Our Rich History
Lake Carey is a quiet 182-acre, glacial lake high in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains. Until the 1870s, there were only farms along its shores, a lumber mill at its outlet, and the occasional fisherman on its waters. That would change dramatically after a group of investors in nearby Springville launched a railroad linking it to Montrose and Tunkhannock. Three years after service to Lake Carey began in 1874, Herman and Margaret Pollner opened its first hotel.
Noting the hotel’s popularity, two Tunkhannock businessmen bought 15 acres from a local farmer in 1879 for a development on the east shore. They cleared 13 lakefront lots, on either side of a small park containing a long-handled, community pump. Friends and associates paid $25 for the right to build, and simple cottages soon sprang up.
In the next two decades the community grew rapidly. Development around a west shore farmhouse (remodeled into the second hotel) followed in 1882. Two years later another set of lots on the west shore sold quickly; they included a second-tier plot reserved for a chapel built in 1890. A third hotel was added on the east shore in 1877. That same year residents organized the Fish and Game Association with 25 charter members.
John and Mary Wrigley ushered in a new era in 1882 when they opened a picnic grove beside their east shore farmhouse. It drew large crowds in numbers that only a railroad could transport. Here the politically influential farmer coalition, the Grangers, held their picnic for 25 years. At about this time, the first steamboat, the Marietta, began to chug its way around the lake.
A second, grander picnic ground opened on the west shore in 1904. It featured a Ferris wheel, carousel, dance pavilion, and photography studio, as well as a boat livery and the 60-foot steamboat Rosalind. Although popular with Sunday Schools and other groups, the grounds nonetheless faltered, closing some years later after its Wilkes-Barre investors withdrew their support. Soon thereafter, the abandoned Rosalind sank into the muddy lake bottom.
As the crowds of picnic goers thinned, the lake underwent another transformation. In the ensuing years, four camps were opened by teachers and clergy where youngsters under their guidance could develop into responsible adults. Joseph Oliver started the first, Camp Pokanoket, in 1910. He recruited its campers from a largely Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, where he and his camp assistant were high school teachers. It was a sophisticated operation, offering the boys tutoring in NYS Regents’ subjects, photography, a play, an annual outing to a notable site (Niagara Falls one year), as well as baseball, tennis, boating, swimming, and diving. Among its campers was the American composer, Aaron Copland, who later recalled his four summers there with warmth.
Oliver’s assistant began a second camp on the west shore, after Oliver sold Pokanoket; another was opened for scouts by Nanticoke Methodists on the former east shore site of the third hotel, and a fourth briefly operated behind the cottage of an east shore clergyman, to the dismay of neighbors wakened by early morning bugle calls. None of these camps, however, would survive the lean years of the Depression.
In the 1930s, the lake’s residents turned to a new pastime, regattas with 16-foot, comet class sailboats. It is likely that Admiral Harold R. Stark, later WWII Chief of Naval Operations, was a formative influence. As a boy, Stark presumably learned to boat and swim at Lake Carey, where his Wilkes-Barre parents owned a west shore cottage. Regattas began in 1934, their winners receiving a blue pennant. Five years later, the Admiral added a trophy.
Passenger train service to the lake finally ended in 1940. Gone were the picnic grounds and steamboats, gone too were the summer camps and regattas. In their place, lake residents focused their efforts on community well-being with a voluntary association they founded in 1938. Its aims reflected the emerging needs of a mid-20th century lake: protecting water quality, promoting safety on its waters and roads, controlling commercial and residential development, and otherwise enhancing community life. Each of these remain challenges today, requiring the continuing good will and generous support of all who love this remarkable lake.
Embedded within this story of railroads, picnic groves, and camps is yet another, more intimate tale of ordinary, unassuming family life. While the lake’s public attractions changed in response to the times, family life altered but little. Children learned to fish, swim, and boat under watchful parental eyes; adolescent boys boasted and bragged before seemingly indifferent teenage girls; couples met, courted, broke-up, and eventually married (someone); and in time, space was found in the family cottage for yet another generation.
Today, as it has since 1890, the Chapel bell rings to announce Sunday services and to also herald the rituals of family life: christenings, weddings, and funerals. And so this quiet lake is remarkable too as a place where families gather, even in troubled times, to celebrate the fullness of their lives, grateful for the privilege of a place at the lake.
Noting the hotel’s popularity, two Tunkhannock businessmen bought 15 acres from a local farmer in 1879 for a development on the east shore. They cleared 13 lakefront lots, on either side of a small park containing a long-handled, community pump. Friends and associates paid $25 for the right to build, and simple cottages soon sprang up.
In the next two decades the community grew rapidly. Development around a west shore farmhouse (remodeled into the second hotel) followed in 1882. Two years later another set of lots on the west shore sold quickly; they included a second-tier plot reserved for a chapel built in 1890. A third hotel was added on the east shore in 1877. That same year residents organized the Fish and Game Association with 25 charter members.
John and Mary Wrigley ushered in a new era in 1882 when they opened a picnic grove beside their east shore farmhouse. It drew large crowds in numbers that only a railroad could transport. Here the politically influential farmer coalition, the Grangers, held their picnic for 25 years. At about this time, the first steamboat, the Marietta, began to chug its way around the lake.
A second, grander picnic ground opened on the west shore in 1904. It featured a Ferris wheel, carousel, dance pavilion, and photography studio, as well as a boat livery and the 60-foot steamboat Rosalind. Although popular with Sunday Schools and other groups, the grounds nonetheless faltered, closing some years later after its Wilkes-Barre investors withdrew their support. Soon thereafter, the abandoned Rosalind sank into the muddy lake bottom.
As the crowds of picnic goers thinned, the lake underwent another transformation. In the ensuing years, four camps were opened by teachers and clergy where youngsters under their guidance could develop into responsible adults. Joseph Oliver started the first, Camp Pokanoket, in 1910. He recruited its campers from a largely Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, where he and his camp assistant were high school teachers. It was a sophisticated operation, offering the boys tutoring in NYS Regents’ subjects, photography, a play, an annual outing to a notable site (Niagara Falls one year), as well as baseball, tennis, boating, swimming, and diving. Among its campers was the American composer, Aaron Copland, who later recalled his four summers there with warmth.
Oliver’s assistant began a second camp on the west shore, after Oliver sold Pokanoket; another was opened for scouts by Nanticoke Methodists on the former east shore site of the third hotel, and a fourth briefly operated behind the cottage of an east shore clergyman, to the dismay of neighbors wakened by early morning bugle calls. None of these camps, however, would survive the lean years of the Depression.
In the 1930s, the lake’s residents turned to a new pastime, regattas with 16-foot, comet class sailboats. It is likely that Admiral Harold R. Stark, later WWII Chief of Naval Operations, was a formative influence. As a boy, Stark presumably learned to boat and swim at Lake Carey, where his Wilkes-Barre parents owned a west shore cottage. Regattas began in 1934, their winners receiving a blue pennant. Five years later, the Admiral added a trophy.
Passenger train service to the lake finally ended in 1940. Gone were the picnic grounds and steamboats, gone too were the summer camps and regattas. In their place, lake residents focused their efforts on community well-being with a voluntary association they founded in 1938. Its aims reflected the emerging needs of a mid-20th century lake: protecting water quality, promoting safety on its waters and roads, controlling commercial and residential development, and otherwise enhancing community life. Each of these remain challenges today, requiring the continuing good will and generous support of all who love this remarkable lake.
Embedded within this story of railroads, picnic groves, and camps is yet another, more intimate tale of ordinary, unassuming family life. While the lake’s public attractions changed in response to the times, family life altered but little. Children learned to fish, swim, and boat under watchful parental eyes; adolescent boys boasted and bragged before seemingly indifferent teenage girls; couples met, courted, broke-up, and eventually married (someone); and in time, space was found in the family cottage for yet another generation.
Today, as it has since 1890, the Chapel bell rings to announce Sunday services and to also herald the rituals of family life: christenings, weddings, and funerals. And so this quiet lake is remarkable too as a place where families gather, even in troubled times, to celebrate the fullness of their lives, grateful for the privilege of a place at the lake.
by Walter Broughton
This historical account was contributed by Walter, whose "Lake Carey", published by Arcadia Press in their Images of America Series, is available for purchase through the LCWA.
This historical account was contributed by Walter, whose "Lake Carey", published by Arcadia Press in their Images of America Series, is available for purchase through the LCWA.