Annals of the Beaver River

Elmer Wilder built “Camp Happy” sometime between 1895 and 1905. The camp was located on the north west end of Salmon Lake a short distance off the Red Horse Trail. The main cabin was a typical story and a half structure. The cabin’s porch was designed to accommodate an existing tree that extended through the porch roof. A smaller guest cabin sat nearby. Both buildings had tarpaper sides and hand-split shingle roofs. Judging from photos, the camp probably had a telephone connection to the outside world. Room and board cost $1.50 per day or $8.00 per week. Elmer charged an additional $1.50 per day for his guiding services. Elmer was a first cousin to Jimmy Wilder, the steward of the Rap-Shaw Club on nearby Witchhopple Lake [see my post of May 9, 2021]. Elmer Ellsworth Wilder [1870 – 1958] married Alice Hubert [1887 – 1954] in 1904. For most of the year they lived on a farm in Crystaldale, then relocated to Camp Happy during the warmer months. During those summers they hosted many parties...

Lafayette Stanton’s Camps: ~1897 – ~1905 Most of the guide’s camps built in the Beaver River country between 1895 and 1915 were either located along the Red Horse Trail or in the vicinity of the Beaver River railroad station. Stanton’s Camps was a notable exception to this rule.    According to an advertisement in the  Utica  Daily Record , June 12, 1901, Stanton’s was located on the north shore of the Beaver River six and a half miles downstream toward Stillwater from the Beaver River train station. A map from that time shows the camp on a peninsula extending into the river near the outlet of Wolf Creek. Most of that peninsula was submerged by the 1924 Stillwater dam. What remains is now called Betty’s Island, located just east DEC campsite #6 on Long Island. It was a beautiful, isolated spot that could only be reached by water. Someone from the camp would meet the afternoon train at Beaver River Station and bring guests to camp in a boat.   I have not been abl...

The Rap-Shaw Club camp has been located on Williams Island near the Stillwater Reservoir boat access ever since 1939. Few people, including many club members, are aware that between 1896 and 1938 the club camps were located on lakes a fair distance up the Red Horse Trail. All three of these early camps were built by the club’s first steward and principal guide, Jimmy Wilder [see my post of May 9, 2021]. On trips in 1896 and 1897 prior to the existence of their own fixed camp, the founding members of the club, with Jimmy Wilder as their guide, used temporary open camps at Big Crooked, Witchhopple and Salmon Lakes. During their spring fishing trip in 1897 the club’s founders entered into a long-term agreement with Jimmy Wilder. The founders agreed to hire Wilder as their guide for the indefinite future. In return, Wilder agreed to build a cabin for their headquarters.   Wilder’s Cabins at Beaver Dam Pond (1897 – 1901)   Over the summer of 1897, Jimmy Wilder, with the help of his...

Outdoor tourism changed quite a bit after 1892 when the railroad arrived in the Beaver River country. Easier access led to a significant increase in the number of tourists, but visits started to get shorter. Vacations that once lasted for a month or more were reduced to a week or ten days. Likely inspired by the success of the Elliott Camp [see my post of May 6, 2021], in the twenty years between 1895 and 1915 a fair number of guides established their own semi-permanent sportsmen’s camps.   Some of these camps consisted of nothing more than an open lean-to or small log cabin, but several of the more prosperous camps had frame building made with finished lumber and fittings. These camps usually had a main cabin large enough for the guide’s family, a kitchen, a dining area and enough room left over, often on the second floor, for beds where the guests would sleep. Some of these camps also included a number of small sleeping cabins or tent platforms.   Although the once favored c...

The Elliott Camp was the first accommodation for sportsmen to open in the vicinity of the new Beaver River Station. The camp was located directly on the Beaver River not far from its junction with the South Branch near a well-established camping spot called the Sand Spring [see my post of March 7, 2021]. A simple wagon track ran through the woods from the station for about a mile and a half to the camp. The main building probably opened for business sometime in 1893. Chet Elliott and his brother William built the camp with the assistance of their uncle, Joe Dunbar. During the spring and fall throughout the 1880s Chet and his brother had worked for their uncle at the Dunbar Hotel at Stillwater on the Beaver River [see my post of April 9, 2021]. When they found out that the Dunbar Hotel was going to be sold to a group of regular guests who wanted to make it the headquarters of their exclusive Beaver River Club [see my post of May 3, 2021], they decided to build a sportsmen’s hotel of the...

Under the water in a shallow section of the Stillwater Reservoir lie the traces of numerous building foundations, roads, bridge abutments and the scattered detritus that commonly accompanies human occupation. On a small island in this area there is a large building foundation nearly hidden by tangled undergrowth. These are the remains of the once grand Beaver River Club.   From its founding in 1893 until it was flooded in 1925 the Beaver River Club was the favored destination of many of the visitors to the Stillwater area. It was the summer retreat of wealthy and influential families from Syracuse, Utica and to a lesser extent from elsewhere in New York State. The decision to enlarge the Stillwater dam to create today’s Stillwater Reservoir utterly destroyed this glittering outpost in the wild   Sometime in 1890 William H. Morrison, a successful pharmacist from Lowville, NY, assembled a group of like-minded friends with the object of establishing a sportsmen’s club and game pr...