Thousand Island Ancestors….. Might You Have One?

A century ago, the Thousand Island area of the St. Lawrence River (some 1864 actually) was the playground of some of America’s richest people. They came and built “cottages” (mansions!) as their summer retreats.  Clayton, Jefferson County, New York, was sort of a jumping off point for these well-heeled folks to board their private yachts and sail to their summer “cottage.”  Bet you didn’t know that Thousand Island Salad Dressing was first concocted there by the wife of a local fisherman…….. it was for salmon, not salad.  But I digress.

We’ve all been told a hundred times to check out the small-little-town libraries, museums and historical societies where our ancestors might have lived. Well, BINGO on Clayton!  While on my cruise trip in May, we moored for a day at Clayton. I made a beeline for the Thousand Islands Museum and Clayton Research Library Collection.  Yes, the little museum was impressive….. it gets cold enough there that in days gone by there were trotting-horse races held on the ice… but it was the genealogy collection that really impressed me.

There were binders shelved around three sides of the room; two sides held over 300 binders labeled by surnames, families that had lived in the area. And these were fat-stuffed binders with newspaper clippings, obits, letters, all sorts of goodies! Of course I looked at the binder for POTTER and first thing was a spiral-bound booklet titled Potters of New York…. A resource I’d never seen before! Likely a local author’s compilation.

The third side of the room was their local veterans’ memorials, some dating back to the Civil War. On the final side of the room were binders labeled businesses, churches, schools, groups, cemeteries, rivers, etc. The four walls surrounded a 12-foot table with 12 comfy chairs.

So, Lesson #1:  do not neglect contacting even small towns for they are always very proud of their history and most always have resources on the folks who made that history. And Lesson #2, if you have a Thousand Island ancestor, contact the Clayton Research Library, 312 James Street, Clayton, NY, 13601, or click to www.timuseum.org or email info@timuseum.org.