A place in our Hearts - Mary Elizabeth Potter Jones
"Chazy, Chateaugay, Cumberland Head on Lake Champlain. They had vacationed
there. Then an 'ad' in the Brooklyn Eagle about a place called Lake Placid in
the Adirondacks.
"So from Brooklyn they came to Lake Placid and rented a cottage for the
summer until in 1894 George Washington Platt bought a property which was later
named 'Our Ideal.' The place has been loved successively by Platts, Allers,
Potters, Joneses, Homers and Volmrichs.
"George Washington Platt was a jeweler and assayor with a prosperous business
on Maiden Lane, New York City. He liked to fish. It was he who bought the property
on Buck Island (originally called Moose Island on old maps). It is only about
100 ft. of shore line but running to State Land on the top of the island. It
faces the landing on the mainland and looks to the South Mts. McIntyre and Marcy.
"G. W. Platt gave this property to his only daughter Mary Eliza Platt Aller.
A small cabin was built and Thomas Gustin Aller, her husband, lived here one
winter and added on rooms. A barn was built, a boathouse for the Adirondack
guide boat, 'Mary Eliza,' a wood-shed, an icehouse.
"From 1896 to 1899 the place was developed so that the family of Thomas
Gustin Aller, his wife Mary Eliza, Georgetta, their daughter, who was by now
a student at Barnard college, their son T. Gustin Aller II and little Harris
Aller, born in 1896, could come by rail and stagecoach from Brooklyn to spend
their summers at 'Our Ideal.'
"Because it was a long row to and from the landing run by Mr. Billings,
and later by George & Bliss, to pick up milk delivered to us each day --
a cow was brought over on a scow across the lake and kept in the barn for the
summer and so young Harris had fresh milk.
"G. W. Platt died in 1906 -- Georgetta, who had graduated from Womens' [sic]
Medical College and was an M.D., married Dr. Winfred Leman Potter in June, 1906
and they lived in Homer, NY.
"Gustin and Harris, sometimes their mother, came to 'Our Ideal' through
the years. Harris won the canoe races at the Lake Placid Yacht Club in 1913
and 1914. We have the paddles to prove it.
"In 1917 Gustin went to War as an oral surgeon in the Medical Corp unit
from Philadelphia. He died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.
"Harris was at the Naval Academy at Annapolis and 'Marty,' their mother,
moved to California.
"The old rambling log-house stood lonely and forlorn through the 1920's
until about 1927 when Mary and Leman Potter, daughter and son of Georgetta Aller
and Winfred Potter, remembered the old place from occasional visits when they
were children and they decided to investigate the 'camping out' possibilities.
"The roofs leaked, the floors sagged, the chimneys were choked, the dock
a ruin -- but the beauty of lake and sky and woods remained. The spring could
be cleaned out for delicious water again and the old privy sat crazily on the
hill.
"So in the late 1920's and early 30's a mattress dragged onto a porch was
a bed -- cooking was done on an outdoor fire -- the fishes ate out our dishes.
"Then William Binion Jones married Mary Elizabeth Potter and it was determined
that the place must be made habitable again.
"Georgetta was deeded the place by her mother Mary Eliza 'Marty', the old
house was torn down by Charlie Martin our caretaker, who had known and fished
with G. W. Platt long ago. And a new log cabin was erected on the site of the
old larger house and the same logs, windows and doors were used again.
"In 1934 this work was begun and by 1936 the Potters and Jones' were summer
residents of lovely Lake Placid.
"Roxanne Jones (1932) and Georgia Jones (1937) have spent their loveliest
days at 'Aller Camp', which was a change of name for family identification, where
grandmother Georgetta Aller Potter brought them every year. Here Charlie Martin
taught them to fish and clean the fish, how to use a hammer and axe, and many
odd things.
"We all loved Charlie who was with us as caretaker and friend until he died
when well over 80. In 1957 Georgetta deeded the camp to Mary Elizabeth Potter
Jones. Lester Bean, our caretaker now, and his friend 'Jiggs' Bryant, undertook
to build the 'Mad-house' where the old barn had stood. Roxanne's husband, Richard
Homer, and architect, drew up the plans and the whole family mixed cement, placed
stones for the fireplace, stained the siding, fitted windows, etc. We needed
this added space because we were now Dr. Winfred and Dr. Georgetta Potter, Binyon
and Mary Potter Jones, Roxanne Jones and Richard Homer and their growing family,
and Georgia Jones who was soon to marry Arthur Volmrich and of course, Leman
Potter, his wife Margaret Barvian and their children George Platt, Sharon Elizabeth
and William Leman Potter.
"As I write this in the summer of 1969 -- on a beautiful July day I am mindful
that six generations of my family have loved and lived on Buck Island and found
it a place of renewal and rediscovery.
"A place dear to our hearts."