Clear Lake has an early beginning in 1817 with a young pioneer named Charles Rundlett. Rundlett walked from Vermont looking for land near a lake where he could put food on the table. He constructed his log home on Clear Lake.

One day when Charles Rundlett went out to do chores he heard the sound of an ax coming from the other end of the lake. Another pioneer had arrived and decided to make Clear Lake their home. The story goes that Rundlett crossed the lake by ice as was still early spring. Sure enough, there was a man busy at the construction of a new log cabin. His new neighbor, Mr. Newmen, was taken by surprise to have a neighbor so near to the south.

The Newmen family built a mill, which would become a broom factory, on the small spring-fed stream that flowed near the head of Clear Lake. Charles Rundlett would probably never have expected the kind of growth that exists on Clear Lake today, with summer homes that ring the entire lake.