Annals of the Beaver River

Photo from the collection of Tim Mayers The photo above has intrigued me for some time. The names of the people are written on the back of the postcard in fancy, hard-to-read script. A caption appears at the bottom that reads, “These are the boys from hear [sic] and the Guide house.” I have added the names to the photograph based on my best guess. Mr. and Mrs. Goons probably ran a boarding house that catered to guides. Because I recognize a few of the names, I know the photo was taken in Beaver River Station, but I have never heard of a building called the guide house. The card is not dated and because it was never mailed, it has no postmark.   Carl McCormick, standing on the far right, sports a distinctive walrus mustache. He shows up in a few other photos taken between 1900 and about 1920 in various locations along the upper Beaver River. I decided to try to find out more about him from old newspapers and the census.    Carl Charles McCormick was born on March 7, 1...

Everyone recognized the Beaver River station agent.   In the fifty years between 1893 and 1943 the Adirondack Division of the New York Central Railroad employed a full-time station agent at Beaver River Station. There were only two Beaver River station agents during those years: John E. Dowd for the twenty years between 1893 until 1913 and William R. Partridge for the thirty years between 1913 until 1943.   The two-story depot building at Beaver River was designed so that the station agent and his family could live upstairs. The agent needed to be present at the station around the clock. Emergency communications could come at any hour. Night trains sometimes had to be flagged down. In winter the station agent had to stoke the stove and be sure the platform was cleared of snow. Although the station agent played a key role in railroad operations, it was not a particularly prestigious job. The only job requirements were a sound mind, a friendly personality, some ability in bookke...

  J. Wilder's open camp at Crooked Lake 1896 The Iroquois established the Red Horse Trail centuries ago for use in their travels between their southern territories and the St. Lawrence River valley. It is one of the oldest footpaths in the Adirondacks. The southern part of this trail still exists. It begins on the north side of the Beaver River, now the Stillwater Reservoir. It follows the Red Horse Creek, connecting Big Burnt Lake, Trout Pond, Salmon Lake, Witchhopple Lake, Clear Lake and Crooked Lake. It formerly continued on northeast to the High Falls of the Oswagachie River, but this segment was buried by the big blowdown of 1995 and has not been reopened. I posted an article on this blog back on 03/01/21 giving the basic history of the trail.   https://beaverriverhistory.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-red-horse-trail.html   Detail from H. Beach postcard map, about 1910   In the early 1870s sporting tourists and their guides began to use the old trail. The first publi...

Donald Kempton Thompson was born ninety years ago on October 20, 1934. He is the sole living member of the third generation of the Beaver River Thompson family. His paternal grandparents, William and Hattie Thompson, moved to the Beaver River country to operate a sportsman’s hotel in 1911 [see my post of 6/2/21]. That’s Hattie Thompson with most of her grandchildren in the photo above. Don is not in that picture because he had not been born yet. Don’s maternal grandparents were Will Kempton [see my post of 8/27/23] and Etta Wagner Kempton [see post of 8/17/23]. We know a great deal about Etta and Will because of the survival of Etta’s remarkable daily journal. Don’s parents were Walter Thompson and Gladys Kempton. Walter was the oldest son of Hattie and William Thompson. Walter’s brother Clinton is the grandfather of the three brothers of the fifth generation of the Thompson family that now operates the Norridgewock [see my post of 10/20/22]. Gladys Kempton, Don’s mother, was the only ...