Stanton's Camps and Camp Wiliwana

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 able to pinpoint when Stanton’s Camp began operations. Based on newspaper accounts it was receiving guests as early as May 1897 when, according to the Buffalo Evening News, future Buffalo mayor Erastus Knight stayed at Stanton’s during a fishing trip. Other news briefs from 1898, 1900, 1902 and 1904 confirm its continued existence. An advertisement in the Utica Daily Record on June 12, 1901 notes at H.C. Churchill was then managing the camp. Churchill would become the manager of the nearby Beaver River Club in 1902.

 

During 1902 and 1903 the wooden Stillwater Dam was replaced with a concrete structure a bit further downstream. This project employed several hundred workers who lived in a temporary camp built near the new dam. Stanton decided to capitalize on the situation by setting up a floating saloon on a houseboat. According to an article in the Rome Daily Sentinel, July 9, 1903, state authorities became alarmed at the increase of drunkenness among the dam crews and they revoked Stanton’s liquor license.

 

Stanton’s legal troubles increased in 1904 when the State of New York sued him for trespass. It seems Stanton had built his camp on land the state purchased back in the early 1890s to settle a lawsuit brought by Mary Lyon Fisher. Fisher owned nearly all the forest land near the junction of the Beaver River and Twitchell Creek. The 1887 Stillwater dam flooded about two thousand acres of this land, so Fisher sued for damages. The state ended up owning the flooded areas and fairly wide margins around them, including the peninsula Stanton was occupying.

 

Stanton fought eviction by arguing that there were twenty or more other guide’s camps located on state land in the Beaver River area that the state was leaving alone. In a sense Stanton was right. As early as 1902 the state posted trespass notices on every guide’s camp that they could find. While this put the camps on notice of a possible future eviction, the state took no legal action against any of the squatters, except Stanton.

 

It’s interesting to speculate about why Stanton was singled out. One theory has to do with the attention and trouble created by his floating saloon. A second theory is that the prosperous and politically influential Beaver River Club located nearby on the other side of the flow, didn’t want him there. Whatever the reason, in December 1905 Stanton lost in court and was evicted.

 

Camp Wiliwana: ~1911 - ~1920

 

When Stanton vacated the camp, he left behind the five or six buildings. There is no evidence that the state destroyed these buildings. Then, by 1911 a guide’s camp called Camp Wiliwana with a main boarding house and five small cabins was operating on a ledge of higher ground along Wolf Creek only a short distance uphill from where Stanton’s had been located. It’s within the realm of possibility that those buildings were moved from Stanton’s. 

 

Camp Wiliwana was owned and operated by two brothers from Lewis County, Elmer Frank Nye and Clark Calvin Nye. Newspaper notices show occupancy by the Nye brothers consistently from 1911 until January 1915. The camp was only a few minutes’ walk from beautiful Wolf Creek Falls. Foot trails connected the camp with all the nearby lakes. Based on this description, I believe the camp was on a piece of land owned by Fisher Forestry. The Nye brothers probably leased land for the camp from Fisher. There is no record that they ever bought the property.

 

During the time the Nye brothers owned Camp Wiliwana, the photographer Henry M. Beach made a series of eight numbered photographs of the camp that he turned into real photo postcards. Guests bought these cards to send to family and friends and to save as mementos.

 

Photo #8 shows the main building with an attached cabin.

The other photos in the series are either of views of the Beaver River or photos of the cabins. This one is typical. All of the cabins were of roughly the same design.

According to an article in the Cortland Democrat, June 11, 1915, the Nye brothers sold Camp Wiliwana to I. S. Foster and Deat Harrington. Since it was on private property, the camp would have escaped the state evictions of 1916 [there will be future post on that subject]. I have not been able to discover how long Foster and Harrington continued to operate the camp. About 1920 as work began on the greatly enlarged Stillwater dam, they were among the first to buy a cottage lot in the newly developing hamlet of Stillwater. They may have relocated some camp buildings there. Fisher Forestry eventually sold the land where Camp Wiliwana once stood to the state and it is now part of the Adirondack Forest Preserve.