Ella and Burt Darrow

Aunt Ella Darrow

Burt Darrow in 1914

I had to wander through Section C of Syracuse’s Oakwood Cemetery for about 15 minutes before I found what I was looking for. I knelt, brushed away a handful of dried leaves and pulled up some long grass. The simple flat stone had sunk a few inches into the ground. It reads: Ella M. Darrow 1881 – 1962. Next to it on the left is a matching stone: Burt Darrow 1872 – 1924. There is nothing on the stones that even hints of the couple’s long and significant connection to the Beaver River country.

Ella Maud Harris was born in Syracuse on March 4, 1881, the daughter of John R. Harris and Alice Eastwood. Her father worked as a machinist. She had an older brother named George [born 1879], a younger sister named Florence [born 1889] and a younger brother named Arthur [born 1893].

 

Bernard G. Darrow was born May 22, 1871 (not 1872) in Owego, Tioga County, the son of Hill Darrow and Celia Ross. As a child his family called him Bertie, but during his adult life he insisted his name was Burt. He had two younger sisters, Iva [born 1874] and Pearl [born 1881] and a younger brother Percy [born 1883]. By 1892 the Darrow family had moved to Homer, NY in Cortland County. In 1900 Burt was still living with his family in Homer working as a tinsmith. His brother Percy was working as an apprentice in a cigar factory.

 

The NY Census of 1905 shows that by then 33-year-old Burt was living in Beaver River Station and working as a guide. Although he lived in the hamlet, he also maintained a very humble guide’s cabin along the Red Horse Trail. He must have developed a good clientele because by 1909 he was able to buy a piece of property near the depot and, with the help of his brother Percy, build a small frame house to serve as a sportsmen’s hotel. As discussed in prior posts, most Beaver River sportsmen’s hotels built prior to 1916 were constructed on state land a fair distance from the train station. Darrow’s Sportsman’s Lodge was an exception to this rule. 

 

Circumstantial evidence suggests that it was George Harris, Ella’s older brother, who introduced her to Burt. George enjoyed hunting and fishing. Given the popularity of the Beaver River country for these pursuits and the ease of access from Syracuse by rail, I assume he visited the area as early as 1910, possibly even earlier. 

 

George Harris liked Burt Darrow. During the 1910s George and his wife frequently vacationed at Darrow’s Sportsmen’s Lodge. After a few years George Harris bought the adjoining property and built his own camp. Based on a later newspaper clipping, Ella and her sister Florence accompanied George and his wife on some of their vacations to Beaver River. Sometime, probably between 1910 and 1915, Ella Harris and Burt Darrow were married.

 

Like everyone who lived in Beaver River, Burt did a variety of other jobs in addition to housing and guiding visitors. During the winters he worked in the woods as a logger. He worked for a time as a fire warden. In 1912 he was appointed the first Beaver River Forest Ranger by the Conservation Commission, a position he only held for one year. Burt was well-known for his great strength as a lumberjack, his magnificent moustache, his story-telling ability and for his hard drinking. He amazed and sometimes appalled visitors by chewing tobacco and spiting on the hot stove to hear it sizzle.

 

After marrying Burt, Ella took over the job of running the Sportsmen’s Lodge. In this she was following a long line of Adirondack women hotel keepers. She made all the housing arrangements, did the cooking and the cleaning. Ella, called “Aunt” Ella by her guests, was a robust woman who was constantly on the move. She had a commanding presence and a loud voice that she used to order her employees to “fetch” her whatever she needed.

Darrow’s Sportsmen’s Lodge was located on a hill a few hundred yards east of the train station. Its front porch faced the tracks. It had a great view of the nearby forest and hills. Guests could also sit on the porch to watch passing trains. It was a typical rectangular two-story building with guest rooms upstairs. The Darrow’s living quarters were downstairs along with the kitchen and dining room.

 

The kitchen was the center of Ella’s domain. A large coffee grinder was mounted on the wall next to the back door. The kitchen sink and cook stove lined the left wall. Next to the cookstove was a kerosene dispenser that looked a bit like an office water cooler with its two large inverted 5-gallon bottles. 

 

Running lengthwise through the center of the kitchen was a counter for food preparation. Attached to the end of the counter was a painted tin box. It had a hinged top that opened to reveal homemade donuts, and/or sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies or the best filled cookies imaginable. Behind a door below this box there were about ten shelves where Ella kept her pies, cakes, rolls and bread. 

 

The dining room featured a long table covered with oil cloth that could easily seat twelve people. There was also a small, windowless parlor that sometimes served as a private dining room for a visiting family. Pat Thompson remembered that the backs of the chairs in the parlor had a raised design to look like carved wood and were painted dark green.

 

Under Ella’s careful management the lodge did quite well. During the early 1920s, accommodations in Beaver River Station were in high demand by those working on the reservoir project. During this time the Darrows expanded the lodge and added some cabins. Most likely the lodge was fully booked between 1922 and 1924 while logging crews cleared the 4000 acres that would be flooded. Burt was busy logging, so Ella needed to hire help. A fellow from Canada, Edwin Butcher, who had been working at the Norridgewock II, became her right-hand man. 

 

Just as work on the reservoir was nearing its end in May of 1924, Burt Darrow died at the age of 52. His obituary in the Syracuse Journal noted that Burt was “well-known to thousands of tourists and hunters” and that many hunters from Syracuse had stayed at his camp. Following Burt’s death, Ella decided to continue to operate the lodge that had been providing her with a good income and which she now owned free and clear. She had a framed photograph of Burt lying in his casket hanging on the wall of her bedroom

 

As the reservoir filled in 1925, water rose around Ella Darrow’s property until it became 

an island. Her buildings were not damaged so she was able to continue operations as usual. For access she built a sixty-foot-long floating foot bridge made of planks resting on good sized logs connecting the lodge to the road. The bridge was springy, and even after being warned, children tended to use it as a trampoline. 

The number of paying guests decreased dramatically once the reservoir workers departed. Nonetheless, Darrow’s continued to do a reasonably good business as the only remaining boarding house in Beaver River Station since Vincent’s [formerly Bullock’s] Hotel burned down in 1924. In an effort to boost business, Ella took out a small advertisement for the Sportsmen’s Lodge in the vacation listings of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle during the later 1920s. During the winters she made additional income as a cook at the Mac-a-Mac lumber camp at nearby Brandreth.

 

Ella Darrow continued to successfully operate the Sportsmen’s Lodge until 1945 when it burned down. For a time after that Ella lived in one of her undamaged cabins and continued to work as a cook. Eventually she moved to the Eastern Star Home in Oriskany, NY where she died on January 2, 1962 at the age of 80. 

Sources: Pat Thompson, Beaver River: Oasis in the Wilderness, Beaver River Press, 2000. William B. Donnelly, A Short History of Beaver River, Beaver River Property Owners Association, 1979. Pat Hartman, A Butcher in Beaver River: Edwin Butcher in the Adirondacks, private printing, 2017.