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Memories of the Station Agent's Daughter

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Beaver River depot, front facing the tracks Living in a railroad depot in the 1930s may seem like a dream come true, especially to an adventurous child. There was the excitement of trains constantly arriving and departing, travelers passing through, and heaps of interesting freight being loaded or unloaded. A vivid account of the life of a child of the Beaver River station agent unfolds in the written reminiscences of Joyce Partridge Vohnoutka. Joyce was born in 1930, the next to youngest child of Ethel Wetmore Partridge and her husband William, the station agent. For reasons that will soon become clear, Joyce’s memories center on 1940, the year she turned 10. The Beaver River railroad depot was built in 1892. Photos of old depots along the Adirondack Division line show that the basic features were roughly the same, but each depot was customized to fit the needs of the location. The depots were rectangular with a roof that had substantial eaves extending over the platform to provide so...
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The Twitchell Creek Bridge

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  The ruined Twitchell Creek bridge in 1915 On June 1, 1841 Nelson Beach and his surveying team set out from the frontier village of Number Four following an old hunter’s trail leading east. They were just beginning a monumental survey for a new road that would cross the central Adirondacks. The plan was to find a route linking existing trails and roads to facilitate settlement in the interior of the great north woods. The road was to connect Carthage on the Black River in the west with Crown Point on Lake Champlain in the east. This road would come to be known as the Carthage to Lake Champlain Road. One part of the surveying crew was already working its way east from Carthage along the Beaver River valley toward Number Four. Beach’s part of the surveying crew travelled to Number Four on an existing road from Lowville to survey the next section of the proposed road. The hunter’s trail they followed on the first day of their survey was a short distance back from the west side of the...
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Stillwater On Ice

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The last community ice harvest at the west end of the Stillwater Reservoir occurred on Jan. 12 and 13, 1953. Later that year power lines finally reached the community and folks switched to electric refrigerators and freezers. Until then, refrigeration was provided by ice harvested from the flow.   The two largest consumers of ice at Stillwater were the Stillwater Hotel and the Rap-Shaw Club. Both had large ice houses to fill. The 1953 ice harvest was a coordinated effort by these two institutions. The Rap-Shaw team was directed by the club steward, Herbie Nye, and included members Rex Baxter, Frank Leet, Harlan Wheadon, Dick Welliver, and guest Tom Root, Baxter’s brother-in-law from Ohio. The hotel team was led by Emmett Hill, the hotel owner, and included Denny Boshart, Bob Griswold, as well as one or two other unidentified Stillwater residents.   Ice harvesting was simple, cold, hard work. First, the surface of the ice was cleared of snow by hand shoveling, then the ice was ...
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Annie's Christmas Memory

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I paused for a moment after I managed to herd the children inside the depot where my sister Florence was waiting. The conductor handed down our bags. My nephew Wesley came out and carried the bags inside. I stayed on the platform for a minute to stretch my legs after the train ride. It was already starting to get dark. It was pretty cold. A light snow was falling.   When I looked east up the railroad tracks, I saw three figures in dark heavy clothing slowly making their way toward the station. It was December 22, that much I’m sure of, but I’m not certain now whether it was 1912 or maybe 1911. As they got nearer the depot, I could see they were wearing snowshoes and they were dragging two nice balsam fir trees. Of course, they had their rabbit hunting rifles, but no rabbits hanging over their shoulders. I recognized them from my earlier trips to Beaver River Station. The taller one was Willy Kempton, the railroad section foreman, and the woman walking next in line was Etta, his wif...
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Drawdown

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It’s inevitable. Thirty feet of water pressing on the face of a dam will gradually cause damage. Ice adds to the strain. Even when a dam is constructed of concrete and steel using the best building techniques, some damage will eventually occur. It is the duty of those operating the dam to assess such damage and determine what repairs are necessary. From time to time these repairs will require that the water in the reservoir behind the dam be partly or even totally emptied. That process is called a drawdown. The current Stillwater Reservoir dam was built in 1922 – 24 and put into use in 1925. It is maintained by the Hudson River - Black River Regulating District, an agency of the State of New York, usually called HRBRRD. I posted a brief history of the Stillwater dams on this blog back on 08/11/21.  https://beaverriverhistory.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-brief-history-of-stillwater-reservoir.html   A more complete account appears in Chapter 8 of my book  Beaver River Countr...
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The Owl's Nest

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During the 19 th   and early 20 th  centuries, moving buildings was a fairly common practice in the Adirondacks. Relocating a building was almost always more economical than building a new structure since finished lumber, fittings like window and doors, and roofing were costly to transport by rail and wagon. To move a building, it was necessary to remove the furnishings, partly deconstruct the building, brace each part, jack the building off its foundation, and pull the building on big wheels or log rollers to a new location using a team of draft horses. Fireplaces and chimneys could be disassembled, often with each rock numbered to aid in reassembly at the new site. There were no overhead wires to avoid and few utilities to disconnect. Labor and horses were readily available, especially when there were logging camps in the vicinity. The photo at the head of this article gives some idea of what the process might look like. Note, this photo is not at Beaver River. There are a g...
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