Jimmy Wilder

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 camping grounds at Smith’s and Albany Lake were now off limits on the private Nehasane Preserve, 75,000 acres of forest surrounding the Red Horse Chain of Lakes, acquired by the state from Dr. Webb in 1895-96, beckoned to sportsmen. The major lakes of this area soon sprouted a variety of new sporting accommodations. On Big Burnt Lake there was Dave Conkey’s, Chris Wagner’s and the Greely Camps. On Trout Pond there was the Cobb Camp. On Salmon Lake were the camps of Bert Darrow, Charlie Smith, Lansing Hotaling, Elmer Wilder’s Camp Happy [subject of my next post] and the Townsend Camp.

 

The guide with a credible claim to having the most long-term success in this enterprise was James “Jimmy” Wilder. So far as I can determine he started his guiding career in the early 1890s by working as a game protector at Dr. Webb’s Nehasane Preserve. By 1896 he had built a guide’s cabin with a bark roof near Beaver Dam Pond and an open camp on Big Crooked Lake just beyond the highest pond of the Red Horse Chain. In May of that year, he guided seven Central New York men on a highly successful fishing trip. That group decided they wanted to return to the area regularly, so they entered into a long-term agreement with Jimmy Wilder and founded the Rap-Shaw Club. 

 

James H. “Jimmy” Wilder was born on July 15, 1870, in the hamlet of Crystaldale, in Lewis County, NY. At that time Crystaldale was a small farming village located on the edge of the forest about ten miles east of Lowville along the Number Four Road. Today the old farms there have mostly disappeared leaving only a small cluster of houses at a crossroads surrounded by woods.

 

Like most children on pioneer farms, Jimmy Wilder would have acquired a wide variety of skills useful to him as a guide. He would have learned how to grow basic food plants, care for barnyard animals and handle draft horses. Since he lived right on the edge of the forest, it is easy to imagine as a boy he spent a lot of his free time fishing and hunting. Doubtless as he grew up, he would have explored much of the Beaver River country. As he ranged further from home, he would have learned the other essential skills of a woodsman such as path finding, boating, cooking over an open fire and building a temporary shelter.

 

When Jimmy Wilder guided the Rap-Shaw party in the spring of 1896 he was 26 years old. A year earlier, in 1895, Wilder had married Evelyn Philips, a local woman six years his junior. In the fall of 1897 Evelyn Wilder started to work as a cook for the Rap-Shaw Club. She continued to work for the club until 1916. The couple’s only daughter, Anna, was born in September 1896. She essentially grew up at the club’s camps. 

Judging from photographs in the Rap-Shaw photo albums, Jimmy Wilder was a short, thin man with dark hair. He dressed for deer season in what looks like homespun wool pants and a wool jacket with knee high boots. He almost always wore a battered felt hat. In spring and summer, he wore a long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the neck with the sleeves rolled up.

 

The first camp Jimmy Wilder built for the Rap-Shaw Club in 1897 was at Beaver Dam Pond. It started out as a single two-story stockade-style log cabin, supplemented with a second similar cabin in 1901. Wilder built these cabins with help from Jay Smith, his brother-in-law. During the winter of 1901 – 02 Jimmy and Jay moved those cabins about a mile west onto state land at Witchhopple Lake. The cabins were combined and expanded to create a large clubhouse. In the following years Wilder built three sleeping cottages connected to the clubhouse by a wooden walkway. 

Jimmy and Evelyn Wilder continued to seasonally operate the camp at Witchhopple until 1916 when the club was evicted from the Forest Preserve land it had illegally occupied. After the camp buildings were moved back to Beaver Dam Pond, the Wilders turned the steward’s job over to their daughter Anna and her husband, Herbert “Herbie” Nye and retired to their farm in Crystaldale. Jimmy Wilder continued to guide fishing and hunting trips at the Rap-Shaw Club until 1930 by which time he was an honorary member of the club. He visited the club frequently for the rest of his life.

 

According to the US Census, Jimmy and Evelyn lived in Crystaldale until 1920 and then moved to a house on Shady Ave. in Lowville. After moving to town, Jimmy worked primarily as a carpenter. During the 1930s he built several fine summer camps on the shore of Beaver Lake / Number Four, two of which are still occupied.

 

Jimmy Wilder died in early 1958 at the age of 88. Evelyn Philips Wilder died the same year at the age of 82.

 

The Wilder family portrait is from the collection of Dennis Buckley. The other photos are details of images in the Rap-Shaw Club archive.

 

Much more information about Jimmy and Evelyn Wilder can be found in my 2019 book, The History of the Rap-Shaw Club. That book can be purchased for $20 by sending an inquiry to rap.shaw.history@gmail.com. A chapter in my forthcoming book, Beaver River Country, also discusses the Wilders’ role in establishing the Rap-Shaw Club.