The Jacob Smith Moody family from Keene, New Hampshire was the first to settle here. In 1827, settlers Pliny Miller and Alric Bushnell established a logging facility with a dam and sawmill, around which the village developed. The first school was built in 1838. In 1849, William F. Martin built one of the first hotels in the Adirondack Mountains. His Saranac Lake House, known simply as Martin's, was located on the southeast shore of Lower Saranac Lake. Martin's soon became a favorite place for hunters, woodsmen, and socialites to meet and interact.