338 RF.PORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



whether it is by the ones who buih them or by some squatters who seize the vacant 

 premises at the first opportunity. 



One of the attractions of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River is the 

 large number of charming cottages wiiich grace each prominent point. Are Lake 

 George and Raquette Lake any the less beautiful because of the summer homes 

 which adorn their shores? It is no answer to say that these camp sites are occupied 

 to the exclusion of the public. Aside from guides' and hunters' camps, there are not 

 thirty of these summer cottages on the lakes in the Preserve. But there is room for 

 thousands of campers on unoccupied desirable sites, none of whom, howe\'er, come. 



Then, there are the seventeen leaseholders whose leases will soon expire. What 

 shall be done with them? They are there, with their buildings and improvements, by 

 authority of the Board of Land Commissioners or Forest Commission. On the expi- 

 ration of their leases they will probably ask for a renewal, and tender their money for 

 the same. But the Board will be compelled, under the constitutional provision, to 

 refuse their request. Neither can the Board make the e.KCuse, common with other 

 landlords, that the property has been rented to other parties. Shall these tenants be 

 ejected and their houses destroyed, closed, or given to others ? If the houses are to 

 remain, who has a better right to occupy them than the present tenants ? 



There is another class of tenants whose peculiar case appeals to the sympathy of 

 the Commissioners and makes it difficult for them to act. They are persons suffering 

 from pulmonary disease who have gone into the woods to seek relief or to eke out a 

 slender existence. Shattered in health and straitened in means, they were unable to 

 pay the extravagant prices asked for building sites in the vicinity of the hotels, and so 

 they pitched their camps on the public Preser\'e. Perhaps they had read the clause 

 in the forestry law providing that the Adirondack Park "shall be forever reserved, 

 maintained and cared for as a ground open for the free use of all the people for tlieir 

 Itcalth and pleasure." Poinding their tents too cold and damp for the early spring or 

 late fall, they built small houses — hardly worth the name of cottages — that brought 

 them within the list of tenants-at-will or "occupants" of State land. Some of these 

 invalids who lived in tents built little ice houses, boat landings and steps; but on 

 returning in the spring they often found their point occupied b_\' some guide or 

 squatter who had coolly taken possession not onl)- of the camp site but of all its little 

 betterments. The person thus dispossessed wtiuld then ask for a lease of some piece 

 of ground v/here he could have some assurance of peace and permanence. But, 

 owing to the constitutional restriction, the Commission was obliged in each case to 

 refuse the request. 



These are only a part of the manv questions which confronted the Commissioners 

 in their efforts to decide what should be done in the matter of occupancies. I^ut 



