Lake George Town

Warren County, New York

   

Lake George Town Hall is located at 20 Old Post Road, Lake George NY 12845; 518‑668‑5420.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

Pioneers again began to push their way into these undeveloped lands at the head of Lake George when, in 1787, James Caldwell, a merchant from Albany with a grant of broad acres, led a band of settlers there. Among the settlers were Jehoiachim Staats, Daniel Shaw and Eli Pettis, who, with others, under Caldwell's leadership, established lumbering, tanning, and farming as early industries.

By 1810 Caldwell's patent had acquired sufficient people and property for its inhabitants to seek incorporation as a town. This was accomplished the same year by taking portions of land from Queensbury, Bolton, and Thurman, and naming the new town for its most important citizen.

At an early date the little hamlet of Caldwell, now Lake George Village, began to assume commercial importance because of the shipping facilities for logs afforded by its location at the head of the lake. Huge rafts were floated from this lake port to Ticonderoga at the other end of Lake George, thirty-two miles away. These were made in square sections by fastening the logs in layers at right angles to each other, often fifteen logs deep, so that the top was lifted above the surface of the water by the buoyancy of the logs below. Many sections were bound into a single raft, and the crews rigged sails to help propel the unwieldy mass which had to be steered through deep channels as they threaded their way among the islands of The Narrows.

  1. Writer's Program of the Works Progress Administration, Warren County, A History and Guide, American Guide Series, Federal Works Agency, Warren County Board of Supervisors, Glens Falls, 1942

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