Wardwell's
After the hermit Jimmy O’Kane died in 1859 human habitation at the Stillwater ended for a time. Until about 1870 the only enclosed shanty anywhere in the upper Beaver River country was Chauncey Smith’s cabin on the South Branch near the Sand Spring.
William Wardwell was born about 1830 in Martinsburg in the Black River Valley south of Lowville. He married Sarah C. (maiden name unknown) in 1855 and in 1858 their daughter Rosa was born. He worked as a house painter before being drafted in 1864 to fight in the Civil War. He served one year then returned to his family. The steadily growing number of sporting tourists visiting the upper Beaver River must have been the reason the Wardwells decided they could make a better living by homesteading and accommodating visitors at a wilderness outpost at Stillwater.
The photograph at the head of this post is not of the Wardwell homestead, but of one that was probably quite similar. Their homestead consisted of a basic log house, a log barn and some outbuildings on the bluff overlooking a deep pool about a quarter of a mile back from the main river. They called their modest homestead “The Wild Woods Home.” In no time local outdoors guides started storing boats and supplies at Wardwell’s. There was a pasture for horses and a place where wagons could be stored.
Between 1870 and 1876 the Wardwells played host to almost every passing party visiting the upper Beaver River. Wardwell’s provided travelers with a simple meal of trout or venison and a place to sleep out of the rain. The Wardwell homestead was not a destination, but a welcome way station. The spot near Twitchell Creek at Stillwater was soon being shown on maps as “Wardwell’s.”
Bill Wardwell was a friendly but eccentric character. He claimed to be a crack shot, but visitor A. Judd Northrup noted the gun sight on his rifle was only loosely tied on with a leather thong. The roof of his log barn had tumbled in but Wardwell laconically told Northrup he would repair it “when I git ta it.”
W. W. Hill and his wife visited on a fishing trip 1873. They found that Wardwell’s was “in very comfortable shape for a place so far back in the forest, and is kept neat and tidy by Mrs. W. and her daughter, Rosa.” Fifteen-year-old Rosa especially impressed the Hills because she “can fish and row a boat as well as she can talk.”
Charles Fenton stopped at Wardwell’s on March 10, 1875 on a trip to Albany Lake guiding two sportsmen from Massachusetts who wanted to go ice fishing for lake trout. They picked up a small stove at Wardwell’s that Fenton had stored there to use for winter camping. Wardwell, his wife and seventy-year-old mother were happy for company as they had not left home since the first of January. On the way back to Number Four, Fenton met Wardwell and his daughter Rosa on the road. They were walking home on snowshoes from Lowville where Rosa had been attending school. According to Fenton, Rosa covered the eleven miles from Number Four to Stillwater in just three and a half hours without feeling tired.
Sometime in 1875 or 1876 Sarah Wardwell fell seriously ill and was confined to bed. The Lowville Journal & Republican for April 5, 1876 reported that the Wardwells had moved back to Martinsburg and hired Edmund Burdick and his wife to run the hotel at Stillwater. Shortly thereafter the homestead was sold to Joe and Mary Dunbar, whose story will be the subject of a future post.
Wardwell’s was last listed as a sportsmen’s hotel in Wallace’s Descriptive Guide to the Adirondacks in the 1876 edition. Once settled back in Martinsburg, Sarah Wardwell recovered from the illness that forced the family to leave their Stillwater homestead. After the untimely death of Rosa in 1882, William and Sarah Wardwell moved west to Wisconsin.
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