Lost Fishermen: 1909

-


It was supposed to be a relaxing family vacation at camp combined with a bit of trout fishing. Fate had other plans for Robert Walker and Ira Vendermark.

In late August of 1909, the families of two long-time Rap-Shaw Club members from Elmira, NY headed north to spend two weeks at the clubhouse at Witchhopple Lake. The party was composed of real estate agent Ira Vendemark and his wife Belle, along with master plumber Robert H. Walker, his wife Fannie and their adult daughter Myrtle Speh. Myrtle’s husband, Frederick L. Speh, planned to join them at camp for their second week.

 

The five of them left home early one Sunday morning in the Vendemarks’ touring car. They drove from Elmira to Utica, stopped for dinner and then drove on to Remsen where they stayed overnight. The next morning, they left the automobile behind and caught the morning train to Beaver River Station. They reached there on Monday about noon. They probably ate their dinner at the Norridgewock Hotel near the station then rode Pop Bullock’s wagon to Grassy Point on the Beaver River.

 

Jimmy Wilder, the club steward, was waiting with boats and another guide. They loaded everyone and everything into two boats and crossed the Beaver River. From Trout Pond on the north side of the river it was a little more than a mile hike on the Red Horse Trail to Salmon Lake where they boarded boats again. After crossing Salmon Lake, they hiked about one mile more to the camp. The guides did all the rowing and carried most of the baggage between the lakes. They probably reached the Rap-Shaw Club camp at Witchhopple Lake by suppertime.


On Friday morning, after spending five pleasant days in camp, Ira Vendemark and Robert Walker left for what was supposed to be a brief fishing trip. They walked two miles further up the Red Horse Trail to Clear Lake where there was a club boat and began to fish. They fished for an hour or so but had no luck so they decided to hike to an unnamed pond a bit further away to see if their luck improved. They left the boat on the far side of Clear Lake and set off through the woods. They expected to return about noon so they left their lunch in the boat. There was no trail but they had no trouble reaching their destination. They caught a few fish then decided to head back to Clear Lake to eat lunch.

 

Robert Walker was one of the original founders and Board members of Rap-Shaw. He had spent a lot of time at camp over the years and was well acquainted with that section of the woods. He did not feel it was necessary to carry a compass. Vendemark did not have a compass either. Unfortunately, the two men disagreed about the correct direction back to Clear Lake. Within an hour they were hopelessly lost.

 

The fishermen were expected back in camp at Witchhopple Lake in the early afternoon. When they did not turn up the club guides hiked to Clear Lake to see what happened. They found the club boat on the farther side of the lake. Since the boat had been deliberately pulled up on shore the guides concluded that the men were lost somewhere in the forest and started to search for them in all the most likely places. In the clear still air of the Adirondacks a man's voice can be heard a long distance. The guides repeatedly shouted but there was no reply.

 

Meanwhile the lost fishermen were walking in the wrong direction. They had wandered west into the wild area now called the Five Ponds Wilderness. This area was and still is one of the largest plots of trackless forest in the Adirondacks. The fishermen walked for the remainder of the day. They made a fire at nightfall and waited restlessly for daylight. They walked all day Saturday but never found a trail or recognized any landmarks. Fortunately, they had favorable weather and a few fish to eat.

 

Walker was wearing a pair of canvas sneakers with thin rubber soles that quickly disintegrated. He made makeshift shoes by tying his felt hat over one foot and some clothes over the other. Vendemark’s tight shoes were unfit for hiking. He soon developed blisters and bruises on both feet. By Saturday night they were in such poor condition that they did not dare to stop to rest but continued walking by moonlight. 

 

Just as they were about to collapse, they saw a light in the distance. They struggled on and finally reached Monahan’s lumber camp. The exact location of the Monahan lumber camp is unknown but it may have been near the present parking area for the trail from the Bear Pond Road to the Five Ponds Wilderness, about seventeen miles as the crow flies from the Rap-Shaw camp at Witchhopple Lake.

 

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, some of the loggers loaded the two fishermen onto horses and led them back to Witchhopple Lake via an old logging road. They arrived back at the Rap-Shaw Club camp about 1:00 pm Sunday. After searching the woods for two days the guides had just returned to camp and were making preparations to drag Clear Lake for the bodies when the lumbermen showed up with the grateful fishermen.

 

By this time Walker’s and Vendemark’s wives had almost given them up for dead. The day before they had placed a call to Myrtle Speh’s husband Fred back in Elmira. He set out at once for camp and arrived at Beaver River Station just in time to find out that his father-in-law had been rescued. The six Elmirans abandoned their plan to stay longer at camp and left for home on the Monday morning train.

 

I’m sure that both the men wore sturdy boots and carried a compass on their next trip to camp.

 

Source: Elmira Star-Gazette, Aug. 31, 1909 with a follow-up story on Sept. 3, 1909. Photographs are from the Rap-Shaw Club archive.

 

A version of this story appears in my book The History of the Rap-Shaw Club (2019).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Norridgewock Saloon

-
Image
The photo above shows me talking to   members of Adirondack Architectural Heritage inside what was once the Norridgewock Hotel saloon. That room played an important part in social life at Beaver River for more than 50 years from 1912 until 1964. Its story deserves to be remembered.   The saloon started out as a rather grand, multipurpose stable. These days livestock is pretty rare in Beaver River, but back in the early decades of the twentieth century  there was a considerable herd in and around the hamlet. There were three small sportsman’s hotels, Elliott’s, Darrow’s and Pop Bullock’s, each of which had at least one team of horses and a cow or two. The Norridgewock Hotel needed a small herd of cows to furnish guests with fresh milk.  Some of the teamsters from nearby lumber camps would occasionally come to town with their horses. In addition to these animals there were a considerable number of wagons and buckboards that needed protection from the weather. ...
Read more

Ouderkirk's Sawmill

-
Image
Ouderkirk's Mill, c1893, Goodsell Museum collection Where the hamlet of Beaver River Station now stands, there once was a beaver pond behind an esker fed by a brook that plunged in from the west. Below the outlet of this pond the brook met its sister from the south and together they flowed into the mother stream that we now call the Beaver River. On the south branch close to where the two streams merged there was a spring hole with a sandy bottom filled with native brook trout. The area around the confluence of the two streams was a large marshy meadow filled with native grasses and shrubs. In 1891 and 1892 a trans-Adirondack railroad was built through this area. It originated at a junction with the New York Central Railroad main line in the Mohawk Valley and reached north to Malone near the Canadian border, thus it was originally named the Mohawk to Malone Railroad, or the M&M for short. The railroad was designed and financed by Dr. William Seward Webb. Only a year after train...
Read more

Guides' Camps along the Red Horse Trail

-
Image
  J. Wilder's open camp at Crooked Lake 1896 The Iroquois established the Red Horse Trail centuries ago for use in their travels between their southern territories and the St. Lawrence River valley. It is one of the oldest footpaths in the Adirondacks. The southern part of this trail still exists. It begins on the north side of the Beaver River, now the Stillwater Reservoir. It follows the Red Horse Creek, connecting Big Burnt Lake, Trout Pond, Salmon Lake, Witchhopple Lake, Clear Lake and Crooked Lake. It formerly continued on northeast to the High Falls of the Oswagachie River, but this segment was buried by the big blowdown of 1995 and has not been reopened. I posted an article on this blog back on 03/01/21 giving the basic history of the trail.   https://beaverriverhistory.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-red-horse-trail.html   Detail from H. Beach postcard map, about 1910   In the early 1870s sporting tourists and their guides began to use the old trail. The first publi...
Read more