Bert B., Julia & Clyde Bullock
I laid out the history of the original Norridgewock Hotel in my blog post of 06/08/2021. This post will complement that story by describing the lives of Bert, his wife Julia and their only son Clyde. Along the way, I will clarify and correct the history of that era at Beaver River Station based on recently uncovered sources.
Growing up on the farm
Berdett B. Bullock was born 5/1/1871 on the Tug Hill in Worth, Jefferson Co. NY. The 1875 NYS Census shows him living with his parents, Monroe and Sarah, on the Hitchcock farm, his mother’s family farm. His older brother Edwin [born 1867] was in the household but his other brother Henry [born 1870] was living on his father’s parent’s farm in Butler, Wayne Co., NY. Another brother, Arthur [born 1869], died in infancy.
Bert grew up on the farm. His father Monroe worked the farm and, in the winter, worked as a logger and a teamster. The 1880 US Census lists Monroe Bullock as a laborer reflecting the variety of jobs that he held to support the family. One of the jobs he especially enjoyed was as an outdoor guide at Smith’s Lake at the head of the Beaver River during the hunting and fishing seasons. Around Thanksgiving 1880 while on a solo hunting trip Monroe fell into the upper Beaver River and nearly froze to death. He lost a number of toes to frost bite. Although unable to walk long distances, Monroe continued to guide at Smith’s Lake for the next ten years but restricted himself to fishing and hunting from a boat. [see my post on Monroe “Pop” Bullock of 06/13/2021]
On June 21, 1892 Bert married a neighbor, Julia E. Bullock. Julia appears to have been a distant cousin of his. On Oct. 14, 1893 their son Clyde was born.
Relocation to Beaver River
Farming on the Tug Hill has always been a hard and uncertain life. With a new family to support Bert needed to find a way to make a living. He had experience as a farm hand and apparently as a logger. He also had learned the basic skills needed to work as an outdoor guide from his father. In late 1893 his father Monroe was hired to manage the newly-formed Beaver River Club operating out of the Dunbar Hotel at Stillwater on the Beaver River. [see my post of 05/03/2021] Monroe and his wife Sarah were given a cottage lot at the club and relocated there. During the next few years Bert worked as a guide for members of the Beaver River Club during the spring and fall and apparently lived with Julia and worked on his grandparent’s farm in Worth the rest of the year.
Bert must have also learned something about how to run a hotel while working for the Beaver River Club. In 1899, when the lumberman Firman Ouderkirk built a fine hotel adjacent to the railroad depot at Beaver River Station, he hired Bert to manage it. Twenty-eight-year-old Bert moved into the manager’s quarters in the Norridgewock Hotel with Julia and six-year-old Clyde. According to the 1900 US Census most of the Bullock family was then living at Beaver River: Bert’s family at the Norridgewock along with five boarders, Monroe and Sarah in their cabin at the Beaver River Club along with their son Henry, his wife Elva, and Carl McCormick, a boarder. Henry and Carl both worked as guides for the club.
In July 1901 Bert’s mother Sarah died of what was then known as Bright’s disease, a general term for kidney failure. Sarah’s death forced the Bullock family to make some major decisions. Monroe, now known as “Pop,” knew he would not be able to manage the Beaver River Club without Sarah. He did not want to return to farming since he preferred to live in the woods. Henry, on the other hand, decided he wanted to live in more settled territory, so he and Elva moved to his paternal grandparents’ farm in Wayne County, NY.
When his mother Sarah first became ill, probably during 1900, Bert and his father built a small boarding house at Grassy Point directly on the Beaver River, one mile from the railroad station. This was a favored location where visitors would go to board a steamer to reach the Beaver River Club or take a guide’s boat across the river to reach the camps on the Red Horse Chain. Pop bought a team of horses and a passenger buckboard and started to provide transportation from the station to the river. He hired Delia Weaver, a woman from Worth, to be his cook and housekeeper.
Bert and Julia Bullock also decided to stay in Beaver River. In fact, they decided to stake their future on making a success of the Norridgewock Hotel. As it happened, Firman Ouderkirk’s logging contract with Dr. Webb had just ended. So, in 1902, Ouderkirk decided to cease operations at Beaver River and sold the Norridgewock Hotel and all of the private land surrounding it to Bert Bullock. Bert apparently borrowed the money to buy this property from Ouderkirk. Census reports from 1905 and 1910 indicate the property was mortgaged, not owned outright.
Bert proved to be an excellent backwoods hotel manager. Hotel receipts were good enough that he was able to hire Louis Beach as his assistant manager in 1907 [see my post of 12/16/2021], the same year he bought the fancy cash register. In 1909 Burt further improved his holdings by building a large concrete block stable on the other side of the Grassy Point Road from the hotel. Although Bert owned several cows and at least one team of draft horses, the new two-story building also appears to have been designed with future expansion in mind. At the same time, Bert added running water to the hotel and started to host large dance parties with a live orchestra in which Bert played the coronet. At the time of the 1910 US Census, Bert, Julia, and Clyde (now 16) shared the Norridgewock with 11 boarders, five of whom worked for Bert.
Parting with Beaver River
With the Norridgewock fully staffed and profitable, in April 1911 the Bert Bullock family moved to the city of Utica. For the next three years Bert travelled back and forth from Utica frequently. It’s quite possible that beginning in 1910 business at the Norridgewock began to decline as the result of the so-called Panic of 1910 – 11 that saw a substantial reduction of commercial and industrial activity. A second recession in 1913 – 14 served to further decrease the disposable income of wealthy families. It was during these years that the nearby Beaver River Club defaulted on its mortgage and started to shed members.
Bert was not done with Beaver River quite yet. In May of 1912 he built a saloon in part of the concrete block stable. The new bar opened June 11, 1912. Bert hired a bartender and moved furniture and a piano to the saloon from the hotel. The new enterprise was a going concern from the start.
Bert, Julia and Clyde now spent most of their time in Utica with Bert and/or Clyde coming to Beaver River from time to time to keep an eye on business. The hotel and the bar were still attracting a good crowd of vacationers. For example, on August 4, 1913 the hotel hosted sixty guests, and an orchestra played for the first big dance of the season. Bert drove up from Utica in his new Model T Ford. In October of 1913 Bert further improved the hotel with the addition of fire escapes.
By January 1914, Bert had decided to use his experience in the hotel business to try running a hotel in Utica. He leased an existing hotel, possibly named the Grand Hotel. Then on January 27, 1914, Bert and Julia travelled to Beaver River to meet with a prospective buyer for the Norridgewock. The sale must have looked promising because the hotel staff was let go and for a time during that winter Clyde looked after the place by himself.
Unfortunately, the deal to sell the hotel fell through, so with the tourist season about to start Bert hired a Mr. & Mrs. Chapman of Turin, NY to run the Norridgewock. Late in the day on May 18, 1914 the Norridgewock burned to the ground. There were no injuries and judging by the photo below some of the furniture was saved, as was the ornate cash register.
By June 1914 Bert received a fire insurance check for $8,400 [approximately $241,500 in 2022 dollars]. During that summer Burt, Julia and Clyde traveled frequently to Beaver River, staying for a few days at a time in a cabin they owned. Bert brought up a team of horses to work on the Grassy Point Road. On July 6, 1914 Bert and Julia drove their Model T back to Utica. A mattress caught fire upstairs at the saloon later in July but damage was minor. When September came, Bert sold his cow and leased the saloon to Peter Propp, a successful beer distributor from Tupper Lake. The family packed up and moved back to Utica at the end of September. They sold their cabin on the hill to Burt Darrow who ran a sportsman’s hotel nearby. [see my post on Darrow’s of 06/29/2021]
During the winter of 2015 Burt came to Beaver River several times to log off some of his property for pulp wood. Then on March 29, 1915 Bert Bullock sold most of the section of the Beaver River Block on the westside of the railroad tracks where the hotel had been to Albert S. Hosley of Tupper Lake. He sold most of the property on the east side of the tracks to the Beaver River Camp Site Co. Both new owners filed subdivision maps with hopes of selling lots for camps and cottages.
Peter Propp bought some of the former hotel property on the west side of the tracks including the former stable / saloon. With the help of Louis Beach, he expanded that building into a hotel by attaching a new two-story building to the rear, with a dining room and parlor on the first floor and five bedrooms on the second. Lou Beach managed the new hotel, also called the Norridgewock, for the next five years.
Later life
Apparently, in late 1914 Bert ended his work managing a hotel in Utica and the family moved to the village of Fulton Chain [now named Thendara] a mile outside of Old Forge, NY. Bert and Clyde built an automobile repair shop along the road connecting the two villages. The 1915 NYS Census lists Bert as a garage keeper, and Clyde as an auto repairman. The railroad depot was nearby, so they also invested in an automobile to establish a taxi service that primarily transported railroad passengers to area hotels and to the steamer dock in Old Forge. Their new business apparently did well. The 1920 US Census lists Bert as a garage manager, and Clyde as a chauffeur.
In 1923, Pop Bullock, now 77 years old, sold his hotel at Beaver River and he and Delia moved in with Bert and Julia. Pop Bullock died on Feb. 19, 1924. For a short while thereafter Delia worked as a housekeeper for Bert and Julia. The 1925 NYS Census reflects this fact and shows that the Bullock taxi service had become the family’s primary business. Delia Weaver soon moved to Adams, NY to take a housekeeper’s job closer to her family. Julia Bullock’s step-sister Lottie Greenley moved to Thendara and became the Bullock’s housekeeper. The 1930 US Census shows the Bullocks owned their home worth $9000 with Bert listed as a taxi driver and Clyde as an auto repair man. Clyde at the age of 36 was still single and living with his parents.
Bert Bullock died at age 61 on 12/26/1932 at Thendara. Julia Bullock died at the age of 84 on 02/13/1956. Bert and Julia are both buried in the Fairview Cemetery in Rodman, Jefferson County, NY.
Clyde Bullock died at age 66 on 01/01/1960 in Thendara. His obituary in the Utica Daily Press noted he had been in the garage business for many years. He also operated the first school bus service in Town of Webb from 1932 until 1940. Clyde was survived by his wife, Rose Frances Blakeslee, and one step-daughter.
Sources: This article draws heavily on the daily journals of Etta Kempton who lived at Beaver River from about 1905 until 1935. Etta was the wife of the railroad section foreman, William J. Kempton and the mother of Gladys Kempton Thompson. Her journals were preserved by the Thompson family, current owners of the Norridgewock, and carefully transcribed by Mary Kunzler-Larmann who allowed me to read them. I have also reviewed the relevant census reports, newspaper articles as well as Pat Thompson’s book, Beaver River: Oasis in the Wilderness (2000) and William B. Donnelly’s pamphlet A Short History of Beaver River (1979).
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