Denny’s Cottages and Boat Lines

For more than fifty years, Denny’s Cottages, situated on the shore of the St. Lawrence River, within the town limits of Clayton, NY, was an immensely popular vacation destination for tourists looking to spend some holiday time in the Thousand Islands. Many of the visitors were repeat customers, who would come to the resort year after year to enjoy the beauty of the area and the recreational activities that the region offered.

According to a newspaper article written by Sharon Bourquin, from the Thousand Islands Museum in Clayton, Albert Denny purchased the three-acre piece of property from Edward Paige and began to build his campground in the late 1920s. Denny’s Cottages provided patrons with several modern amenities, which included flush toilets and access to the municipal water supply. The property was heavily treed, which provided ample shade on the hottest of summer days and was brightly lit up every night during the operating months. Along with the cabins, a small store and a lunchroom were located on site.

According to historical accounts, Mr. Denny, a hardworking and resourceful individual, used the material from the old Manatauk Hotel, which was situated on Bartlett’s Point, to build several cabins when the hotel was demolished. The newly built cabins were taken over to the Denny property across the ice during the winter months. At some point in time, a motel unit was added to the property to cater to the motoring public who were interested in short term accommodation as they passed through the area. As an added attraction for the patrons of the cottages, Denny’s offered scenic cruises through the Thousand Islands on an excursion boat that was kept at the property. Eventually, a separate business entity, Denny’s Boat Line, was established to help meet the growing demand for boat tours. The new business was incorporated under the name “The Scenic Tours” and was registered with the New York Secretary of State on June 21, 1927, with capitalization fixed at five thousand dollars. The directors and shareholders of the new company included Albert Denny, Eli Charlebois, and Arthur J. Bennett, all from Clayton.

Albert Paul Denny was born on January 1, 1884, the third of four sons to Leander and Mary Denny, who resided in the Town of Clayton. In the 1900 Census of the United States, Leander was enumerated as a farmer and Albert as a farm labourer. Albert married a young Irish immigrant named Mary Callaghan in November of 1910 and they had a son, Paul Leander, in 1920. According to the 1915 census for New York State, Albert’s occupation was specified as a fish dealer and his father, Leander, as a River Guide. The same occupation was entered for Albert in the 1920 United States census, but by the New York State census of 1925, it had changed to Boatman. A 1922 newspaper notice stated that Albert and his brother, Henry, had run afoul of the law when they were found to be in possession of over 1000 bottles of “spirituous liquors,” which were confiscated by the revenuers.

The 1930 US census recorded Albert as a Summer Camp Manager, presumably of Denny’s Cottages, and in the 1940 US census, he was registered as the Owner and Manager of Tour Boat Line and Overnight Cabins. That year, his son Paul, 19, was identified as a purser on the tour boats. Albert’s wife, Mary, died in March of 1948 at the age of 62 and it appears as if Albert sold his businesses shortly thereafter, as both he and his son Paul are named as carpenters in the 1950 US census. Paul passed away in 1956, at the age of 36, due to complications of diabetes mellitus. Albert died in Clayton in May of 1979, at the age of 95, and is buried in Saint Mary's Cemetery.

As the demand for sightseeing in the islands grew, Denny’s set up shop in Clayton and used the downtown docks at the foot of James Street as a base of operations for their tour boats. The company opened an office on Riverside Drive, beside Harry’s Snack Bar, to sell tickets for the boat cruises. A 45-mile excursion through the “Venice of America” was offered, along with a longer 85-mile trip to Kingston, with a 1000 Islands tour included. Both tours included a twenty-minute stop at Boldt Castle. In the early 1940s, Denny’s joined forces with the Clayton Boat Line to provide tours out of Kingston.

Denny’s fleet consisted of several boats over the years, with the first being the Colonial, which was originally built as the Maxine VI at Hutchinson’s Boat Works in 1925. The Miss Islander II joined the fleet in 1938 after she was built at the Clayton Ship & Boat Building Company. Another of the vessels was Spray VI, a 48-footer, also constructed by Clayton Ship & Boat Building Company. She was originally named Islander II when she was launched in 1925. A larger excursion boat, Christina II, rounded out the fleet, but I have been unable to track down much information on this particular boat.

August 5, 1941 was not a good day for the Denny’s Boat Lines as the Colonial caught fire and sank in the Lost Channel, near the Thousand Islands International Bridge, while on one of her tours through the islands. According to a news article in The Kingston Whig Standard, the boat was set ablaze after the engine backfired and ignited gasoline vapours that had accumulated under the floorboards. The twenty-seven men, women, and children who were on board the vessel at the time of the explosion had to jump into the River to avoid the flames that engulfed the boat.

Fortunately, there were no lives lost, and the only reported injury was to Captain Eli Charlebois, who sustained light burns to his hands and face as he unsuccessfully tried to quell the inferno. Several local residents sprang into action once the alarm was raised and took to the water in their motor launches to rescue the soggy passengers from the swirling, twenty-five-foot-deep waters. All the rescued people were taken ashore on the Canadian side of the River and were given dry clothes and a hot meal. They were transported back to Clayton by automobile later in the day, where the tour had originated.

It was reported that the property owners on the islands near the accident site had to keep watch on the floating fragments of the boat, which were still burning, to prevent their boathouses and docks from catching fire as well.

It seems that every small-town boat line has at least one colourful character associated with it, and Denny’s was no exception. Orlin Percy moved to Clayton when he was about fourteen years old, and a few years later, in 1915, he acquired the motor yacht, Gadabout, which he used to conduct tours through the Thousand Islands. He was one of the first operators of a small gasoline-powered tour boat out of Clayton and it was said that Orlin knew every island, inlet, and cove in the area around Clayton like the back of his hand, and had many fascinating stories about the people and places along his scenic route.

Somewhere along the line Orlin picked up the nickname “Prunes,” and was affectionately known to just about everyone as “Captain Prunes,” which is inscribed on his headstone in the Sand Bay cemetery. After many years on the tour boats, Orlin’s physical infirmities caught up with him and he had to hang up his captain’s hat. He became the manager and head ticket agent of the Denny Boat Line and worked out of the Riverside Drive office, along with the hostess and bookkeeper, Miss Kehoe, a local schoolteacher.

Mr. Denny sold the boat line to Raymond and Robert Conant around 1950. The timing of this sale was determined from the information included in the Bowling Green State University’s Historical Collections of the Great Lakes database entry for the Islander II, which was named Spray VI by this time. According to these records, ownership of the vessel passed from Denny’s Boat Line to Raymond C. Conant in 1950.

The Conant brothers operated Denny’s until 1957, at which point the company was absorbed by International Boat Tours Inc., which kept the Denny Boat Line name, in addition to that of the American Boat Line. It appears as if the Denny Boat Line was discontinued around 1962. Both Raymond and Robert eventually became captains of the American Boat Line double-decker tour boats that operated between Clayton and Gananoque.

The Denny’s Cottages and Motel remained active up until the 1990s. It was purchased from Mr. Denny by a local family group and was operated by Elsie and Gene Chiaramonte, who lived on-site and managed the operation. Dave & Syl Bulterman bought the property in 1979 and ran it until the early 1990s. At that point, it was sold again, and the cabins and motel unit were torn down to make way for some new townhouses close to the road and the Bayside Marina by the water.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people who assisted me with the preparation of this article:
• Karen Wand, for sharing with me her old newspaper clippings from the era and for offering her proofreading and editing prowess.
• Mark Sprang, the Archivist for the Historical Collections of the Great Lakes at Bowling Green State University, for allowing me to use the database entry for the Islander II.
• Jordan Coughlin, the Town & Village of Clayton Historian, for allowing me to use the image of the entrance gate to Denny’s Cottages, on behalf of the Thousand Islands Museum.

By Tom R. King

Tom King and his wife Marion have lived in Milton, Ontario, for the past 37 years, where they both worked and raised their family of three children: Kris, Mike and Becca. Tom has captured the history of the tour boat industry as well as giving us the  best spider story in the past 17 years!

Editor's Note: Read more articles by Tom King here in our new format for TI Life, and more articles on our old site. Thank you, Tom, for your ability to capture the boat line stories of our River has brought history alive!