When you come up to the Clayton Antique & Classic Boat Show. You MUST at least go by and see Whiskey Island so you can book yourself this wonderful place for next year, or at least a week during the summer. Whiskey Island is everything good about what the Thousand islands is all about. A great historic home in a fantasy setting, all mixed in with a woody boat. Here is the look and history of the Island from there web site. www.whiskeyislandlodge.com
Whiskey Island Lodge
Whiskey Island is located at the southwestern end of the Thousand Islands along the US/Canadian boarder at the head of Grindstone Island on the Saint Lawrence River. The families of MorganLeavitt and Carter inhabited this section of the river each summer for over a hundred years and still have family and cottages in the area today.
Chris Wolf built the first of several cottages in that section of river. Whiskey Island was the first to have a cottage. The original section of the house was built of 2 x 4 planks stacked upon one another, which has served for a structurally sound lodge. Through out the rivers history most of the original cottages in the area have burned down and were rebuilt, but due to Whiskey’s resilience, her structure remains one of the oldest cottages in the area!
Whiskey was originally owned by a Leavitt in 1875 who was married to Wolf (whom built the cottage on Whiskey) but he ran off with a governess and it was sold in 1914 to Alice Carters Mother “Grandma Morgan” where Alice’s son Bunny Morgan and his family lied each summer until 1961 when Bunny past away and it was left to his daughter Mimi Boyer. She with her husband and family inhabited Whiskey each and every summer until her passing in 1994 when it was left to her daughter Jenny where she sold it to theRandazzo Family in which it belongs today.
In 1870, Whiskey Island was originally named Coral Island due to the maze of shoals that surround her. Because of this maze of shoals and its strategic location on Us/Canadian boarder, Whiskey was the main drop and run point forrumrunners during the time of prohibition. Because these shoals and rocks surrounded the Island it was easy for the rumrunners to recover the smuggled liquor. Since this section of river, where Whiskey lay, was a tricky spot to navigate through, it was hard to chase therumrunners since they where the best navigators on the river an they could get a boat through this cut fast to escape the law. As a code to other rumrunners “Whiskey Island” was adapted to inform each other where the goods could be recovered and stored if the law was getting in the way.
Un sure of the time in which her name was oficially changed on charts to identify her as Whiskey Island, we know it happened some years after prohibition. Since people have a great fascination with the prohibition divers often explore the shoals surrounding whiskey to try and dig up her past and what she protected and gave.
