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North Country Rural Development Coalition’s building located at 111 Montcalm St, Ticonderoga, NY 12883 formerly 133 Montcalm St dates back to 1876 when E.N. Father-son owned a building located where our building currently stands. Mark Wright, Ticonderoga Town Supervisor wrote a great article about the location of 111 Montcalm St and the history of the buildings located there.
The location of 133 Montcalm was probably best known by many as Dorian’s. This location was also the former site of Woolworth’s and later the National Army Store. In 1963, Hans Katzenstein moved his Ti-Economy Store from the left side of Burleigh’s Drug Store to
the space vacated by Woolworth’s, renaming the store Dorian’s after his daughters.
The building’s façade would eventually change in 1963. The re-cessed entry had a shake shingled awning over the entire front of the plate glass storefront. Over the awning was a white vertical siding with shake shingle coping. It then experienced a fire in 1971 which changed the structure from a two-story building to a single story. The structure became a one-and-a-half-story, commercial brick veneer building.
History of the Location
According to the 1876 Atlas of Essex County, E.N. Fatherson owned a building that was set back on the present site of this location. The Fatherson building continued to be located on that site until it was replaced by this structure.
William George Wiley (19 Aug 1843 – 2 Apr 1914), of W. G. Wiley & Company bought the property and removed the Fatherson Building to build a 1876 Atlas of Essex County map.new structure. Wiley began excavation on the foundation of his new West Exchange Street building on the afternoon of July 28, 1904, with the expectation of having the building ready for occupancy by the fall of that year. The two- story structure was to be of veneered brick with 38 feet of street frontage. Five feet of that frontage would be dedicated to the hallway leading to two tenements on the upper floormaking the store’s dimensions 33 x 101 feet and providing 3,000 square feet of store space.
According to the July 28, 1904, edition of the Ticonderoga Sentinel, “The interior of the store will be fitting out with the latest things in the way of store furniture and fixtures.” C. G. West would buy the adjoining lot to the west and construct a store with a solid brick wall separating the two structures. F. H. Rand would finish clearing trees from the Wiley and West lots by August 4, 1904. Excavations on both structures were proceeding as quickly as possible. The framework of the new Wiley store was going up rapidly by September 1904 under the supervision of John Latterel and masons had begun laying brick by Property to the left (west) of the Hardware store in 1895 would become the location for G. W. Wiley & Company and eventually Dorian’s. Sanborn Fire Insurance Company. September 21. Exterior work, except for windows, was completed by November 3 and interior work was progressing rapidly by this point.
Wiley advertised for a big reduction sale in the November 17, 1904, edition of the Ticonderoga Sentinel before moving from his location in the Shattuck Block into the new building on the north side of West Exchange and slightly west. This advertisement ran for the next two consecutive weeks and by January of 1905, this advertising space denoted the sale as the “Great Slaughter Sale” running for 20 days and taking cash only. J. E. Pond of Crown Point and two of his workmen, Mr. Mercure and Mr. Mishler, set the large plate glass show windows on Monday, December 19. They finished their work on the front windows and doors on Saturday, December 24, 1904.
Having missed the fall occupancy date, Wiley was hoping the building would be ready for occupancy by the end of January 1905. However, Wiley did not begin moving into the new store until Monday, February 20, 1905, and by Thursday of that week Wiley was, “quite comfortably settled” though the interior arrangements of the building were not quite 1906 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the location separated from the hardware store by an alley and the West bakery adjacent to the west (left).finished. When completed, the store was said to be the finest north of Albany and the Ticonderoga Sentinel stated, “One would certainly not expect to see a clothing store of its elegance and size in a village like Ticonderoga.” Advertisements beginning on March 2, 1905, ran for three consecutive weeks announcing the store had moved to its new location. Mrs. Mary Shattuck would rent the space in the Shattuck Block formerly used by Wiley to a clothier by the name of J. Shapiro.
The partnership in W. D. Wiley & Company between Wiley and Newton D. Peck was dissolved by August 1908. Peck would purchase the interest of W. G. Wiley and continue the business under the same name. Newton would sell stock apparently at a loss stating at the end of December 1908, “The people of Ticonderoga and vicinity have been saled to death and have paid usually a higher price a good many times at a sale before” and adding, “…the people will get the benefit…I am going to clean house in earnest and shall do just as I advertise. No fake about this.” This seemed to indicate a differing philosophy in merchandising and sales between Wiley and Peck which seemed to initiate the dissolved Sanborn Fire Insurance Co. 1945 map shows the bakery to the west and the Wiley property. The street has been renamed Montcalm and Wiley is clearly at #129. partnership. Wiley would go off and open a new business called The White Store opposite Adkins & Scott. He would pass and is today buried in Ingalls Cemetery on Street Road. Going out of business advertising would appear in the Ticonderoga Sentinel beginning November 5, 1908. No further mentioning of W. G. Wiley & Company would appear after September 3, 1908. Peck would continue to sell off merchandise into February 1909 and new advertising would emerge from Peck regarding a store by the name of “The People’s Clothing House” on February 11, 1909. Advertising for this business disappeared after January 12, 1911. Peck died on March 17, 1912.
The 1906 Sanborn Insurance Map shows this structure as a wood frame building with a brick veneer located directly on the street. This building was originally constructed in the Italianate style and was two stories tall and six baya in width. Each of the windows was segmentally arched with corbelled, segmental lintels. The cornice was supported by five brackets.
Between 1906 and 1963, the building was leased to various commercial enterprises such as the NYS National Guard and Woolworth’s (1935-1960). In 1963, Hans Katzenstein moved his Ti-Economy store from the left side of the Burleigh Drug Store into the space that had just been vacated by Woolworth’s (vacant for approximately 3 years) and renamed the store “Dorian’s” after his daughters. Before moving into the store “complete renovating work on the interior” and “a new front in colonial design which lends greatly tothe general appearance of the downtown business section” was completed. According to the editorial in the Ticonderoga Sentinel of May 3, 1963, referring to the completed storefront, “few of us realized that the contrast between old and new would be so startling. Possibly, this is the ‘shot in the arm’ which the business economy has needed and will be the advent of a new era.” This building was the first downtown building to undergo extensive storefront work and led others in the commercial district to renovate their storefronts in the 1960s.
The change in the facade referred to in the article was from a facade with two entrances each having recessed double doors with a transom of prism lights to a facade with a single recessed entry with a white, vertically sided, sign board. Above the sign board was a full-length one-story awning with wooden shingles.
On February 23, 1971, a fire occurred on the false roof in a rear second-story apartment. The law office of James Murdock and the dental office of Dr. Kesselman were completely destroyed. As a result of the fire, the entire second story of the building was removed and a vertically sided, half-story was added. This was topped with a tiny wooden shingled mansard roof.
Today, the building is the main office of PRIDE of Ticonderoga. The structure would experience its second fire on July 4, 2023. Luckily, mutual aid firefighting units were one mile west in an Independence Day parade lineup when the call sounded for a fire at the location. The ensuring firefighting effort required the cancellation of the annual Montcalm Mile foot race and Independence Day parade.
