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Published: September 7th 2014
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Yesterday we travelled from Niagara Falls, NY to Clayton NY which is in upper Northwest NY on the St. Lawrence River and in the 1000 Islands Area. Yesterday Jim thought it would be nice to take the "scenic tour" along Lake Ontario. Well, we saw a lot of scenery. Something I didn't think that I would see was lots of apple and peach orchards. Also, lots of fields of cabbages, tomatoes, and sweet corn. I thought it would be too far north to grow these. We went through lots of small towns and many had roadside stands selling fruits and vegetables. The peaches that I saw were so big and looked wonderful. We didn't stop as it is difficult to find parking for 4 RV's along a country road. We wandered over the countryside but had to get on a main road when we saw an overpass that had only a 10'2 clearance and our RV's are mostly 11'10". We finally made it to our destination yesterday afternoon. We had a picnic at our RV park. It is right on the St. Lawrence River. Yesterday was Jim's birthday. So we had birthday cake. As I said before, this area of the
St. Lawrence River is called 1000 Islands because of the many islands in the River. This area is approximately 65 miles long with really 1864 islands. Most of these islands have homes built on them. And very nice homes. We took a small tour of the area near Alexandria Bay and the guide on the boat said that he knew of two islands for sale...one for 1.5 million and another for 842 thousand. We went to visit Boldt Castle and Boldt Castle Yacht House. These were built by George Boldt who came to America in the 1860's from Prussia, the son of poor parents. He started at the bottom and eventually became proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and owned the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia. Needless to say, he was a very successful businessman. One of the guides at the castle said that his wife Louise was 15 when she and George(who was 26) married. In 1899, George bought Fern Island and built the Boldt Castle Yacht House. This was for several of his boats. In 1917 his estate had 47 boats and 19 skiffs. In 1900 George started to build the castle for a summer home for his wife.
It had 4 stories, plus a basement which has a swimming pool. It was supposed to have 30 bathrooms and 35 fireplaces and enough rooms for 100 guests. Construction started in 1900. The island was in the shape of a heart. The island was called Hart Island but George changed it to Heart Island. George was going to give the castle to Louise for Valentine's day in 1904 but she suddenly died in January of 1904. They say that George never went back to the island and construction was stopped immediately. From 1904 until 1977, Boldt Castle continued to deteriorate to a state of disrepair. The Thousand Islands Bridge Authority, which is a non-profit group, assumed ownership in 1977 and immediately began a rehabilitation program. The rooms that they have done so far are beautiful. We saw other rooms that they are working on. It seems like they do one or two rooms a year and are now doing extensive work outside. The castle has its own power house that supplied power from generators for the castle and the Yacht House. The power house also pumped water to a cistern that was on top of the house and it gave
water pressure to the bathrooms and also operated the elevator by water pressure. It also has a large stone playhouse and tower which has a two-lane bowling alley in the basement. We saw that they had two weddings on the grounds today. It is so great that the Bridge Authority has taken on this preservation and rehabilitation for many to see and enjoy.
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