Clayton, New York     All Pictures   (Clayton, Thousand Island Tour,  Singer Castle,  Bolt Castle)

July 15, 2012 

Our campground is right on the St. Lawrence River and our site is just up a hill from it with a nice view. I walked down to the river and stood there watching the beautiful sunset along with several other people. The town is a really charming town with shops, restaurants and a nice walk along the St. Lawrence River. We drove across the border into Canada to the OLG Thousand Island Casino where I won $846 after exchange rate. 

Thousand Island Cruise

Alexandria Bay, New York - July 15, 2012

Alexandria Bay is a quaint town loaded with restaurants and trinket shops.  The harbor is full of yachts, rental boats and tour boats.  When General Grant visited the island of a wealthy sportsman, the write-up in US papers sparked interest in the area and started the explosion of recreation in the Alexandria Bay area. Alexandria Bay is at the eastern end of Lake Ontario in an area known as the 1000 Islands.  The story of how the Thousand Islands were formed is from old Indian folk lore.  The old Indian, Manitou, told the Iroquois and Algonquin Indians he would give them paradise if they stopped fighting, but they didn’t so Manitou put paradise into a bag and threw it into the horizon.  The bag broke apart and a thousand pieces fell down into the St. Lawrence River, creating the Thousand Islands.  Are there really 1,000 islands here? no, actually there are 1,864 islands.  Some are only big enough for a tree.  The definition of an “island” is that it must contain at least one tree and some other foliage and must have a part of it above water year-round.  The St. Lawrence River is very wide and is anywhere from six feet to 400 feet deep with the channel being at least 30 feet deep.  It is a major shipping route to the Great Lakes and sustained a lucrative business during prohibition.  Locals would make trips between the US and Canadian borders bringing in sacks full of alcohol.  Divers still find bottles at the bottom from when they were tossed overboard by locals when the law got too close.  The river is a freshwater river and one of the clearest rivers in the world at 98%.  This is due to its rock bottom and strict fines levied for polluting.  

Singer Castle

Dark Island, New York - July 15, 2012    

The castle is nine miles up the river from Alexandria Bay. As we cruised up the river, we were told facts and stories about it, the islands and people of the area. It took us an hour to get there, and we were split into two groups right away. We had to walk up a fairly steep road to get to the castle entrance. They gave us a 45-minute tour through several rooms relating the castle’s history. Singer Castle sits on Dark Island, is approx. 15 acres and the home of Frederick Gilbert Bourne, President of the Singer Manufacturing Company. He purchased the property for $5,000 in 1902 and commissioned Ernest Flagg to build a “hunting lodge” unlike any other and incorporating designs from a castle described in a book called Woodstock by Sir Walter Scott. Those designs included towers, turrets, secret passageways and an underground tunnel all hidden or blended in the walls.

Construction began in 1903 and completed in 1905 to a tune of $500,000. It contains 28 rooms, 10 fireplaces, 8 baths, 2 boathouses, 2 ice houses, a skiff house, and a bath house.  It was sold to Marjorie Bourne in 1921 who added a squash court plus a sports therapy room and bedroom on the third floor. In 1965 it was sold to the LaSalle Military Academy for less than $100 and sold again to the Harold Martin Evangelistic Society for $35,000. In 2002 it was sold again to Dark Island Tours.

We walked into the foyer fashioned like a medieval castle with suits of armor, passed the wine cellar with a secret passage beyond and into the dining room. The ceiling was very high, and we were told that there was actually a small secret passageway behind the wall and a small portrait that opened up to reveal a “peep” hole where servants could check on guests. We then went into the ladies sitting room and sun porch. We were taken through five bedrooms, a lady's sitting room and sun porch and saw two other secret passages, one in a linen closet and one behind a wall. The newer sports therapy room had a message table and a steam bath. The library was warm and actually plush and on the desk under glass, the first edition of the book “Woodstock.” We then walked outside into the rose garden; however, I only saw one rose.  That ended our tour right in front of the gift shop. Most of the furnishings are original and you can even stay overnight in a Royal Suite for $745 for the first two people and $60 for the next six. It was large and impressive the way they hid the secret passages throughout the castle.

Boldt Castle

Once on our way, we stopped at the Boldt Castle for about ten minutes for anyone who wanted to get off there then continued on to Alexandria Bay.   ​

Boldt Castle was built as a testimony of unsurpassed love of a man for his wife.  George Boldt who became a successful hotel magnate managed and held profit sharing of the Waldroff-Astoria Hotel in New York and the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia.  He was the president of several companies, a trustee of Cornell University and the director of the Hotel Association of New York.  The Castle was the Boldt’s dream summer home.  He had 300 men working on the house and another 350 men working the quarry for the stones to build it, which he also owned.  One thing George Boldt said when he commissioned the building of the castle was that cost was only a minor concern.  He had the finest materials, sculptures, Italian mantle pieces, imported tapestries and furniture and the only the best artists and craftsmen to design and build the castle.  However, in 1904, before the completion of the house, Mrs. Louise Boldt died at the age of 42.  A telegram arrived with an order to stop all work, and all the workmen dropped their tools, left the island and never returned.  The Boldt's never lived in the house and George Boldt was so devastated that he never returned to the island and the castle sat empty for 73 years.  Weather, vandalism and lack of concern badly deteriorated the castle.  In 1977 the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority assumed ownership and began a rehabilitation program.  Today, the first floor of the castle, the grounds, the Powerhouse, and Yacht House has been restored back to the original.  During the restoration, imported Italian marble statues were found still in their crates in a sunken boat house.  The castle was modeled after buildings of the 16th century; it has six floors, 127 rooms, 365 windows, several porches or balconies and built with massive granite walls.  It is truly a sight to behold.  Inside the front door is a massive entry hall with a marble staircase to the second floor.  The top of the ceiling is a large stained-glass dome.  The dining room looks out over the river with large floor to ceiling windows and there is a circular sitting room.  There is a large ballroom with a massive organ, a billiard room, a library and a butler’s pantry.  The woodwork and carved details are incredible.  The second and third floors house the bedrooms for the Boldt's plus guest quarters, baths and a reception room.  The fourth floor houses the servants’ quarters and more guest rooms.  The last two floors are not open to the public.  As I said, only the first floor is restored but they allow you to walk around the second, third and fourth floors but they are either under construction or in the deteriorated state. 

We walked outside through the gardens to the Alster Tower or Playhouse.  This looks like a miniature medieval castle built out of stone, shells and granite.  It even had a two-lane bowling alley in the basement.  The Alster Tower has not been restored on the inside.  There is a gazebo outside in the gardens next to the play house and people were just arriving for a wedding.  They said they have thousands of weddings each year at this site and I can see why; it is such a beautiful setting.  We then walked down to the Arch.  This was the water gate at the front of the castle where launches would arrive to drop off visitors to the castle.  You can walk through the Arch, also of granite and back toward the castle.  We then walked over to the Powerhouse.  The Boldt's intended to have electricity on the island and had this building designed where gasoline and diesel fuel would be brought to run the steam generators.  It was built detached from the island except for a stone foot bridge and looks like a mini-castle.  Power to the island is now supplied by underwater cable so the Powerhouse is now a museum with some of the generators and pictures of the history of the castle.  Across the river on Wellesley Island is the Yacht House where the Boldt's housed their family yachts and houseboat and quarters for the crew and maintenance staff and a shop to build and service racing boats.  When the Boldt's acquired the island, then called Hart Island, they had the name changed to "Heart” Island and incorporated hearts everywhere made from granite, iron and flowers throughout the buildings and island.  After George Boldt’s death, he sons sold most of his companies and Boldt Castle.  He left 20 million dollars to his children and grandchildren.