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Infamous Arrowhead Inn Turned Into SpotINLET, N.Y. (AP) — The citizens of the Town of Inlet have taken over the Arrowhead Inn, where Grace Brown, then an obscure farm Kiri, spent the last night of her life 57 years ago this month.Grace, 20, unmarried and pregnant, was murdered the next day on nearby Big Moose L»ke by her bovfriend, Chehter E, Gillette The slaving and the events leading to it formed the basis of Theodore Dreiser's Hterarv classic, An American Tragedv This Adirondack town (population 300) bought the inn with the proceeds from a $128,500 bond is sue The site is being turned into a oubUc recreation area,The inn that Gillette and Grace Brown visited overnight in July39 6 had been built in 1890 by an Adirondack guide It was largely destroyed by fire in 1912 and rebuilt in 1915 by Charles A,O'Hara.O’Hara’s sons. Bernard of New York City and Alton cf Syracuse, sold the property to the town.The property consists of a five-story. 100-guest main building, sixcottages, a boathouse, several other buildings and extensive frontage on Fourth Lake and on the inlet between Fourth and Fifth lakes The lakes are part of theFulton chain.The town plans to tear off t^e top four stories of the main building and turn the ground Hoor into a community center The boat landing and beach areas have been opened to the public for usethis summer.The Town Youth Commission now is teaching youngsters to swim and water ski at the inn. The cottages are being rented.The inn has attracted many famous persons as guests They included evangelist Billy Sunday, Gov Alfred E Smith, and novelist Fannie Hurst.Gillette, a dapper young man with social ambitions, spent two years at Oberlin College, then drifted until he went to work in a shirt factory, owned by an uncle, in Cortland.At 23. he was a rising young man in the company, Grace came from a farm in South Otselic in Central New York to work in the shirt factory There she met Gillette.She returned home in June, pregnant and beset by fears, to await her reluctant bridegroom.Early in July. Gillette told Grace they were to be married. He brought her to Inlet and, the next day, they walked to Big Moose Lake, hired a boat and rowed to a secluded spot. There Gillette beat her with a tennis racket and threw’ her into the water.He claimed she had jumped in after he told her he would not marry her.In the daw’n of March 30 nearly tw’o years later, Gillette was electrocuted at Auburn Prison He is buried in an unmarked grave at Auburn Grace is buried in a cemetery at South Otselic in Chenango County.
Newspaper Details
Norwich Evening Sun
Norwich, New York, US
Wed, Jul 03, 1963
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Free L.
PA, USA 06 Feb 2025
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