In 1950, Mr. and Mrs. David Daniels of Loudonville, New York had a family cottage on Lake George. At the time, David Daniels was the president of Wheeler Paper Company of Albany.
Eight-decades earlier in 1871, entrepreneur and innovator Seth Wheeler, head of the business, first patented his improvement in perforated-wrapping papers. In 1891, Wheeler then re-patented his idea for perforated paper on a roll, essentially developing toilet paper as we know it today.
For years, the Wheeler company (originally called the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company) manufactured a variety of paper items, including toilet paper. Thus, Albany residents can claim the title of living in the birthplace of modern-day tissue on a roll. For well over a century this bathroom necessity has been flushed down toilets in homes around America.
In 1954, the “utility boat” that David Daniels and his wife were riding in sprang a leak on Lake George. The vessel soon spiraled down into the depths, somewhat like what happens to the paper product that Seth Wheeler popularized for the lavatory.
Details of the Daniels’ story on Lake George that day goes like this. It was October 14, 1950, and Mr. and Mrs. David Daniels, with their pet bulldog aboard, were riding the waves of the lake. The forests around them were in seasonal foliage.
Unexpectedly, their wooden watercraft popped a hull plank on the choppy lake, and the wooden launch began taking on volumes of chilly water.
As the Daniels’ 23-foot-long vessel was sinking, Wendell Westover, a military-reserve officer and bystander on the shore near Diamond Point, observed the nautical calamity. Westover immediately got the attention of William Busch, proprietor of Canoe Island Lodge on the west side of the waterway, who was just offshore fishing in his boat.
Busch, Westover, and Harry Wells, a guest at Busch’s resort, quickly motored over to where the mishap was taking place.
The trio of rescuers pulled the Daniels couple, who were fortunately wearing flotation, and their family canine, into Busch’s watercraft. By then Daniels’ motorboat had sunk in about “80 feet of water,” in mid lake off Diamond Point, a little-over-four miles north of the head of the lake.
Wendell Westover said he might not have seen the unfortunate boaters had David Daniels not kept waving a white-distress flag.
William Busch then piloted the two-soaked mariners and their wet bulldog back to the Daniels’ camp. The three heroes, Busch, Wells, and Westover, later commented at how calm the Daniels appeared during their plight on Lake George.
A version of this article first appeared on the Lake George Mirror, America’s oldest resort paper, covering Lake George and its surrounding environs. You can subscribe to the Mirror HERE.
Read more about the Wheeler paper company here.
Illustrations, from above: A postcard, looking west across Lake George from Diamond Point (courtesy Richard K. Dean); and a graphic depicting an 1891 patent for the toilet-paper roll (United States Patent Office).
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