William Higby and Asa Puffer, early Beaver River guides
In the two decades preceding the Civil War a few farmers living in the Town of Watson on the banks of the Black River in Lewis County, N.Y. supplemented their income by working as wilderness guides. Their skills were acquired from years of making a living on the edge of the wilderness. They grew up tramping long trails. Hunting and fishing were second nature. They learned what they knew of woodcraft by way of hard experience. They were physically strong and able to endure incredible hardships.
Two of the better-known guides active in the 1850s were William Higby and Asa Puffer.
Higby also built the lightweight boats that he used for guiding. His boats were first mentioned in John Constable’s “Letter to the Editor of the Spirit of the Times” that described a trip guided by Higby in 1843. Constable noted that the boat weighted about 90 pounds, was made of cedar and could be carried by one man, yet was capable of holding three people and all their supplies. In all likelihood Higby’s boats were small rowboats sometimes called a “carry boat.” Carry boats shared some features with the iconic Adirondack guideboat. We know that William Austin, an early settler at Long Lake, built carry boats, possibly modeled on Higby’s. Austin was documented to have met Higby during the Constable family camping trip in 1850. Austin’s carry boats are described in Sulavik, The Adirondack Guideboat (2018) pp. 44 - 45.
In June of 1851 Higby guided a party of four local men on a trip to Smith’s Lake. When they reached Albany Lake, they met up by pre-arrangement with two men being guided by Asa Puffer. The six sportsmen with their two guides continued to a well-appointed guide’s camp built by Higby earlier in the spring at Smith’s Lake. The camp had a sand beach and a freshwater spring in addition to a commodious lean-to and most likely a table, benches and a dining shelter all constructed on the spot from saplings and bark.
Jervis McEntee and Joseph Tubby, young artists from Rondout N.Y., were Puffer’s charges. McEntee kept a detailed journal, now in the Adirondack Research Library at Blue Mountain Lake. McEntee’s impression of Higby [Higbie] was quite favorable:
“Higbie pleases me much. He is a man of about fifty, stout, sedate, and yet kind and affectionate as a child. He comes up perfectly to my idea of a Jimmie Woodsman, and the more I see of him the better I am convinced of his kindness, and more, of his skill in all matters connected with the glorious wood life. In a little bag he carries innumerable little tools such as screws, screwdrivers, awls, etc., and he was not at all disconcerted on discovering he had left his candles and mold at Stillwater, for he had tallow with him and using a branch of alder he made two candles as fine ones as could have been made when men have better tools to work with.”
Higby continued building boats and guiding sporting tourists as long as he was physically able. He died Nov. 16, 1890 at the age of 89
Asa Puffer, McEntee and Tubby’s guide, was born Jan. 1, 1818. Asa was a descendent of a well-known Methodist preacher, also named Asa Puffer. He married Polly Ann VanEtta (born 8/23/1823 – died 3/22/1908). They lived on a 300-acre farm in Town of Watson where they raised five children. The Puffer family must have been very close friends with their neighbors, the William Higby family. The Puffers’ eldest daughter Eliza married the Higby’s eldest son Almerin.
Asa Puffer, like most farmers, engaged in whatever work he could find to support his family. He often worked as a logger in the winter and, on several occasions, he worked as an “axe man” for wilderness surveying parties. This was heavy labor that included hauling supplies and equipment as well as clearing trees to create sight lines. In 1851 he told Jervis McEntee that he had been all over the north woods working for a surveying party in Lower Canada and for Nelson Beach in laying out the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road. The fact that Puffer had worked on the 1841 road surveying crew is supported by Beach’s diary in the archives of the Lewis County Historical Society.
McEntee’s first impression of Puffer was not particularly favorable. In a magazine article published in 1859 titled “The Lakes of the Wilderness,” McEntee described Puffer as a short, squat man with a broad chest and a somewhat dull, stolid countenance. He included a rough sketch of Puffer in the article to provide support for his snap judgment that Puffer fell far short of his idea of a woodsman. As will be shown in my next post, McEntee’s opinion of Puffer soon changed from disappointment to admiration.
McEntee paid Puffer $20 per month for his work. This fee included finding the route, managing the baggage, rowing the boat, hunting and fishing for food, cooking all meals, finding or building shelter and innumerable other necessities. In addition to the guide’s pay, sporting tourists were also expected to pay for food (other than fish and game), ammunition and incidentals including boat rental, wagon rides, meals at hotels and rooms rented at hotels. Adjusted for inflation, Puffer’s monthly pay would be worth about $665 in today’s dollars. McEntee felt the cost of Puffer’s services was quite reasonable and in line with the usual charge of guides of the time that could be as high as $1 per day.
After a life of laboring in the outdoors, Asa Puffer died Aug. 4, 1874 at the age of 56.
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