History of Franklin Falls, NY

The land now known as Franklin Falls was settled around 1827 by Isaac McLenathan and William Wells in a narrow valley cut by the Saranac River between Reardon Hill to the north and the foothills of Whiteface and McKenzie to the south and east. The prominent waterfall was christened McLenathan Falls and the rushing water was used to power a lumber mill that processed timber from around the region as well as an iron forge. McLenathan and Wells misjudged their market and their business failed after only a few years because it was too expensive to haul their products to what was then the nearest rail line at Port Kent. The area was abandoned, only for the sawmill to be restarted by John Fitzgerald and William McLean in 1846, soon joined by Oliver Keese and Thomas Tomlinson, mill operators from Keeseville, and Peter Comstock, a businessman from Port Kent. This time business got off to a strong start and in 1851 the thriving little mill town was renamed Franklin Falls with its own post office, hotel, store, and school and lumber piling up beside the roads waiting to go to market. This may have been their undoing, because in 1852 a forest fire swept down the valley and the entire town was suddenly destroyed.

The following decade saw a surge in renewed activity as the town rebuilt, not so much because of the mill as because of geography – the rail line made it to Ausable Forks, and there was much stage coach traffic driving west from the train through Black Brook and Franklin Falls en route to the Saranac Lake and St. Regis region. This also marked the beginning of Franklin Falls’ association with outdoorsmanship and conservationism, with local guides bringing visiting sportsmen through the settlement on hunting, fishing, and mountain climbing trips. The most famous of those guides was Henry Martin, born on or near our property in 1840, who became young Teddy Roosevelt’s friend and woodcraft teacher. Union Falls Pond was described in 1917 as “one of the biggest colonies of great northern pike now in the United States” (Adirondack Record, Oct. 19, 1917) though today it is better known for its walleye.

In 1850 the Franklin Falls residents used their abundant lumber to built a plank road eastward towards Black Brook and charged a toll for its use. A hotel called Franklin House (see photos) was built on a hill over the river and it became a major stop for east-west stagecoach traffic. This success sparked competition, as a local resident named French expanded his house along the plank road to welcome guests for food and drink. French’s was immediately popular with westbound traffic and he expanded his business by building a new road up what is now French’s Brook towards Whiteface mountain and then a steep trail up to the peak. Traveling sportsmen could thus spend the night at French’s and see the panoramic view of the High Peaks that we love today. Of course cutting your own road up Whiteface would be inconceivable today, but French’s tourist trail not only predates the building of the Whiteface Memorial Highway in 1929 but even the creation of the Adirondack Park in 1895. The eastbound road still exists and is called, naturally, Plank Road.

In the 1860's, men from Franklin Falls went south to fight in the Civil War, and some settlements of freed slaves were founded in the area, most famously abolitionist John Brown’s farming community of Timbuctoo nearby. The historic Basin Cemetery includes grave markers commemorating the Civil War service of some of the townspeople buried there. The names of Union Falls Pond and Lincoln Brook derive from this era.

The famous Adirondack guide Paul Smith bought the Franklin House in 1892 and began purchasing land above both Franklin Falls and Union Falls over the following decade. A 1903 fire burned through much of the area, destroying much of the timber. The hotel was closed, and in 1907 the Paul Smith’s Electric Light and Power and Railroad Company completed construction of the dams on Union Falls and Franklin Falls, flooding the lowlands above each dam and creating Franklin Falls Pond and Union Falls Pond. The settlement at Franklin Falls faded away.

In 1937 the land transferred from the estate of Paul Smith’s son Phelps Smith to the newly established Paul Smith’s College. The College began actively managing the land in the mid-1950’s, with heavy cutting of the paper birch and hard maple that originated following clear cuts for charcoal production during the early settlement 80-100 years earlier. Some softwood pulp was cut as well from the growing stock that established following the 1903 fire and subsequent period of agricultural abandonment. The College also established a lease program around this time for waterfront sites and at a few interior sites, which gave rise to the current rental cabin business. In 1977 the College sold the land to an investment group organized by Wagner Woodlands, and it passed through a series of owners until it was bought in 2021 by Franklin Falls Rentals LLC, a business with local roots.