Not only does Assembly Point owe much to General Burgoyne's procrastination, but it is deeply indebted to Dr. Drurie S. Sanford of Long Island City, a suburb of Brooklyn, NY and closer to Grand Central Station than Columbia University.

In 1871, five years before the Coolidges and Warren Smith bought "Forty Acres," Drurie Sanford at age 26 bought Long Island, the largest island in Lake George. Its 100 acres were central to the two dozen hotels and boarding houses dotting the shoreline of the Lake's southern basin. To these hotels came families seeking closeness to nature as an escape from the hot city streets of New York and other cities. Two questions concern us in this chapter.

1. How may we understand the following announcement in Stoddard's Lake George Guide of 1887:

The Lake George Assembly will occupy the north end of Long Island for a series of Chautauquan camp meetings beginning in July and continuing through the greater part of August. It is intended to make this a permanent affair, if a sufficient interest is shown, the use of that section of the island having been granted by the owner, Dr. D.S. Sanford for that purpose. (Ervien, p. 46)

2. Why did Dr. Sanford change his mind about locating the Lake George Assembly on his Long Island?

Because Dr. Sanford's island was so central and cars were a thing of the future, Long Island had to be reached either by lake steamers bringing passengers to a large dock he had built on the northern end of the island or by canoes or rowboats from numerous hotels providing a mile or so of paddling or rowing for families enjoying a more rigorous trip to "The Great Escape."

"For many summers after Dr. Sanford took possession of his island, he and his wife worked together to make it a property of woodland beauty. It was a long task but a most delightful one for both of them." (Ervien, p. 43).

Eventually the Sanfords completed a three-mile rock-bound path encircling the island. "It closely followed the shoreline, with rustic bridges over marshy places. ... Seats were built at convenient intervals and stone steps where they were needed." (Ervien p. 43)

Each summer Dr. and Mrs. Sanford came by train to the Delaware and Hudson Railroad dock at Lake George Village and from there traveled six miles by water to their Long Island paradise. Their artistry had perfected their property, and now a generous outreach to other visitors to the lake seemed a must. This motive to share their good fortune and closeness to nature goes far to explain the announcement in Stoddard's Guide that the Lake George Assembly would begin at the north end of the island in July 1887.

But the Long Island location for the grand purpose was not to be. Instead, as it turned out, not infrequent contacts among Warren Smith, the Coolidges and Dr. Sanford led to a decision to invite Dr. Sanford to use "Forty Acres" as an alternative, more protected, location for his "Assembly" of hotel visitors. He would be given a free hand to develop the Point area and beautify it with lake-shore "Promenades" as Mrs. Sanford and he had done on Long Island. Further, the owners asked him to consider a new purpose: the sale of shore lots on which owners would build their second, or summer homes, as a nucleus of a community of permanent frineds.

Dr. Sanford readily accepted the invitation and welcomed the added purpose -- especially as it helped to distinguish his new venture from the transient feature of the Chautauqua movement.

We turn now to our second question, "Why did Dr. Sanford change his mind about where to locate the Lake George Assembly?" It is not difficult to imagine that being a man of privacy, Dr. Sanford secretly hoped that time would open the "unused" Forty Acres to him. Consequently, our question might be revised to "Why did the owners of Forty Acres change their minds?"

The answer is hinted at in the following quotation from Ferris Greenslet's auto-biography, Under the Bridge:

Glens Falls, with its lumber and lime and pulp and paper, continued to prosper. In the eighties, among its ten thousand inhabitants, there were a half-dozen millionaires; or, if you count half-millionaires, a score. The type was well defined and constant. Sturdy, grizzled men, with short chin beards and long close-shaven upper lips, they lived on corner lots on Glen or Warren Street in large three-story houses, surmounted by ample cupolas. The purpose of these, to provide extensive observation, was defeated by the amazing growth of the maples and elms that shaded the streets, but they remained as symbols of success.

Since reading Under the Bridge many years ago, I've had little doubt that T.S. Coolidge and, most likely, Jonathan M. Coolidge and George Lee (Warren Smith had moved to Ticonderoga as an executive in its pulp and paper corporation) were among the "Grizzlies" Ferris Greenslet remembers as a teenager. They qualify, and the answer to our second question is clear.

By 1888, the owners of the northern forty acres of the then named "West Point" were so actively engaged in their executive roles in corporations in Glens Falls that to meet their business obligations and yet simultaneously devote much needed time to the developing of Assembly Point’s Forty Acres was impossible.

A choice was forced. Dr. Sanford’s concern for the beauty of the Lake George area came to the rescue.