Long Lake lies in upstate New York in Northeastern New York in Adirondack Park. The town of the same name, Long Lake, wraps around its southern shore, and quite a few islands are scattered throughout Long Lake, the lake.
How Big Is Long Lake, NY?
Long Lake, the lake, is 14 miles long with a maximum width of one mile and covers approximately 512 acres. The town of Long Lake is New York’s second largest town in size with a total area of 449,837 square miles.
What County Is Long Lake In?
Long Lake is in Hamilton County, New York. Glaciers widened the Raquette River to form Long Lake, a natural lake, about 15,000 years ago. Vermont native Joel Plumley, David Keller, and E. H. St. John settled the town of Long Lake in about 1833. Both the town and lake are part of the 1.15 million acres acquired from the Mohawk Nation in 1771-1772.
Adirondack guideboats traversed the lakes in Northeastern New York. People developed the guide boats in the 1840s for recreational use in Adirondack Park, and guideboats are still popular today. They were built to carry three people and their gear, able to be portaged by one person, the guide, and weighed 60 pounds with a much different construction than a canoe.
What is Long Lake Known For?
The Long Lake region was settled fairly early in U.S. and British history, and it has a long, interesting history. NY 30 crosses the lake just south of the middle of Long Lake and NY 28N follows part of its southeastern shoreline. The rest of the Long Lake region is remote. The Adirondack Hotel is the oldest hotel in Adirondack Park.
Long Lake is well-known for its historic Adirondack Hotel, built in the 1850s. It burned down and was rebuilt in 1900. This hotel features two verandas and restaurants that overlook Long Lake’s 14 mile length. John Wayne and Mick Jagger stayed at the Adirondack Hotel.
Other points of interest include these hiking trails:
- Lake Eaton Trail
- Buttermilk Falls
- Kelly’s Point, Northville-Lake Placid trail North
- Lower Sargent Pond to Marion river carry
- Sargent Pond Loop
- Visitor’s Interpretive Center in Newcomb
- Owl’s Head Mountain
- Goodnow Mountain
- Blue Mountain
The town of Long Lake is the geographic center of the Adirondack Park. Long Lake is a four-season destination for lake and outdoor activities. Things to do include: seaplane rides, the Great Camps, boat tours, dining cruises, hiking, birding, camping, fishing, boating, snowmobiling, snow skiing, ice fishing, dining, workshops, art, shopping, craft fairs, history, concerts, and theatrical productions.
What Fish Are in Long Lake, NY?
Largemouth and smallmouth bass and northern pike are the most popular fish with anglers on Long Lake. Long Lake is a section of the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail, which begins in Old Forge, New York, and ends in Fort Kent, Maine. There are two boat launches in the town of Long Lake.
Popular game species in Long Lake include largemouth, rock, and smallmouth bass, brown bullhead, black crappie, northern pike, pumpkinseed, walleye, and yellow perch. The northern section of the lake is best for smallmouth bass.
Largemouth bass are best located in the southern section of Long Lake. Northern pike catches are best at the Big Brook Bay area and the area at the lake’s outlet in the northeast corner. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation maintains a largemouth bass fishery that supports their population.
What Is the History of Long Lake, NY?
Though we have discussed some brief history of the Adirondack Park, it has a much richer history. The Totten and Crossfield Purchase is named for Joseph Totten and Stephen Crossfield, two shipwrights from New York City, who acted as front-men for two land speculators, and acquired 1.15 million acres from the Mohawk and Caughnawaga Indians in 1772.
Adirondack Park
The Totten and Crossfield Purchase was a vast land tract purchase. The Adirondack Park comprises only 19% of the Purchase, and Long Lake is considered the heart of the Adirondacks. The park includes many of the High Peaks: the Great Range, Dix Range, Santanoni Range, Mt Marshall, Redfield, Cliff, Gray, Skylight, Allen, Colvin and Blake, Dial, and Nippletop.
The Purchase was an amazing feat of finagling, and the Purchase is also known as the Jessup Purchase. In 1771, the land speculators, Edward and Ebenezer Jessup, had to get past the Crown of England because the Crown did not like single-party ownership of large land tracts. The Jessups thought they were trying to acquire 800,000 acres.
Another 167 parties also had a vested interest in this land tract. To get around the Crown, the Jessups used Totten and Crossfield to act for their petition to the Royal Governor of the Province of New York. After the Purchase, the buyers and Indians had to sign a deed.
Land Purchase
The Purchase takes up all of today’s Hamilton County and parts of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Oneida, Saratoga, Saint Lawrence, Warren, and Washington Counties.
So began the settlement of Adirondack Park and its townships. Ebenezer laid out 43 townships, with each township about 24,000 acres in size. Once a township was acquired through a land grant, the owners surveyed the townships into smaller lots and sold them.
The Mohawk Nation and other Iroquois League nations then signed a deed. There were British officials and Native Americans present at the signing at the home of Sir William Johnson, the British as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies, in present-day Johnstown in Fulton County.
On the deed, those who attended the deed signing were Governor William Tryon and four Mohawk representatives, listed in the document as “Handrick alias Tayahansara, Lourance alias Agguragie, Hans alias Canadajaure, and Hans Krine alias Onagoodhoge”. At this time, the interested parties were dealing in land tracts extremely close to the Revolutionary War.
Surveying
Robert Hull in New York City held an event where only 24 of the 43 proposed townships were considered surveyed correctly and could be put up for ballot for the interested parties, including Totten and Crossfield, in 1773. When the war began in 1776, the Crown left the Purchase in limbo because the King had not yet granted letters of patent for the purchase.
The land holdings of the Loyalists during the Revolution were ceded to the State (of New York) through the Act of Attainder in 1779. The 1779 State law entitled, “An Act for the Forfeiture and Sale of the Estates of Persons who have adhered to the Enemies of this State, and for declaring the Sovereignty of the People of this State, in respect to all Property within the same”. Following the war, the original 24 townships were redistributed to new owners or some of the Loyalists who drew for them in 1773.
Most of the townships were centered in Hamilton County and the counties east of it. The town of Long Lake was officially incorporated in 1837, and residents established the first school in 1841. It was barely populated, but by 1850, its population had grown to 157, and by the 1860s, Long Lake had four stores and a hotel.
New York State established the Adirondack Park in 1892 with six million acres, and it covers 1/5th of the State of New York, plus it is three times bigger than Yellowstone Park. It is not a National Park and there are no entrance fees because it contains private and public lands.
