Adirondack Daily Enterprise, February 27, 1957
Landmark Liquidated:
Owner Puts Torch To Old "Club Farm"
By Mrs. Albert Tyler
The house and barns and all other buildings at Vermontville known for many years as the Club Farm or the Palmer place were burned to the ground yesterday morning.
The buildings were old and in a bad state of repair as no one had lived on the place for several years
Milton Elliott, the new owner, made all necessary arrangements for the burning of the building Monday and was on hand fairly early yesterday to start the fire. Mr. Elliott comes from New Milford, N. J., and as a start toward a clean-up job on the 200 acre tract of land, burned all the old unsightly buildings.
For some years before the turn of the century the late Lester (Let) Abbott and his wife Esther owned the place and lived in a log cabin home for many years.
"Let" earned" a livelihood for his family by farming and kept a number of cows and horses. There came a time (about 1897) when the Abbotts needed a new and larger home and it is a matter of general knowledge hereabouts that Esther built and paid for the two story 10-room house. She earned the money by doing washings and ironings for the Fletcher Farm which was then a well established home for tuberculous patients.
Mrs. Abbott died there some years later. In course of time 'Let" remarried and moved from Vermontville. Still later the place was sold to the Interbrook Club which was a club of Saranac Lake men (William Mullen, Dr. Charles Trembley and the late C. M. Palmer are the only names I'm certain of but there were others.) These men were particularly interested in clearing land and in building dams in two strategic points in the little brook for the forming of two ponds. These they stocked with fish and they and their friends spent many delightful hours there after.
About 1925 C. M. Palmer bought the place from the club. Two years later he hired Cassius Shumway, of Vermontville, to live on the place and serve as caretaker and guide, which job he held for 23 years, leaving there in April 1950 few months after Mr. Palmer's death.
Mr. Shumway also did some farming there for himself on 10 acres of the land. During the first four or five years of Mr. Shumway's residence on the place Mr. Palmer had about 100 acres of the land planted to spruce, Scotch pine and Norway pine trees. Mr. Palmer spent many long hours tramping about the place, watching the growth of his trees and hunting for birds, rabbits and deer. But his special delight was fishing in the pond.
Since Mr. Palmer's death the place has been pretty much neglected. Donald LaPlaca, of Hasbrouck Heights, N. J., bought it and had Mr. and Mrs. William Lewis, of Vermontville, living there for about two years soon after his purchase. Now he has sold it to Mr. Elliott of the United Soil Co., of New Milford, N. J. Mr. Elliott plans to bring his family here for the summer on June 15 and they will live in a 1957, 45-foot-spartan trailer which he plans to place near the large pond.
He has two sons, 10 and 8, whom he says need to learn to fish and hunt and enjoy the outdoor life. If Mr. Elliott's plans work out his place will eventually become a beauty spot in our town for he is planning extensive work in trimming the trees and giving a general face lifting to the place. He says he expects to employ several men for this purpose in a few months.
