Lake Sheridan is located along Route 107 between Fleetville and Factoryville. The lake is approximately 96 acres with the large or upper lake located in Lackawanna County/Benton Township, joined by a channel to a smaller, lower lake, located in Wyoming County/Nicholson Township. The upper part of the lake was originally known as Shiek's Pond in the 19th century. The dam was in what is now the Channel, approximately where the county line cuts across. Remnants of the old dam still remain as a submerged wall beneath the Channel, forcing motorboats to stay to the center to avoid hitting it. In the days before outboard motors could be electrically trimmed up and down, many a cotter pin was lost to the wall when propellers on the older outboards suddenly hit stone. A farm owned by Harry Sisk was located below the original dam. The dam was eventually purposefully breached to flood a wooded area of the farm, creating the lower lake. A good number of trees had to be cut down to accommodate the soon to be created lower lake. Instead of laboriously pulling out the stumps one by one, they were simply left in place and flooded over, giving rise to the old nickname of "Stump Pond".
Some of the original family names in the area (c.1870's) include Clark, Stanton, Travers, Gunther, Wideman, Carpenter, Holley, Cobb, and Seamans. The Seamans land bordered the east side of the entire lake and was the site chosen in the early 1960's for Robert Seamans to build an airport. |