The Eldredge Role and Resolution of Ownership
by Jeff Baker
Frank’s son, Allen, born in North Fair Haven, inherited his father’s business acumen as well as his West Bay Road property including the gravel bar. At the age of 22 he traveled to India where he worked as an agent for Standard Oil. Upon returning home, he managed the family ice business and achieved success as a shoe manufacturer, restauranteur, and banker. Despite the fact that his businesses were located in Auburn, he maintained an active interest in Fair Haven, building the cottage on the water on the east side of Eldredge Point in 1933 and purchasing the Lighthouse Reservation, when the Lighthouse Service transferred operations to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Easily spotted from the lake, the most interesting feature of the house is the watch room with its large picture window. (It was here in recent years that Elizabeth Eldredge, Allen’s daughter and Frank’s granddaughter,(See photograph,) hosted a Historic Site meeting of the Sterling Historical Society.) This room had its own entrance and was totally separated from the rest of the house because while on duty, the lightkeeper was not to be disturbed by the family.
In 1943, the lightkeeper’s position was abolished, and in ‘48, the Coast Guard removed the wooden lighthouse and replaced it with a 24 foot high, metal tower with a battery -powered light. A solar-powered light on a pole replaced the metal frame light tower in 1986. The old tower was taken to an Oswego junk yard but found its way back to to the west side to the Boathouse house marina, (now Fair Point Marina), where it stands today.
During the 30’s the bar became a popular recreational area as the site of the Tri Aqua Park dance hall with its stage, bowling alley, and restaurant–a smaller reincarnation of the Lake Breeze. The Lake Breeze was a large, two story building that Will Grant moved to the bar in 1907. For several years it was a destination for passengers aboard Grant’s tour boat, the DEWEY. As for the dance hall of the 1930s, Dorothy King remembers the beautiful floor and a time when dances were a large part of a young person’s social life. Allan leased out some of the buildings on the bar, a few of which stood into the ’80s. There was a fisherman’s cabin, a rental cottage, the dance hall converted to a boat storage barn, and the lightkeeper’s boathouse in the cove where the family’s Star class boat was moored.
In the ’50s, Allan became aware that another party claimed ownership of the gravel bar. It was the State of New York, no less. He first ascertained that the Federal Government had no claim of ownership, then began a dialog with state officials. When he died in 1957, Allan Jr. ,my uncle , had no desire to pursue the issues involved, and all communication with the state ceased until the early ’70s when I reestablished contact with the NYS Office of General Services. Eventually, they directed me to the Real Property Division of the Department of Environmental Conservation. I had recently purchased the east side of the bluff and the bar from my uncle’s widow and was using the old boathouse as the office for the Boathouse Marina earning a sentence in Ray Sant’s “Trails, Sails and Rails”, “Jeff was a college teacher who returned to Fair Haven to start a boat business on the west side.”
Negotiations with the DEC were cordial but slow, and the issues involved complex. The Baker/Eldredge claim was defined by English Common Law, and Roman Law. Simply stated, these principles hold that accreted property becomes part of the upland property on which it builds. On the other hand, state lawyers maintained that the property in question was the bottom of Lake Ontario washed ashore and therefore belongs to the state because the state owns the lake bottom. Things were further complicated by the fact that some of the accretion was “forced”. Both arguments had legal merit, and it became apparent that any litigation would be lengthy and expensive. What made matters worse was the west side’s growing reputation as a “no man’s land”. Local residents avoided the area. It had become a magnet for vandals, drug dealers, and other outlaws, in spite being a regular stop for the state police or sheriff’s deputies when looking for “the usual suspects”. Three years of negotiations with the DEC led to a compromise whereby the state recognized private ownership Boathouse Marina Site and agreed to reroute the pier access road around the marina; and I relinquished claim to ownership of the 17 acres between the marina and the pier. There was also a non compete clause. Other topics covered in the document dealt with buffer zones, and most importantly, the best use of the 17 acres between the marina and the pier. It was obvious that the undeveloped acreage with the lake shore on the north side and the bay shore on the south was an ideal location for a recreational area offering water access to the public.
circa 1920s Frank Eldredge and granddaughter, Elizabeth Eldredge
Fair Point Marina,West Barrier Bar Park, Channel, Lake Ontario, upper; Little Sodus Bay, right lower
left, Hallie Sweeting, Judy Snyder
New Town Historian
The Sterling Town Board appointed Judy Snyder as Town Historian at its July 19 meeting. She succeeds recently deceased Hallie Sweeting. and has been active for many years in helping maintain official records She has already served a number of genealogical inquiries. Judy continues to serve, as she has for many years, as treasurer of the Sterling Historical Society. Currently, she is also Chair of the Sterling Historical Society Board of Trustees.
