Annals of the Beaver River

By all accounts Andrew Muncy was a modest man. He lived his life as a pioneer farmer on the western edge of the great northern forest. For fourteen years between 1877 and 1891 he and his wife operated a successful sportsmen’s hotel along the upper Beaver River. It is mentioned in numerous published first-person accounts and guidebooks, but those accounts say little about the hotel and its proprietors. Unlike the neighboring hotels operated by the Dunbar family at Stillwater and the Lamont family at Smith’s Lake, nothing much of note seems to have happened at Muncy’s. I think the Muncys are interesting precisely because they were such ordinary people. They were hard working and well regarded. They knew tourist travel to the Beaver River country was increasing during the 1870s and seized the opportunity to supplement their farm income. I have tried to find out more details, but they have proved difficult to research. One problem is although the spelling of their names on official records...

I sometimes wonder how the history of the upper Beaver River might have been different had the Beaver River Club survived the multiple adversities that beset it between 1910 and 1924 [see my post of 05/03/21]. One way to get a sense of that alternate history is to consider the personal lives of the people who were drawn to that glittering wilderness retreat.  William K. Pierce was a prominent member of the Beaver River Club from about 1900 until his death in 1915. Pierce is especially interesting to me because he owned three vacation cottages at the eastern end of the club’s land. As I explained in my post of 09/05/21, this property was later acquired by Roger B. Williams, Jr. who moved Pierce’s finest cottage to nearby higher ground where it still exists intact as the Main Camp of the Rap-Shaw Club. Pierce is also interesting because of the major roles he played in the development of the city of Syracuse, NY. William Kasson Pierce was born May 25, 1851 in Syracuse NY. His parents ...