Arthur T. Hagen, of Rochester and a Successful Manufacturer of Laundry Equipment, Builds Palatial Summer Home on Ina Island

Nestled amongst the Summerland Group of islands, Ina Island came into the possession of Arthur T. and Emma Hagen in 1896. The Rochester, N.Y., couple had a large sailboat with which they lived during their summer months. That year, they happened to be visiting friends in the Summerland Group of islands, which includes Sport and Idlewild islands. According to the Watertown Daily Times, on September 8th, Emma purchased the 2-acre island from Miss Emily E. Briggs, a recent graduate (1892) of Wellesley College in Massachusetts who had relocated to Pasadena, California. The summer cottage was built within a couple of years, and on November 26, 1898, Arthur conveyed the property to his wife.

Born in London, England, on August 26, 1852, Arthur Tyson Hagen moved to New York thereafter, where his formal schooling was in New York City and Westchester County public schools. At the age of 15, he became an apprentice at the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company and learned the trade of a machinist.

While still with Wheeler & Wilson, he came to Rochester, N.Y., in 1871 but soon found himself a machinist employed by Sibley, Lindsay & Curr, an underwear manufacturer, which he eventually purchased. In 1874, Arthur Hagen formed a partnership with Peter Myers in the laundry business, which lasted until Myers’ death in 1888. During their partnership, Hagen and Myers developed several machines for laundry washing that were highly touted and considered best-in-class, for which they held patents.

After Myers’s death, Hagen purchased the remaining interest and formed a new partnership with F. B. Chapman and Donald M. Cooper. The three would form the Star Palace Laundry Corporation in 1890 with a capital of $150,000.

In the spring of 1914, the Hagens visited Ina Island to oversee what was described as extensive improvements being made to their summer home. Unfortunately, Arthur passed away on January 13, 1917, at the age of 64. No information regarding a cause of death or obituary could be found in local or Rochester newspaper archives.

Tragedy would strike Ina Island in 1920 with the drowning of an initially reported five-year-old boy, John Francis Carroll, who drowned while visiting with his parents from Rochester (the findagrave.com website lists him as having died at the age of approximately two-and-a-half years.) The Watertown Daily Times reported of the tragedy–

Mr. and Mrs. Carroll and their two children were visiting at the home of Mrs. A. T. Hagen of Rochester, whose summer home is on Ina Island. The child had been missing, so his mother states, only a few minutes, when she began searching for him. He was nowhere in sight, and Mrs. Carroll asked some painters who were doing some work nearby if they had seen John. One of the men stated that he had seen him on the lawn a short time previously.

Frantic search was then made, with the result of the boy was discovered in the river. The water was three feet deep, and when the body was recovered, to all appearances the life had gone out.

Within the next few years, Emma Hagen would spend her winters in Sand Diego and return to Rochester and Alexandria during the warmer months. In 1926, she had stayed at Hotel Woodruff in Watertown on her way to Alexandria Bay, traveling with a party of eight in two Marmon cars, which turned heads in the city. The Times noted she was the principal stockholder in the American Laundry Machine Company and had spent most of her time in California the last several years.

The following year, the large yacht house was built, including a ball room. The boathouse later was often mentioned in the early 2000s when it was sinking into the St. Lawrence River for the better part of a decade.

In October of 1941, the Watertown Daily Times reported that Emma Hagen and her granddaughter, Mrs. Anita Aldrich, and her granddaughters family from San Diego rented property on the corner of Otter and Church Streets and would stay for the winter season. Mrs. Aldrich’s three children, Virginia, Emma Jean, and Annette attended local schools. While unable to find definitive proof, Mrs. Aldrich may have been going through a divorce at the time that necessitated the living arrangements. Two years later, in her grandmother’s obituary, she was listed as Anita Hagen of Los Angeles.

Emma Hagen, age 88, passed away on August 24, 1943, at her home on Walton Street after an eleven-month illness. That summer was the first in many years that she could not visit her summer home on Ina Island. Two months later, Anita Hagen remarried to Lieut. Gregory S. Burch of California.

In April of 1946, the estate of Emma Hagen sold Ina Island to “Ina Island, Inc.,” the sale made in part by Anita Burch and her sister, Mrs. Suzanne Hagen Higgs, wife of Godfrey W. Higgs, a noted British Attorney. The home was, at the time, said to have “about 25 rooms, a large boathouse with ballrooms, docks, seawall and all of the requirements of a summer estate in the Thousand Islands.” Other reports have noted the three-story summer home has 18 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and 6 fireplaces.

Ina Island, Inc., was headed by Maurice Telch of New York City, who planned to convert the summer home into a clubhouse for the Ina Island Rod & Gun Club, accommodating about 50 guests. The affair wouldn’t last long, as the property fell behind in taxes and was sold in a tax auction in 1947 to George A. Hutchinson of Alexandria Bay for the total amount of the tax due, $640.82. The property was then known as Ina Island Club. 

In June of 1955, a fire destroyed the caretaker’s four-room cottage on Ina Island, and the caretaker, Cyril Lee, 58, barely escaped with his life. The Watertown Daily Times reported–

Thirty Alexandria Bay firemen under Chief Eugene Gaylord stayed at the scene until 4 a.m. to keep the fire from spreading to the hotel, which was full of guests. 

Cause of the fire was not determined. However, one possibility cited was that sparks from an exhaust on an electrical generating plant close to the building might have caught dry grass afire, the flames spreading to the cottage. 

The Ina Island Hotel property is owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. Louis Aldority of Brooklyn. 

The last piece of news found in newspaper archives was from April 22, 1960, when Ina Island was purchased by International Marine Limited from Canada for $50,000. It was operated as a club but known as Ina Island Club.