- March 9, 1929 – Chester Dagles, Bolton Landing to Hilda Loines –
Dear Miss Hilda:
Thanks very much for writing the Conservation Department in my behalf. I have asked Andrew Smith to file a claim for me.
I think that it is a disgrace for the State of New York to have a law where they can take a man’s land whether he cares to sell or not without any appraising, and then to get his pay he has to employ a lawyer and what little they do allow for the land the lawyer takes as his fee.
I fail to see where they are doing so many things to help Lake George. They have done the most harmful thing in my way of thinking and I am quite sure that nine men out of every ten in the town of Bolton feel the same way that I do. I am afraid that they lack the sympathy of the people who really live here. Picture North West Bay as it was three or four years ago, with its green tillable meadows and peaceful little homes and then see it now, growing up to alders, shomak [Sumac] and all kinds of wild weeds. Who can say that it was necessary for the State of New York to take such land?
I would like to see the men who are responsible for the land taken to have to clear and put in shape for agriculture purpose two hundred acres of timber land. I don’t think that the average person has much idea as to the real hard work that is required to clear land. I think that it was all right to take the mountain land to protect the timber, but far from right to take the tillable land.
Sincerely,
Chester Dagles