Chapter 3: The Lake George Assembly Corporation Comes to the Point

Dr. Sanford was undoubtedly well pleased with the invitation to move the location for his Lake George Assembly to the unsettled Forty Acres owned by the Coolidges, George Lee and Warren Smith. One of the first things he did was to change the name of the "Point" from its old name, West Point, to Assembly Point. (Ervien WHAT PAGE???)

Next, as part of his preparation for the July 1888 Lake George Assembly opening to guests of the two dozen neighboring Lake George hotels, let us imagine he invited T.S. Coolidge (representing his partners Jonathan Coolidge, George Lee and Warren Smith) to walk with him around Forty Acres and critique his plans for updating the Point.

One Sunday early in the spring of 1889, T.S. Coolidge traveled the ten-mile plank road from Glens Falls to Lake George Village in his horse-drawn carriage. Leaving his transportation at the Fort William Henry stables, he met Dr. Sanford and together the good friends traveled in Druries, small launches, the five-plus picturesque miles to Assembly Point. Their first destination was a worn-out passenger dock for lake steamers -- a "Big Dock" just north of Dr. Weiss's present-day cottage. It was roughly 1800 feet south of the tip of the Point, a more protected location, prudently required by the U.S. Government Postal Service selected five years later.

Leaving Dr. Sanford's boat at the deteriorating "Big Dock," T.S. and Dr. Sanford proceeded east on a narrow wagon lane, today's paved "Crossover Road," for a very short distance, barely three hundred feet. Here the men stopped and turned to look at the stone wall marking the southern border of Forty Acres, some 70-odd feet to their right. Point-ing to the open area, Dr. Sanford began, "In this open space I'm thinking of building a year-round farmhouse for a future caretaker...." And so it was that by the next year, spring 1889, the currently existing Granger house was built.

Then looking north across the lane, Dr. Sanford said, "If all goes according to plan we'll cut a ten-foot wide dirt path through the meadow to the site that I believe will be ideal for an open-sided Lectorium capable of seating over 200 people." (The site was about 200 feet east, behind the present Leeser house.) Dr. Sanford continued, "This wide path will extend to the beach at the tip of the Point, from which close to the shore on the east side will be a ten-foot wide promenade which we'll call "Sunrise Promenade" extending to the hotel, now being built by my friend William Frommel from Brooklyn, NY on property his wife recently bought from James Harris. On the lake side a second promenade, "Sunset Promenade", will hug the shore as it leads from the Point back to the dock where we tied our boat."

T.S. Coolidge responded enthusiastically "Your plan sounds good, and I believe you intend to make somewhat narrower paths from the stone wall down the 2,000 feet of western lake shore belonging to the Harris farm -- then on to the Miniard Woods shoreline, as far as the isthmus. Your promenades, with their rustic shelters and seats, will be as beautiful as those you've shown me on your island. Now let's consider how you will go about starting a community of summer cottages -- the summer homes to which families will return year after year."

"Well, I thought you might ask this," said Dr. Sanford. "Here's where I am in my thinking. After the Sunset Promenade is completed, I plan four cottages: one for Mr. Tibbetts as his summer home and office from which he will publish "The Lake George Mirror"; north of him a second cottage primarily for rental income, and a third next to that will be a cottage for the resident manager. I'm happy to report that my brother, Clarence Sanford, has volunteered to help in this role. The fourth and last cottage will house the Reverend George B. Hultz and family, also from Brooklyn, potentially one of the contributors to the religious dimension of the Lake George Assembly."

Much of what T.S. Coolidge and Dr. Sanford discussed began to take shape immediately. Dr. Sanford engaged in the task with enthusiasm. By July of the first summer (1888), people began to flock to the Lectorium site where they sat on outdoor chairs provided since the building could not be completed until the 1889 season.

[For a fuller explanation by Dr. Sanford of his four purposes of the Lake George Assembly, see Appendix.]