OBSERVER Photo by Damian Sebouhian Bob and Anne Deming sit in their boat docked on the shores of Bear Lake holding a copy of their recently released A History of Bear Lake.

A new book has been released by Bob and Ann Deming, published by Mill City Press, Inc., called “A History of Bear Lake.” The 229-page text represents the culmination of a decade worth of research conducted by the Demings, much of which was gathered via personal one-on-one interviews of families who can trace their roots to Bear Lake as far back as the late 19th Century.

Stockton Town Historian Helen Piersons writes in the foreword to the book, “Dr. Robert Deming, a retired professor of English and Dr. Anne Deming, a former Psychology faculty member and college president are not only longtime Bear Lake residents themselves, but have been active members and leaders of the Bear Lake Association. They have produced herein that ‘interesting read’ indeed not only for Bear Lake and Chautauqua County residents but for historians and casual readers as well.”

The book is divided into 21 chapters most devoted to the families that helped make Bear Lake what it is today, including the Birmingham, Less, Reimann, Bogner, O’Brien, McQuiggan, Crocker, Rawson, Dobbins, Alden, Kelly (Kelley), Klocek, Lamkin and Pierce families.

The Demings, in interviewing descendants and representatives of these families, were given old photographs and rare, early Bear Lake postcards, which, according to the book, “helped illustrate Bear Lake’s history.”

The book doesn’t start with the families, however. Readers will learn from reading the second chapter “The Early Period” that Bear Lake (called a “kettle lake”) was created over 15,000 years ago by, according to the Demings, “the continental glacier that pushed up over the Portage Escarpment. When the mile-deep glacier receded northward, it left lots of gravel and a very large chunk of ice that broke off, melted and formed a depression to create Bear Lake.”

The chapter navigates the reader through a brief history of Chautauqua County from a possible Paleo-Indian culture, to the Algonquians and Iroquois followed by the Holland Land Company purchases.

Near the end of the chapter the reader learns the intricate relationship the waterway has with its sister waterways. “Bear Lake Creek joins Cassadaga Creek in South Stockton and then joins Conewango Creek which flows into the Allegheny River, which joins the Monongahela River at Pittsburgh and forms the Ohio River, which then joins the Mississippi and eventually empties into the Gulf of Mexico. That is why Bear Lake dwellers like to claim that Bear Lake is the ‘headwaters of the Mississippi!'”

Chapters 3 through 14 are devoted to the families that founded and settled Bear Lake, complete with old photographs and intriguing anecdotes about swimming holes, building cottages, turkey farms and ice-cream drive-ins.

Through their research the Demings discovered that Bear Lake used to have what was called the Bear Lake Hotel, otherwise known as the Pierce Farmhouse Hotel. “It had 10 bedrooms and housed children from the Sunshine Program out of New York City during the summer,” Bob Deming told the OBSERVER. “This was in the 1930’s and ’40’s.”

The Demings describe in the book how the Bear Lake Association was formed.

“The Association was formed in reaction to the Village of Brocton drawing down 116.7 million gallons of water from Bear Lake during the summer of 1949, which lowered the lake level, as one member described, ‘to a serious extent.’ By law, Brocton was allowed, in emergency situations, to draw 600,000 gallons a day from Bear Lake, but not millions of gallons. The association hired the law firm of Kenneth W. Glines and Charles S. Collesano of Fredonia to file Objections to prevent Brocton from doing this again.”

The book also contains a chapter on the once famous Camp-in-the Woods (The “Y” Camp). The Demings quote a former camper, who described his experience in detail.

“Boys went to camp in July and girls in August, for a week to a month. They lived in two rows of 12 to 14 Navy surplus tents erected on platforms, each tent sleeping eight. Campers were told not to touch the tent canvas, and, of course, they touched it, and the canvas leaked.”

Ann Deming said that she was pleasantly surprised about how much attention the Camp-In-The-Woods section has received from locals.

“I put a picture on the I Grew up in Dunkirk/Fredonia Facebook page of the Camp in the Woods and everybody and his brother has come out of the woodwork to talk about it.”

The final chapter is called “Did You Know that?” and “attempts to capture facts, legends and myths about Bear Lake that residents have shared for generations.”

One of these tales explains how Bear Lake got its name. To find out, you’ll have to get a copy of the book, which is available at both Amazon.com and Barnsandnoble.com.