Queer Places:
Basin Harbor, 4800 Basin Harbor Rd, Vergennes, VT 05491
Prospect Cemetery, Vergennes, VT 05491

Ardelia Beach Strong (February 15, 1845 – August 5, 1909) was the daughter of Allen Beach. Beach, born in Ferrisburgh, grew up on a farm about two miles from what is now called the Basin Harbor Club & Resort. Her fiancé, a man from Panton, died in the Civil War, and Beach moved to Iowa to work as a school administrator. Some years later, in 1882, Beach made a new plan for her life: she purchased a 200-acre farm in her hometown on the shores of Lake Champlain. There she eventually took in summer boarders, who arrived from the city by steamship and train, and housed them in a lodge overlooking the lake. Today, still owned and operated by the Beach family, Basin Harbor has grown to 700 acres and accommodates up to 400 people.

Francis M. Strong was a son of Frederick Strong and Sophronia Chaffee. He was born in Pittsford, Rutland county, VT, in 1829, and settled in Vergennes, VT, in 1852, as a practical moulder and machinist; in 1856 he invented and manufactured what is now known as the Howe scales, and in 1864 he sold his interest to the Messrs. Howe & Co., and purchased the island mill; in 1868 sold the same to N.G. Norton. He then purchased his foundry and machine shop, and engaged in the manufacture of hubs. He is also engaged with Charles E. Parker in the manufacture of a road machine known as the Little Giant, and doing business under the firm name of Strong & Parker, at Vergennes, VT. He was married in 1849 to Sarah M. Clark, of Cincinnati. She died in 1881, leaving a family of three children -- Herman C., Herbert W., and Frances E. Strong. Francis M. Strong married for his second wife Ardelia Beach, in July, 1883.

Ardelia Beach Strong is buried at Prospect Cemetery (Vergennes, VT 05491).

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