The brief heyday of the summer home community of Columbia Grove in Windsor

As the 19th century drew to a close, the need for summer homes seemed to be at an optimum.

Industry was surging throughout the region. Cigar factories dotted the Binghamton landscape with thousands toiling away, making 100 million cigars each year. 

Nearby, the burgeoning Lester Brothers had left Binghamton for their planned Lestershire shoe making town. Financial loss caused it to become the Endicott Johnson Shoe Co. Around the corner was the Bundy Time Recording Co., which would transform into IBM in the first two decades of the 20th century.

Thousands of workers, owners of businesses, and nearby residents of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, all looking for the relief from the humdrum of everyday life. This seemed to be especially true in the hot summer months, when thoughts of sitting in a relaxing chair on a porch near moving waters was often the release from the tensions of life.   

Around the many ponds and lakes of the region, hundreds of cottages sprang up to offer a place of refuge. Those bodies of water, however, were not the only location of summer cottages.

Our rivers were a prime location for the construction of summer homes to offer that bit of cool breezes and moving water. The southern part of the Town of Windsor was a prime location for the building of these spots of respite. 

In 1895, several residents from the northern part of Susquehanna County saw an opportunity. They purchased about six acres of the John Hupman farm in the Town of Windsor to build about a dozen cottages along the banks of the Susquehanna River. These cottages were sold mainly to residents from the Montrose region of Susquehanna County. 

As the sales began to take off, more acreage was purchased for the construction of even more homes. The new small but growing community was known as Columbia Grove. This is not to be mistaken for the other Columbia Groves in the northeastern United States, including one on Long Island.

While it might have a common name, this development was purely local — so much so that during the growth of the first group of cottages, an incident took place. According to an article titled “Will Preserve Order," "half a dozen hoodlums appeared at Columbia Grove, and, because they were over the line, in New York State, and as they thought, free from all restraint, deported themselves in a ruffianly, outrageous manner, insulting by their speech and actions … The Columbian Club wishes it to distinctly understood that all people who deport themselves properly are welcome to the grove.”

The number of summer homes increased, and by 1898, a hotel called the Summit was built at the site and owned by the Forrests. Around this time, two steamboats were placed into service. They would take passengers from the Lanesboro and Honesdale area of Pennsylvania, and head five miles upstream to Columbia Grove. One of the more famous residents of Columbia Grove was Amos J. Cummings, of Somerset County in western Pennsylvania. The Harry Williams family, of Dayton, Ohio, also owned one of the cottages in the Grove. Other owners from Rochester and Olean had summer homes at Columbia Grove. 

All seemed to be well at the growing development. Then the hotel burned down shortly after its construction in 1899. By the next summer, the newspaper reported that it would probably be rebuilt by someone — yet it appears that that someone never came. By about the 1900-1901 phase, most of the construction appears to have halted.

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While growth may have slowed, the area continued to be a popular location for visiting families through the 1920's.  Newspaper were full of society notes of guests from Scranton, New York and other cities joining friends at Columbia Grove. The steamboats lasted only a few years but some took “straw rides,” or hayrides, from northern Pennsylvania to the Grove — listening to the sounds of cowbells and tin horns.

Roads and homes still exist at Columbia Grove, and parcel transfers still show the name on the deeds for the older properties. The heyday of Columbia Grove may have only lasted a few years, but memories in postcards and society notes keep the memories alive.

Gerald Smith is a former Broome County historian. Email him at historysmiths@stny.rr.com.