This was donated by Donald Murdock a past resident of Inlet.
Check out his website which is linked on our Links Page.
(Surnames have been highlighted)
South Shore
The only names I recognize here are Herman and Bertha Williston. Herm was a life time friend of my father. Before my time they ran a store, Inlet Supply Company. Besides being a musician Herm was also a barber. It was my understanding that he became wealthy from investments in mining operations in the South West. Bertha died relatively young so I never met her.
Lake Front
Roy Rogers owned and operated the Neodak Hotel on the South Shore of Fourth Lake. I remember Roy as playing Santa Clause at both Church and School Christmas exercises.
Frank Tiffany was Inlet’s first Town Supervisor. He was County Judge at the time of his death in 1931.
Lansing Tiffany left Inlet in the mid thirties before I started school. He returned after we had moved away and like his father served as Hamilton County Judge.
Eri Delmarsh operated the Delmarsh Inn at Limekiln Lake.
Everett VanArnam was caretaker for Paownyc the summer camp of the O. M Edwards family of Syracuse, NY.
Winifred VanArnam married Eugene Cameron and lived in Syracuse. They had two sons, Duncan and Malcolm. Duncan was caddymaster at the Inlet Golf Course when I caddied one summer. Dad told me that Gene Cameron once swam the Fulton Chain from Old Forge to Inlet.
Charles O’Hara owned and operated the Arrowhead Hotel
Bernard O’Hara sold the Arrowhead to the Town of Inlet in 1962 or 1963.
Alton O’Hara became a lawyer with a practice in Syracuse.
Philo Wood owned and operated the Wood Hotel
Florence Wood married Emmett Roberts. They had a daughter, Ruth and a son Charles. Ruth became a school teacher and taught at the Inlet School. She later married Hugh Birmingham. Charles was killed in WW II.
Madeline Wood married Harry H. Hall. They had two sons Harry Jr. (Bud) and John (Jack) and a daughter Mary Jane. Mary Jane was in my class all through my Inlet school days. Madeline died when Mary Jane was very young.
Marjorie Wood never married
I remember Charlie Cole coming to our house and telling Dad that Ezra Wetmore has gone haywire and asking him to come and stay while arrangements could be made for his care.
Samuel Breaky. Sam once accidentally shot another man in a hunting accident.
My Grandfather Allen Murdock, was named the acting coroner for conducting the inquest that followed.
The only thing I remember about Edgar Rarick is that he had a wooden leg. I don’t believe he ever married.
George Rarick like his brother Ed, never married. I don’t know what either of them did for living and to me they were just a couple of town characters.
Seventh Lake
Everett Lewis was youngest brother of Robert Lewis
Robert Lewis married my Aunt Una Murdock in 1912
Dominic Fredette married and had several children, Adelaide, Norma, Charlottte, and Patricia are girls I remember and son, Sonny. He was greens keeper at the Inlet Golf course for many years.
Modest Fredette was a brother to Dominick. He married a woman named Edna but never had children We never had a home delivered newspaper but Edna would save the Sunday Syracuse Post-Standard for us.
I have covered all Murdocks in a separate report.
Limekiln Lake
F. Riley Johnson (should be Johnston) was a stone mason and for many years with his second wife Laurel operated a cottage colony and roadside stand on Route 28 between Sixth and Seventh Lake.
Louis Porter
Esther Porter
Louise Porter married Richard Payne. They had sons Richard, Theodore, Lorraine(Sidney) and James and
a daughter Rosemary. Ted Payne’s daughter, Barbara has been married to my cousin Edward Murdock for
over thirty years. They still make their home in Inlet as does their daughter, Adele and son, Daniel.Lizzie Tibado should be Elizabeth Thibado. Lizzie was a sister of Esther Porter and married William Patrick. They had two sons, Bernard and Arthur. Bernard never married but Arthur married Mary Callahan who was the daughter of Thomas Callahan. Tom was resident caretaker of Camp Uncas the Great Camp owned by the J. P. Morgans. By the late forties Art was caretaker of Sagamore Lodge and Camp Uncas which by then were both owned by Mrs. Margaret Emerson, widow of Alfred Vanderbilt.
I have already covered the Kenwells, William Patrick and Mason Piddock elsewhere.
Fifth Lake
Devine Gilbert was the school custodian at Inlet Public School during my years there.
Vergie Gilbert according to my father had a New York drivers license but never drove a car for when the state first imposed licensing people could get one by just applying and paying the required fee. Road testing was only required for those wanting a chauffeurs license. A grandson, William lived with the Gilberts in the late thirties. Billy Gilbert enlisted in the army with my cousin Robert Lewis in 1939.
I have written about Ken Gilbert elsewhere.
Abner Blakeman and a grandchild were killed when a three fell across an automobile they were riding in sometime in the late twenties or early thirties.
George Blakeman was married to Mildred Ramsey and raised a son George, Jr. and a daughter Irene. They were resident caretakers for Albedor, a Fourth Lake summer home built by a Colonel Simmons. After the War they purchased the Jack and Jill Gift Shop in central Inlet and operated it until their retirement. When they left Albedor they moved into the original Blakeman home next door to the Inlet School and across the road from the original Murdock home.
Walter Rosa ran a bar and restaurant at the south east corner of the South Shore Road and route 28. He sold it after we left Inlet and the new owners remodel it extensively and named it the Capitol. When I was laid off from my first post High School job in January 1949 I came back to Inlet and lived with my Uncle Guy and Aunt Ruth for about six weeks. Cousins Ralph and Bill and I would walk to the Post Office daily for the mail. On the walk home we would stop at the Capitol and have a beer. Walt Rosa was running it for the new owners for that winter.
Fred Parquet used known by Anglicized pronunciation of his name (Parkie) but his Hotel, Restaurant and Rathskeller went by the French (Parkay).
Thelma Parquet married Pierce (Bud) Kopp pronounced cope, and he operated the Parquet Rathskeller until he went into the service. After the War and her second husband and later her step-son ran the operation. The Parquet was destroyed by fire after Labor Day 1962.
I don’t have any memories of the Goodwins but know that Mary was a classmate of my father and that she married a man named Armstrong from Old Forge. They had a daughter also named Mary who married Peter Kalil. Peter and his older brother, Wadi, attended school with me although never for a full year at a time. Peter was Inlet Town Supervisor at the time of his death.
Cedar Island, Cascade Lake and Eagle Bay
Archibald Delmarsh owned and operated the Rocky Point Inn on the North Shore of Fourth Lake between Eagle Bay and Inlet. I remember my father using his truck to fill the ice house for Archie one winter. Ice harvesting was a winter business until the late forties. A daughter married Seth Thomas of the clock family and a son Archie took over the hotel. It was in turn taken over by his son Archie the 3rd. In that late eighties or early nineties the hotel was torn down and condominiums were built on the site called Rocky Point Estates.
Arthur Rarick operated a marine service station that was located where the Crosswinds cottages are located today. His son Robert (Red) Rarick was Inlets summer police force until his death in the early sixties. My cousin Ralph Murdock was given this job for the next several summers
Milo Leitch (pronounced Litch)
Fifth Lake
Albert P. Ford was the Inlet Superintendent of Highways prior Billy Patrick. This may sound convoluted but here goes anyway. His daughter, Alice married a man named Harold Norris. They had a son also named Harold but was known as Buz. In the 1950’s Buz married Pearl Goodfellow of Cazenovia, NY., a sister of Barbara Goodfellow Murdock, who was my sister-in-law. There was another daughter born to Bert named Laura. Laura married Norton (Buster) Bird of Raquette Lake. They moved to Inlet after we moved away and Buster started Birds Flying Service at Sixth Lake. Laura was Inlet Town Clerk for a time and I think it was 1962 that Buster was elected Inlet's fourth Town Supervisor.
Additional notes:
"George D. Richards who is found in Inlet in the 1910 census was the son of John C. Richards of the Town of Ohio and later Wilmurt, both in Herkimer county, NY. George was born in the Town of Ohio and later moved to the village of Herkimer where he married Mary Elizabeth Lowell in the Universalist church in 1885. He and his family are found on the 1900 census in Herkimer and are known to have resided there later as well." - Lisa K. Slaski
Last Updated: Wednesday, 14-May-2008 13:18:20 PDT
Copyright © 2000: Donald Murdock / Lisa Slaski