Hamilton Child, of Syracuse, Purchases 25 Acres to Build Grand View Park on Wells Island.

Following the likes of Thousand Island Park (1875) and Westminster Park (1877) on Wellesley Island, Grand View Park, as it was originally spelled, came to be in 1885. As the history of parks on the St. Lawrence tended to prove, the return on investment for nearly every subsequent park was smaller and smaller, with one of the last, Prospect Park, located outside Clayton, never managing to fully take off, as neither did its hotel, the Manatauk, around the turn of the century.

In 1885, Hamilton Child, a book publisher from Syracuse, purchased twenty-five acres of land on Wells Island, later Wellesley Island, point, near the Canadian border. Having visited the Thousand Islands during the summer for some years, Child found the point with its views and large, sandy beach one of, if not the largest of its kind in the area of the St. Lawrence River. Later, it had a toboggan slide that attracted visitors.

Child’s familial roots in the area date back to his grandfather in the early 1800s, as told in… —

Cadwallader Child, the grandfather of Hamilton, fourth in descent from Henry, one of the original settlers under William Penn, then living near Philadelphia, Pa., came to Brownville in 1804 by direction of James D. LeRay de Chaumont, to confer with his agent, Jacob Brown, afterward General of the American Forces on the northern frontier in the war of 1812-14, relative to projected roads Mr. Childs was to survey.

One of his first roads was that from the site of Friends’ settlement (Philadelphia, N.Y., where Hamilton was born,) to the St. Lawrence, since known as the “Alexandria Road.”

After purchasing the property, Hamilton Child had E. A. Bond, the chief engineer of the Utica and Black River Rail Road, survey the park and subdivide it. Fifty-nine buildings were constructed in the beginning years, and one hundred seventy were then still available for purchase.

Like the other aforementioned parks, one of the earliest buildings constructed at Grand View Park was a hotel, the Grand View House. Described as a “charming summer resort,” Grand View House had accommodations for eighty to dine and, along with its annex cottages, more than a hundred. Opened to guests during the tourist season, the hotel and park were serviced by the steamer “Edith May,” transporting them from other boats and incoming trains to Thousand Island Park.

In October 1899, the Watertown Daily Times (WDT) reported the Grand View Park was subjected to the typhoid fever epidemic—

The state board of health was today informed by Dr. F. W. Smith of that board, that there is an epidemic of typhoid fever at Grand View hotel, Thousand Islands, and that five Syracusans were victims of the disease, two having died. He sent to the board a list of the persons who had been afflicted at the hotel.

In his letter Dr. Smith says: “It is more than probable that this list does not contain all of the people now sick who were guests at this hotel. These have simply come to the knowledge of the person giving me the list within the last few days. It has been stated to me that the water supply and sanitary conditions of the hotel are very bad.”

An inspector will be sent out by the state board to make an investigation.

In 1903, tobacco tycoon and hotelier Charles G. Emery of Calumet Island and “The New Frontenac” on Round Island fame, purchased Grand View Park, including the hotel and about 200 vacant lots and several cottage dormitories.  The WDT noted in their June 9, 1903 article—

Under Mr. Emery’s ownership Grand View Park hotel will not be conducted as a public resort. To just what use he will put the property those who knew refuse to state, but he  is credited with having a philanthropic project in mind, one rumor having it that he will use the hotel as a place for entertaining fresh-air children from New York. 

The purchase price was later revealed to be $7,000.

In the late 1980s, longtime summer resident Elizabeth P. Stamp of Eugene, Oregon, wrote a book detailing her experiences, memories, and history of Grand View Park. An article was published in the WDT on April 11, 1988, which gave insight into what became of the Grand View House and its history, therefore lacking in the newspapers and books since Emery’s purchase.

Along with confirming Emery used the property to host fresh-air kids from the New York City area, the article noted—

Sometime around 1907 Mr. Emery had the Grand View hotel cut in two pieces and transported across the frozen to Picton Island, Mrs. Stamp said. With the hotel on Picton Island, the millionaire continued the practice of bringing impoverished children from New York City to the Islands for vacations.

Mrs. Stamp has, however, been unable to find out what happened to the hotel after that time or learn exactly where it was located on Picton Island.

Mrs. Stamp began coming to Grand View Park with her family in 1911, staying at a seven-bedroom establishment called the Seldom Inn, which was built after the Grand View House was removed. Her family bought the inn in 1924, renamed it “The Aquariam” and ran it until it burned down in 1944.

After Emery died in 1915, the property was owned by his descendants. Not much was reported in the news about it, until August 30, 1940, when they sold 438 lots on Round Island and about 50 acres comprising Grand View Park in 1940, the latter going for a mere $25.

By the time of the 1988 article featuring Elizabeth Stamp, Grand View Park had been reduced to a colony of around a dozen cottages.