The Advance News reported in 1968 that the Seymour House was coming down 'day after day, with a great crash as fiendish modern machinery bites savagely into the bricks.' While the wrecking ball was clearing the corner of Ford and State Streets for a new Gulf gas station, the true end of the hotel had begun much earlier—the victim of the automobile, the Great Depression, and a final, devastating fire.
Originally named the St. Lawrence Hotel, the structure was built in 1842 to replace hotels destroyed in the "Great Fire" of 1839. It was renamed in honor of its owner, George N. Seymour, at a time when the village of Ogdensburg was a busy port. Thousands of travelers—including Irish immigrants arriving from Montreal—needed a place to stay before moving on. As a trade center for potash, grain, and lumber, the village’s "Marble Row" catered to businessmen.
The Seymour House provided everything a traveler needed: food, haircuts, a bar, and even a card room in the back for gentlemen. Traveling salesmen used the large showroom to display their products for merchants and the general public. With the arrival of the Northern Railroad in 1850, the hotel expanded to 100 rooms in 1851. By the time the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg railroad connected the city to Syracuse, the hotel was the premier establishment in the North Country.
The hotel’s dining room and bar was legendary. In a 1920 letter to the editor, H.L. Ives praised the desserts—especially the pies, which were cut into six generous pieces and placed in front of patrons with the invitation to "help yourself." Artist Frederic Remington paddled his canoe from Chippewa Bay to get his jug filled with his favorite whiskey. During Prohibition downstate people would stay at the hotel, visit Canada and smuggle liquor back to Ogdensburg on the ferry. Owner and manager Thomas Murrah catered to these bootleggers, who demanded the best.
Patients of Dr. Mahlon Locke of Williamsburg, Ontario stayed at the hotel, as well. Dr. Locke treated arthritis by manipulating hands and feet, reportedly treating 2,000 patients per day for nominal fees. Chauffeured limousines transported wealthy patients for multiple treatments. The Seymour House also hosted the nation's elite. President Grant and General Phil Sheridan were entertained there in 1872, and Grover Cleveland enjoyed lunch after a speech in 1883. In 1888, when electric streetlights first came to the city, the system ended at the iconic hotel. Three days after the streets were lit, electric lights shone in the Seymour Hotel’s bar and guest rooms—a technological advance that was much safer than gaslights, which rural guests had a habit of blowing out without turning off the gas.
The hotel’s "Gilded Age" reached its peak during the Oswegatchie Agricultural Fair. Hackmen like Charlie Grenier remembered "U.S. aristocracy" arriving in private train cars with their own carriages. The Gould, Vanderbilt, and Harriman families stayed at the Seymour to show and race horses, their coachmen decked out in top hats, blowing horns as they chauffeured the elite through the city.
While the famous "Busy Corner" sat just across the street, the Seymour House porch offered the best seat in town to watch the world go by. Many remember the porch filled with rocking chairs. On Sundays Peter Charron recalls buying an RC Cola for 15 cents at the California Fruit Market and sitting on that porch to enjoy it. Paul Demers remembers his great-uncle, Ernest Richard, waiting in those same chairs for his family to pick him up for trips to camp.
Others, like Rebecca Claxton, remember a different side of the porch. Whenever she and her mother walked past the "old men" in the rocking chairs, her mother gave a stern warning: "Never talk to those men, just keep walking." Whether it was a place to enjoy a cold soda or simply to sit and watch the world go by, the hotel porch was the undeniable center of the community. But the world passing by that porch was changing, and the hotel’s heyday was beginning to fade.
The decline was a slow one. In 1921, the manager was still turning away guests, but travel habits were changing. By the end of the 1920s, 20 million cars were registered in the U.S. Travelers who once caught a "hack" directly from the train station now drove their own cars, bypassing downtown for motels on the edge of town. The railroads became a "sick industry," and later, the construction of the arterial highway and the international bridge further diverted traffic away from downtown. The hotel managed to hold its own for years despite these challenges, but its luck eventually ran out. The final blow came on February 19, 1948, when a devastating fire damaged 40 rooms and the Loblaws Grocery Store on the first floor. Damage was estimated at $35,000 for the hotel and $15,000 for the store—a combined loss of over $700,000 in today’s currency.
By 1960, rumors spread that the building was condemned. Though it passed its final inspections, it was badly in need of the renovations that never came. When the "fiendish machinery" finally arrived in 1968, it wasn't just biting into brick; it was tearing away a century of Ogdensburg’s identity. While the corner made way for modern progress, the hotel remains a fixture in city residents’ memory. It lives on through the stories of rocking chairs, community events, and 15 cent sodas that defined downtown for generations.
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