Page:History of Warren County.djvu/689

 Mr. Brown was married in September, 1865, to Miss Mary McGinn, of Sandy Hill, N. Y. They have two children—Sanford S., and Walter D. Brown.

UGENE L. SEELYE.—The family from which the subject of this sketch is descended was among the earliest settlers in the present county of Warren. Going back three generations we find the settlement of the family of which David Seelye was a member, at what has always been known as "the Oneida" (the site of the present post-office of Queensbury). One of David Seelye's sons was Reuben Seelye, whose name is found among those who held town offices as early as 18 13. His children were Lemuel C. P. Seelye, Reuben Seelye, and three daughters, named Emilia, Mahala and Saloma. The children of Lemuel C. P. Seeley are Eugene L. (the subject of this notice), Fanny, Cynthia, Belle, Lettie and L. J. Seelye.

Eugene L. Seelye was born at his paternal home on the 2d day of December, 1845. He was given facilities for securing a good English education in the common schools of his native town and the Clinton Institute, which was supplemented with a full business course in Eastman's College at Poughkeepsie. Thus fitted for the business of life he left home at the age of eighteen to accept a position as bookkeeper and cashier with F. B Gardner & Co., heavy lumber dealers of Chicago. After one year of satisfactory work in their office, he was sent by them to their extensive mills and store in Wisconsin, where for eight years he served them with mutual satisfaction as financial manager. In the mean time his father, who had purchased a tract of timber land (two hundred acres) on the eastern shore of the head of Lake George, opposite the village of Caldwell, had also erected threon a small hotel, having removed the soft wood timber. At the end of his term of service in Wisconsin, E. L. Seelye was offered gratuitously a half interest in this land and improvements if he would come and conduct the hotel. This proposition was accepted and one year later he assumed the entire property, his father retiring. Here he found a business undertaking requiring all the business skill and energy of which he was master. Assuming charge of the hotel in 1874, he immediately began making extensions and improvements which have not ceased from year to year to the present time; until now the hotel proper, with its eight near-by cottages, offer accommodations to about four hundred guests and receives every summer hundreds of families,, the majority from New York, Brooklyn and Philadelphia, with others from all parts of the country. This popular resort, called Fort George Hotel, and its beautiful grounds, occupies a commanding situation a short distance up the hillside from the lake shore and with its surroundings forms an earthly paradise. The eight different and separated cottages, ranging in cost from $2,500 to $6,000, are every summer occupied by families who prefer this manner of living and take their meals at the hotel.