New neighbours began to appear in summer cottages (many eventually winterized) on Long Point Company property. In 1944, the Company granted land to Hanson Ferris, its manager and head keeper, for cottage development. This land was expropriated by the government in 1960 and became the Long Point provincial park.
Other clubs also began to appear on the Point. This was not a completely new development - the Big Creek Gun Club existed before 1890, and late in the nineteenth century poachers on the Point attempted, unsuccessfully, to avoid prosecution by incorporating themselves as a club. Relationships with the newcomers were somewhat more amicable than they had been with the group under prosecution, though at least one group, the Rice Bay Club, un-doubtedly originated with would-be poachers.
The Rice Bay Club's date of origin is uncertain but its buildings' origins are not. While title to part of the north beach was still in dispute, one of the house boat-scows that plagued the Long Point Company ran aground on that beach and was left marooned there. When the land was finally declared Company property, it demanded a lease from the men, who by now had levelled and built a clubhouse on the derelict scow. These men, professing to negotiate in good faith, failed for a variety of seemingly legitimate reasons to agree to pay the lease fee demanded. They would forget it, not have a quorum, or neglect to bring it up at an annual meeting.
Then, suddenly, in 1920 they demanded title and possession, as more than ten years had elapsed without the Long Point Company evicting them. In other words, they claimed title under a form of squatters' rights. The Com-pany issued a writ against them but did not serve it, fearing that to do so might stir up such hostility as to do more harm than good. (Several Rice Bay Club members were prominent in political circles.) This opinion was strengthened by the fact that the club's members were primarily fishermen and the few who hunted respected the Long Point Company's rights. To cap it all, the government of the day United Farmers of Ontario was known to harbour little love for the rights of corporations over those of the individual.
The litigation was dropped and the Rice Bay Club received title by adverse possession. The Company staked out a one-acre perimeter to the Club buildings and granted an easement of access across its land, which sur-rounded the Club property. The Rice Bay Club caretaker received a year-to-year lease for his garden spot outside that acre.
