Silver Bay in 1906 — Sandhu Sundar Singh and Ernest Thompson Seton

Himalayan itinerant evangelist Sandhu Sundar Singh and wildlife author/illustrator Ernest Thompson Seton were among the speakers at Y.M.C.A. conferences at Silver Bay Association in 1906.

“The fish lives in the sea, but it does not get salt. As for me I go into the world. I tell the world of my love of Jesus,” Singh told about 150 delegates from 57 colleges attending a Y.M.C.A. conference in late June.

“Moving slowly under the trees in the early morning, his dark head and his long flowing orange robe were a strange sight in Silver Bay.” the Lake George Mirror reported on June 30, 1906. “On Sunday evening he preached from the old stone steps, his expressive hand lifting now and then his long stole, telling his story in low eager tones, his face lighted with a strange vivifying light, which as the hour passed seemed to reflect itself on the faces so eagerly turned to his.”

Thompson spoke at a separate Y.M.C.A. conference in late August.

“After the closing of the conference on Thursday night, August 30, the men and boys who had been in attendance, 350 in all, marched to the lake shore, where a large bonfire had been built,” The Daily Morning Journal and Courier of New Haven, Conn. reported on Sept. 3, 1906. “There beside the fire, in true pioneer style, the men listened to a discussion of Indian camp life by Ernest Thompson Seton.

Earlier in the week, a team of New Haven Y.M.C.A. workers lost at baseball to a team from Massachusetts.

A.E. Rutledge pitched, Charles Yeager caught and A. Weiburg played right field for the Connecticut team.

It was a busy summer at Silver Bay, which hosted more than 3,000 guests over the season.

“The Silver Bay dining room is rocking like a mining camp,” the Mirror reported on June 30.

Attendance at one Y.M.C.A. Young People’s Missionary Society conference in July was limited to 800 people.

“Even with three hundred placed in the new Tent City on Slim Point, this delegation has been cut down by necessity to 800,” the Mirror reported on June 23.

“Moreover, the large delegations of college girls and Young Men’s Christian Association assemblies at Silver Bay in the last three seasons have done much to make the charms of the (Lake George) region known in all parts of the world,” the New York Tribune reported on July 8, 1906.

Click here to read my most recent previous Silver Bay history post.