Osgood Pond, 2008
Five hundred acre Osgood Pond is in the town of Brighton, near Paul Smiths, New York. It is the site of White Pine Camp, which served as the Summer White House in 1926, and the historic Northbrook Lodge, possibly the first camp on the pond; both were built by local builder Benjamin A. Muncil in the early 1920s.
In the early 1850s, James Wardner and his brother Seth and a friend, Lorenzo Rand, camped all winter in a log cabin on Osgood Pond. They did well with hunting and trapping and James earned enough to buy land for a farm on his chosen site at Rainbow Lake in 1855. According to Wardner, they named the pond after Arthur Osgood, the first person to attempt farming in the region. 1
In 1879, Marc Cook, with Paul Smith's help, went into Camp Lou on Osgood Pond to attempt to cure his tuberculosis.
Paul Smith's Hotel had a golf course on Osgood Pond, but it was too sandy and too far from the hotel to be satisfactory; the golf house on Osgood was used by local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in 1932.
Osgood was the site of two summer camps: Lone Pine Camp, started in 1921 and Brig O' Doon, started in 1956.
Forest and Stream, Volume 36, Forest and Stream Publishing Company, New York, June 1891, p. 435 (full text ![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
here)
THE ST. REGIS CAMPS.
NOWHERE in the entire Adirondack region are the camps as numerous or as elaborate in their appointments as on the lakes immediately in the neighborhood of Paul Smith's Hotel, over 100 being situated within a radius of three miles from the hotel. This house is on the northern shore of the lower, but most northerly, of the two St. Regis lakes. Between these two, connected with them by narrow streams or runways for the water— "slews" the natives call them—is Spitfire Lake. North of Smith's about one-half mile is Osgood Pond. The banks of these lakes are owned by private individuals, who have erected upon them permanent camps, some of which have cost many thousands of dollars. Land on their shores is variously held at from $2,500 to $10,000 an acre.
[…]
The handsomest camps in Osgood Pond are owned by Mr. Hans Beatty and Mr. A. D. Juillard. In all these mountain homes, the sleeping apartments are tents, generally about 14 ft. square, covered by different colored flies, and erected upon platforms raised about 3 ft. from the ground.
From Adirondack Daily Enterprise, July 20, 2011:
Thanks for fighting fire at Osgood Pond
I write to express my family's deep appreciation to the fire departments of Paul Smiths-Gabriels, Saranac Lake, Bloomingdale and Lake Placid for their speed and effectiveness in containing the fire at our camp on Osgood Pond early Monday mornng. While we are devastated by the loss of the main lodge, the dedication and professionalism of these firefighters spared most of our trees and buildings, leaving us hope and the determination to rebuild here in what has been my family's second home for 130 years. Martha Butler, for Cranford Camp
Sources
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Manchester, Lee, "Two camps on Osgood Pond", ''Lake Placid News'', July 28, 2006
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Donaldson, Deborah J., Adirondack Daily Enterprise, October 20, 2009.
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Cook, Marc. “Camp Lou.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 62, No. 372. New York NY, May, 1881.
External links
- 1Footsteps on Adirondack Trails, p. 114
