History

Imagine asking the US residents on Washington Island, in Clayton, NY, to change the island’s name back to its original: ...

The sinking was first reported to police by Mrs. Walter Wells. “It was a great boom which woke me up. Then we began to hear people

What’s in a Building? Bricks, mortar and a lot of wood. But the Gananoque Canoe Club (GCC), now known as the Thousand Is...

Readers of TIL are aware that one hundred and sixty Patriots were taken prisoner at the Battle of the Windmill near Pres...

Baguettes, berets, French pastries, Canada's flag flying while “O’Canada” is being belted out from a singer on a main st...

It was one of those “hot summer days” when I first watched Thousand Island Park Now and Then.  The thirty-minute DV...

The nine passenger single engine plane chartered from Carson Air in Toronto picked up a newlywed couple who had spent th...

Louis Richards wrote, "It is a chapter in the story ...

The Central New York winter season has become my model building time. Several models have been built for collectors...

Under the probation system, prisoners were awarded tickets of leave (a form of probation) for good conduct following two years of hard labour. Many of the Patriots received

  On the night of Tuesday, May 29, 1838 between 12 and 1 o’clock one of the inmates of the ladies cabin on the S...

Let’s settle the nagging question of which came first: the name or the fiddler?

A new book by Rex Ennis...

Betsey Fitch of Rutland, NY was given Lot 16. Lots 19 and 20 were sold to William Wells of Augusta, Upper Canada for a total of $1,340.00.

Henry R. Heath was one of the visionary builders of the Gilded Age. However, Heath was not always destined ...

“Number please?” “Hello... Hello Mabel?” the female voice on the other end of the line was near panic. “Can you get Doctor Regan?

Charles S. Graham was an itinerant, self taught sketch artist born 1852 in Illinois.

I captained the old Snider 1000 Islands tour boats from 1978 to 1980...

One can’t discuss boat builders in the Thousand Islands without talking about Joseph Leyare.

After finishing a documentary DVD, a book, and then an updated version of our movie, we were pretty sure that we had com...

In 1867 the Marquess of Queensbury brought structure to the sport of prize fighting. These rules instituted the three mi...

The Darlingside store is located on the St. Lawrence  River, east of the Thousand Island Bridge, on the Canadian sh...

"...My parents remembered Alexandria Bay when it was only a “wooding station: where boats landed for fuel.

In the February issue of Thousand Islands Life Magazine we introduced Howard Pyle, one of North America’s premier illust...

The island road twists through a series of snake-like turns and suddenly there it is - Thousand Island Park- a bit of Am...

Flags abound in the islands. At Grenell Island’s July 2009 regatta, participants were asked to count the flags as they p...

The second in a series on illustrators of the Thousand Islands.

Part XII and final chapter of Kristen Pinkney's research

When the St. Lawrence River freezes over, one mode of transportation is by “ice boat” or “air boat”, as they are called ...

It wasn’t used and it took up too much space. Yet, chopping it up with an ax and burning it was not an option.

Well today is the fourth of July. I have had a delightful day.

The capitalists, the builders of our country, made the Thousand Islands their playground in what we call today the “Gold...

Captain Leath Davis can trace his Wolfe Island roots to the pioneer Hitchcock family who obtained a charter to start a ferry service to Kingston from Wolfe Island.

"Tidd’s Island: a History of its People and Their Stories" was published in July of 2009

Last night we had a delightful serenade. I wonder who it was. He passed the Island five times singing...

By the time I first arrived on Grenell Island in 1975, my husband’s family had already been on the Point, for nearly a h...

It is so beautiful here now nice and pleasant just like

“I am very concerned with the welfare of the steamer Edmund Fitzgerald."[New feature,now available in an audio version, written by Brian Johnson, Wolfe Island; read by Jan Eliot]

The first Wolfe Island lighthouse was built on the eastern end of the island in 1861...

Tasmania seems like a distant land but for John Carter, Tasmania is a treasure trunk waiting to be opened...

The Pullmans were the first of the islanders to arrive by private railroad car -a sumptuous conveyance, as might be expected of the railroad car builder.

Saw Pansy this am. Took a walk and talked over the affair last night. Did not have our hats on.

“Warning:  Owners of large and medium sized craft, who navigate the St. Lawrence River between Cornwall and Prescot...

In November 1901, Richard Standish Williamson acquired an island in the St. Lawrence River.  Standish, born in 1877...

Mary Lynn Johnston was a Mille Roches girl She had an important chore, while her Mother ran a rooming house And her ...

He wants me to think of him at twelve o’clock and

In 1988 I went to England to carry out research at the National Maritime Archives in Greenwich and the

Down at Zina’s Barber Shop we used to laugh and sing; We’d gather and we’d gossip about everything; we’d talk about the ...

Painted over 40 years before, it is the center line of what once was a two lane highway which ran along the shore of a very different River.

We're not talking "Pony Express", but about a more-personalized mail service than most receive today, a service that is cherished and greatly appreciated.

“No one panicked while they were floundering in the water and scrambling for firm ice. Mothers held their children aloft...

The Thousand Islands Association (TIA) will be holding their annual general meeting on July 25 at the Thousand Islands P...

It was a cold and rainy day on June 1st – but the invitation to meet Mike Franklin, Patricia Tague and Rhea Jenkner and ...

…after four hours of continuous searching bleak coves and small inlets, both groups were almost ready to announce that t...

For over sixty years, “Niagara to the Sea” was one of the most famous travel slogans in North America. The phrase was or...

My family was fortunate to call the Balboa our summer home in the Thousand Islands from 1955 to 2008 and it has served...

What went down in history as the Battle of the Thousand Islands ended when the French and Canadian defenders struck thei...

A  documentary that takes viewers beneath the St. Lawrence River to a wreck at the bottom the Brockville Narrows is...

The tradition of worship in Half Moon Bay began in 1887.  People came from neighbouring islands and from Gananoque ...

In August of 1897, at a meeting of the New York State Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission in Albany a discussion was h...

"Mr. Grey is a beautiful dancer. It is like a dream dancing with him. I wish I knew him better." May Dewey, January 21, ...

Spending the month of August every summer of my youth at my Grandmother's cottage in Thousand Island Park was a child's ...

It started out innocently enough with a cookbook. Then came the song sheets

The year was 1959. The Barbie doll debuted;

The first time we saw the Inn was in spring, on a day bursting with the promise of a fresh season. The grass was almost ...

"I was furious & will tell him what I think of him when we meet again." May Dewey, December 31, 1888.

Whoever controlled the St. Lawrence River controlled Canada. The Americans never cut the lifeline of British supplies during the War of 1812...

Are the remains of Geronimo in the Thousand Islands? The legendary Apache Chief died

Have you seen the terns circling over their nests on the Eagle Wing Shoals? When was the last time you walked the Macshe...

This is the first day of a new month. We all have been hanging around ...

When I was 10 years old, my mother sat me down at her parent’s porch table and showed me her grandmother’s notes written...

In November we received a note from Marnie Ross, a member of the Canadian Thousand Islands Watershed Land Trust, “Would ...

GRENADIER ISLAND: June Hodge was born in a houseboat on the St. Lawrence River.

Our story begins

Rexford M. Ennis is the author of several dissertations on Thousand Islands history; often presented to an appreciative ...

CLAYTON, NY The salad dressing that put this place on the map might have a slight geography Challenge.

Many of the officers who fought in the British campaigns during the War of 1812 are commemorated in the Brock Islands. W...

It is exasperating' said Capt. William FitzWilliam

Throughout the winter, I will provide a number of links to demonstrate how our region of the mighty St. Lawrence River s...

More than a Salad Dressing… Years ago, I met a young medical student and I was telling her about my favourite vacation r...

Thayendanegea’s father, a prominent warrior, died

Obscurity … has hung like a cloud of oblivion over the history of this island

  The saga of navigation on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, in war and peace, is far too vast and rich a ...

  So, as we have seen during two earlier centuries, prior to the nineteenth century, the region already was widely...

Phil Amsterdam, himself an old tour-boat guide and boat-line operator, complains about about sitting on his Cherry Islan...

Standing on the peninsula-like head of Carleton Island ...

  The following presentation has been adapted from an article that appeared in the Thousand Islands Sun Vacationer ...

  In 2006 Paul Malo shared a collection of Carleton Villa photographs.  These historic photographs have been ...