interesting.” James Lamont was affectionately referred to by guests as “Uncle” Jim, a term common for Adirondack guides of the time. In an interesting twist, Ella Lamont was apparently known as “Auntie Jim.”

Sportsman Raymond Hopper greatly admired Jim Lamont noting, “Although not a powerful man in appearance, yet James Lamont is as muscular and wiry as anyone I have ever known of his build; in fact, he has the reputation of being able to cover more territory in the woods in less time than anyone of the guides no matter what the general conditions may be.”

An unnamed visitor wrote a letter dated July 20, 1888 on the fancy Smith’s Lake Hotel stationary that appears at the top of this post. Describing Smith’s Lake as a good place for rest and sporting recreation the letter writer noted, “You will be delighted to know that this is a place 40 miles away from a RR in a direct line; consequently, deer are plenty & the woods unbroken.” Although it was not deer hunting season, the letter writer spent plenty of time hunting. “We have more than once spent 11 or 12 hours in hunting and fishing . . . Consequently, I have been sleepy and stupefied during the day, yawning in the boat till I drew a similar response from my guide.”

 

The Lamonts successfully operated the Smith’s Lake Hotel until June 1891 when Dr. William Seward Webb purchased all the land surrounding the headwaters of the Beaver River. Webb used a sliver of this land as the right-of-way for the Adirondack railroad he financed. He set aside 40,000 acres surrounding Smith’s Lake for his private preserve, Nehasane Park. The Lamonts remained at Smith’s Lake that summer since the hotel was used to house Webb’s workers. In August 1891 Jim and Ella Lamont moved back to Lowville. Dr. Webb soon demolished the hotel to make room for his great camp.

 

I’ve been unable to determine exactly what the Lamonts did for a living for the next few years. It’s possible, as suggested in Brumley’s Guides of the Adirondacks, that they ran a hotel at Brantingham Lake. Then, in 1897, they acquired land on the North Branch of the Moose River about three miles south of Thendara, NY along the tracks of the Adirondack Division of the New York Central Railroad. Here they built a new vacation resort that they named Onekio Lodge. When their new camp opened in 1898 it had a main lodge and ten family cottages. The lodge became a flag stop on the railroad.

 

After about ten years operating Onekio Lodge, the couple moved to the village of Old Forge, where they built a house on Main St. that still stands. Jim Lamont took a job as a caretaker for Dr. Herman M. Briggs at the Little Moose Club, a position he held until about 1930. James Lamont died in Old Forge, NY at the age of 84 on July 6, 1934.

 

 

Credits:

 

Smith’s Lake Hotel letter dated 7/20/1888 courtesy of Timothy Mayers

 

Portraits of James and Ella Lamont are from the collection of the Town of Webb Historical Association Goodsell Museum, Old Forge, NY. More about Onekio Lodge and the Lamonts can be found on the Facebook page of the Goodsell Museum in a post dated July 20, 2020 https://www.facebook.com/GoodsellMuseum

 

Photo of Smith’s Lake Hotel from 1902 - 03 Annual Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission