(From Dave Spencer)
Donald and Margaret Spencer visited Al and Margaret Coons at their tent site on the Pond in 1939 and purchased the adjacent Camp 17 with 250 feet of lakefront the following year from Gerald Taylor who had purchased the land from R. S. Hooper in 1934.
Since the deed in 1934 defined the sale as land only and in 1940 the sale was land and camp, it is assumed that the camp was constructed in the late 1930’s. The camp was elaborate for that day and had a brick fireplace as well as a basement with a dirt floor and a well which could be used in winter. There was no electricity, telephone or road around the lake and the only access was by rowed boat from Stillwater. During the Spencer’s ownership, the camp was named “Hickling” after the Spencer family farm in Nottingham, England. The Spencer purchased another 250 feet of lakefront from Gerald Taylor in 1944, and the property became the site for camps 14 -18. In 1973, the Spencers sold the camp to Carly Welch who sold the camp to the Woodings and built their camp on the south end of the log pile clearing. The Woodings winterized the camp, added the front dormer and garage and expanded the boat house. The Woodings renamed the property “The Log Pile” to reflect its historic role as a staging area for logs which, when the ice thawed, were floated to the mill at the lower end of the Pond. The property was subsequently owned by the Bob and Bertie O’Grady.
Rob Miller’s steamboat in front of the log pile clearing about 1905
