@ Lake Henry Pa.Org

...a community service web site...

Lake History

Installation of Dam Boosted Area of Water {continued}

And Lake Henry is located entirely within Wayne County —  just across the Lackawanna County Lines —  although even some of the cottagers who have been at the lake for more than 30 years had thought the "people across the lake" were paying their real estate taxes in Lackawanna County.

Lake Henry’s isolated location . . .away from Mount Cobb road and from other heavily traveled roads  . . . probably is one reason why its beauty and peaceful atmosphere is unknown to so many regional residents.

However, a more potent factor in keeping this a "lake" for its cottagers and their friends is that Lake Henry has never been exposed to development by real estate operators or developers.

Evidence of this fact is the manner in which all but a few of the cottagers have erected their summer homes on leased land —getting a 10 year lease with 10 year renewal provisions and, usually going almost automatically into subject renewals for additional decades.

Cottagers, until The Scrantonian dug into the lake and its history and ownership often didn’t even know the details of ownership of the lake and the land on which they had erected the cottages.

Usually they reported that Frank Rodgers Jr., Hawley prominent realtor in Wayne County and a partner in Rodgers, Oliver & Polley, Inc., Scranton, owned the lake and the land.

Actually, Rodgers’ only equity in the lake and land is through his wife, the former Janet LaBar and she is the owner of about 500 acres of the lake with her cousin, Mrs. Helen Stoner, who resides in California with her husband, a retired submarine officer.

And there are about 50 acres of the lake in the section called "Stump Pond" by some cottagers  . . . who don’t reside in the area  . . .owned by the Swoyer and Rosengrant families.

Mrs. Rodgers and Mrs. Stoner acquired their joint ownership of Lake Henry and the bulk of the land around it by inheritance as descendents of the late Eltinge LaBar whose mother was a Silkman.

Cottagers apparently figured that Rodgers was co-owner of the lake with his wife because, as a realtor, he is the individual with whom they usually transact business and contact with complaints and requests.

Top of Page  Back  Continue

DID YOU KNOW. . .
>Wayne County was created on March 21,1798 from part of Northampton County and named for General Anthony Wayne.

>Honesdale, the county seat, was named for Philip Hone, President of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company.