COMMUNITIES IN THE TOWN OF ALEXANDRIA

CLEAR LAKE HISTORY

From the Thousand Islands Sun, 10 Jun 1976, courtesy of Jeanne Snow, editor

PIONEER SETTLING OF CLEAR LAKE SECTION
by the late Ernest C. Cook
"Yes, it may become quite a settlement, which is doubtful, but I want to locate nearer to a post office, so I guess I'll push on towards the St. Lawrence River, as I understand mail comes to Alexandria at quite frequent periods."
So spoke the young man, Charles Rundlett, who had walked all the way from Vermont to locate in the Black River country, and had reached the unpretentious settlement composed of log houses at High Falls, Indian River, that mid-afternoon as he visited with one of the pioneers who was working around the sawmill recently put into operation by Anson Cheeseman, with a most assured prospect of being busy for months to come. Mr. Rundlett asked about the direction to travel to come to a location nearer to the post office in Alexandria and he local man pointed in a northerly direction.
With that instruction as to the way to go, the young man pushed on. That was in the year 1817 when all this north section was almost a solid wilderness. The young man made another important reason for pushing on. He wanted to locate near a lake where he could be assured a supply of fish to help provide meat for his table, food he must prepare himself since he was not married.
The next day his axe was busy dropping down the trees on the southside of Clear Lake where he had decided to locate his claim. The timber looked good, the land quite productive and the lake was there with plenty of fish for the table. He was all alone in the vast wilderness, the first settler to pick land at or near Clear Lake in the Town of Alexandria.
It was not such a long walk by the pioneer road surveyed by "Quaker" Childs from the Friends Settlement to the St. Lawrence River, and Charles Rundlett followed this road to see if by chance a letter had come to him at the post office there, and to mail a letter to the relatives back home in Vermont who would be anxious to know how he was getting along in the new wilderness country. It was lonesome in the log house he had built on the clearing at Clear Lake but he was sure others would come in to take up land, maybe nearby.
Sure enough, one morning as Charles Rundlett went out to look after work after a good night's sleep, he actually heard the sound of an axe across the lake. Another pioneer arrived and was chopping probably to get some trees cut for a log house. That afternoon Charles Rundlett crossed the lake, the ice still was firm for the warmth of spring had not started it breaking up, and there, sure enough, was a kindly looking-man busy at the construction of his future home. The new neighbor said his name was Newman, and he was surprised to know that he had a near neighbor to the south. The Newman family were soon located and visits were exchanged again and again across the lake, probably Charles Rundlett going the most frequently. The reason was soon plain to see; there was a very attractive young lady in the Newman home and the wedding took place not long after.
The Newman family were intent on building a mill on the small stream that flowed out from the big spring near the head of Clear Lake to start a broom factory, for pioneers would want brooms. Other settlers came in and later Charles Rundlett purchased a farm on the main road to Alexandria Bay, between Plessis and Browns Corners. There he lived to a good age. He sleeps in the Plessis cemetery, one of the first pioneers to settle in that part of Alexandria, though then in the Town of LeRay when he cleared his land.
Today the Rundlett farm, located on the Plessis-Browns Corners highway, is owned by Earl Hunter (editor's note: later owned by Paul Hunter and now owned by Donald Lewis) and Mrs. Hunter is a descendant of Charles Rundlett.
And Charles Rundlett used to say that he never regretted pushing on that day in 1817 when he was looking for a tract of land to call his home, and built a comfortable place at Clear Lake. It gave him a lake to get table supplies from and a lake to cross to get a very helpful wife. All-in-all, it was a good location.

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Nan Dixon

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