THE THOUSAND ISLANDS

BONNIE CASTLE AT ALEXANDRIA BAY

None of Jefferson County's great Thousand Islands estates is endowed with a greater wealth of historical distinction than "Bonniecastle" across the little bay downriver from Alexandria Bay. It was built in1877 by Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland, M.D., high upon the rocky Root's Island (no longer an island due to manmade filling of the channel) and it commands a majestic view up and down and across the St. Lawrence. Since mid-summer 1942 it has been the White Fathers of Africa novitiate seminary, of which Father Anthony Coolen, a native of Holland, is now the superior.**

A native of Belchertown, a few miles from Amherst, Mass., Dr. Holland, close friend of the poets, William Cullen Bryant and Emily Dickinson, was for some years a member of the editorial staff of The Springfield Republican, later a founder and several years editor of Scribner's magazine, noted lecturer, and author of several novels including Seven Oaks and Captain Bonniecastle, for which he named his Thousand Islands summer home.

Tall, erect, with black eyes and straight black hair, Dr. Holland looked like an Indian chief. From a boyhood of poverty he became a physician, but was an indifferent and mediocre practitioner, taught school in the south for a time and then launched into literature, for which he had much talent. As a lecturer he was mentioned with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bayard Taylor and George William Curtis. Amherst gave him an honorary A.M. degree in 1851, Edward Dickinson, father of Emily having been treasurer of the college. On Scribner's magazine Richard Watson Gilder was his associate editor.

On Oct. 7, 1845 Dr. Holland married Elizabeth Chapin, a relative of the Seelyes, a descendant of whom was Dr. Laurens Hickok Seelye, former president of St. Lawrence University. Dr. Holland started with Scribner's in November, 1870 and moved to New York in 1872. He began coming to the Thousand Islands in 1876.

From that time until his death Oct. 12, 1881 he was one of the most ardent enthusiasts and promoters of the region. He was most adored in Alexandria Bay, which has a named for him, and where he founded the Holland public library still a flourishing institution* and also where he had much to do with the expansion of the Reformed Church of the Thousand Islands, sometimes known as the Holland church.

Shortly after he built "Bonniecastle," early sketched and described by Howard Pyle, noted artist-author, he acquired a small steam launch. This was soon replaced by a large one of a guaranteed speed of 15 knots and which he delighted in racing against other yachts up and down the river.

Dr. Holland first took title to four acres of land, which he bought from John F. and Mary H. Walton and Charles H. and Harriet Walton July 16, 1877, on Root's island. From the same parties he bought 9.6acres June 14, 1881, a few months before his death. In his will, executed Jan. 21, 1878 Dr. Holland directed that he be buried in Springfield, Mass., and gave his children, Annie H. Howe, Kate H. Van Wagenen and Theodore Holland each one-fifth of his real estate. He gave to his widow a life-use of two fifths. In October, 1882, she sold her Park avenue house in New York, but continued to come to "Bonniecastle" several years.

Mrs. Holland died April 26, 1896 and Sept. 28, 1901 her children sold "Bonniecastle" to Gilbert T. Rafferty, Pittsburgh coal and coke millionaire, who greatly improved and remodeled the place for his summer home, after acquiring the interest of George C. Boldt and James H. Oliphant who had joined with him in the purchase.

The Rafferty family, including the children who succeeded their parents in ownership, retained the "Bonniecastle" estate 40 years, and on May 20, 1941 St. Cyril's Catholic church of Alexandria Bay was given full title to the property from the last of the Rafferty interests. The next year St. Cyril's church transferred it to the White Fathers of Africa, who there began training of young men for Catholic missionary service in Africa and, with its present 17 acres of land "Bonniecastle" makes a quiet and ideal environment for the training.

� Nan Dixon, 2001