Corrections to the history of the Norridgewock II

Hunters at the Norridgewock II, date unknown. Standing in the middle of the back row are hotel owners Walter and Gladys Thompson and Jennie and Clinton Thompson. Courtesy Lewis County Historical Society

One of the things that makes doing historical research especially interesting to me is the ever-present possibility of discovering errors in the existing record. Correcting such errors by publishing the results of my new research is quite satisfying. This is true even if I was the one who made the previous error.

Readers of this blog know that the Norridgewock Hotel has played a major role in the saga of the Beaver River Country. I have devoted no less than five articles on this blog to the history of that hotel. It was built in 1899, burned down in 1914, revived in a renovated stable in 1915, closed in 1964, reopened in a new location in 1965, burned down again in 1974, rebuilt the same year and remains open today. The facts set forth in my previous articles were all correct, with one significant exception. My account of the earliest years of the second Norridgewock between 1915 and 1917 were based on reasonable speculation, but were unsupported by
primary sources.

 

At the time I wrote those articles, I had not read the entries in Etta Kempton’s daily journal. Etta Kempton lived in Beaver River Station from about 1905 until 1937. She was the wife of the railroad section foreman and served as the settlement’s postmaster from 1917 until 1937. Her daily journal is comprised of 1,903 entries covering from early December 1909 until early December 1916, seven years in all. Her journal includes hundreds of details about Beaver River Station not available anywhere else.

 

Last spring, I was given a complete transcript of Etta’s journal made by Mary Kunzler-Larmann, a fellow amateur historian. Mary painstakingly created an accurate transcript from the original handwritten entries. The journal was discovered and is preserved by the Thompson family. Etta Kempton was the mother of Gladys Thompson, the great aunt of the Thompsons who now own the Norridgewock Lodge in Beaver River Station. The Thompson family has graciously given me permission to write about the journal and what it reveals about life in the Beaver River Country. A series of stories drawn from the journal will be posted on this blog in the near future.

 

One of the things Etta’s journal reveals is how the second Norridgewock came to be built after fire totally destroyed the original hotel in May, 1914. This post is intended to correct the misinformation included in my posts about the Norridgewock on 6/8/21, Louis Beach on 12/16/21 and the Bullock family on 6/2/22. My related posts on Peter Propp on 7/13/22 and the Thompson Brothers on 10/20/22 are both essentially correct.

 

So, what really happened between May 1914 when a fire totally destroyed the original Norridgewock Hotel and early 1917 when Lou Beach began to manage the new hotel owned by Peter Propp?

 

The first thing to consider is that in May of 1912, two years before the fire, Bert B. Bullock, the owner of the Norridgewock, converted part of the original hotel stable into a saloon. It appears that the part of the concrete block stable nearest the Grassy Point Road was turned into a barroom with a piano for entertainment. There were apparently also a few bedrooms for rent. It was a pretty modest place, frequented by locals, while most of the vacationing hotel guests used the dining room, bar and ballroom in the Norridgewock proper. Etta’s journal records the building of the saloon and notes that her husband Will attended the grand opening of the saloon on June 11, 1912 where Bert Bullock treated patrons to beer and cigars.

 

Bullock thereafter hired a bartender specifically to run the saloon. Bert was an absentee owner as he, Julia and their son Clyde Bullock had already moved to Utica in April of 1911 [see my post of 6/2/22]. Bert and Clyde came to Beaver River frequently to check on things at the hotel and saloon. Bert’s father, Monroe “Pop” Bullock, who remained in Beaver River, served as a de facto manager in their absence. For the next two years Bullock’s enterprises ran fairly smoothly. In fact, on 8/4/13 Etta noted, “Hotel full, every bed taken, about 60 to supper, first dance of the season.”  

 

On 1/2/14 Etta recorded that Bert Bullock had leased the Grand Hotel in Utica. With this new business occupying his time, Bullock began to look for a buyer for his property in Beaver River. He must have quickly lined up a prospective buyer because on 1/27/14 Etta recorded that Bert and Julie came up from Utica to try to sell the Norridgewock Hotel. The deal fell through, but it was clear that even before the hotel burned down on May 18, 1914, Bert was looking for a way to exit Beaver River altogether.

 

After the fire Bert continued to operate the saloon and still came to Beaver River frequently, possibly in order to find a buyer for his real estate. On the night of July 17, 1914, while Bert was staying at the saloon for a few days, a mattress caught fire, probably from someone smoking in bed, and as Etta put it, “nearly burned the saloon up big time in the old town.” 

 

Bert had had enough. By the end of the summer, he had leased the saloon to Peter Propp, a prosperous Tupper Lake businessman who was his beer distributor [see my post of 7/13/22]. Here’s where the story diverges from what I’d written before. It was Peter Propp, the far-sighted entrepreneur, who devised the plan to convert the saloon / stable into a real hotel, not Louis Beach as I previously believed. By the end of 1914 Propp had convinced his friend, Tupper Lake banker Albert Hosley, to buy Bullock’s property on the northwest side of the railroad, including the saloon. Propp had the property surveyed into cottage lots for sale. On March 25, 1915, as soon as the weather broke, Propp came to Beaver River to look over the property. He hired a Tupper Lake hotel clerk, Tom Mallette, and his wife Gertrude Stave Mallette to manage the saloon.

 

On April 6, Propp returned with a Tupper Lake carpenter and started work to convert the saloon / stable into a proper hotel by adding rooms upstairs and attaching a new two-story hotel building to the back. Propp hired local guide Burt Darrow to continue construction throughout the summer. Other employees were added on April 30 and May 14. Plumbers came from Tupper Lake on June 24. By August 5, 1915 construction was complete. Gertrude Mallette reported to Etta that she had finally cooked her first meal in the kitchen of the new hotel. The Mallette’s got a liquor license on Sept. 17, 1915 and a new piano for the hotel on Oct. 27, 1915.

 

Throughout 1916 the new hotel apparently did pretty well under the Mallette’s management. Etta and Will occasionally spent the evening there and the Mallette’s frequently visited the Kemptons. Then, on Sept 23, the Mallettes took the train to Montreal and Tom was hospitalized. Etta did not record or did not know the reason, but it must have been serious as Tom remained in the hospital for ten days until October 2^nd. Gertrude ran the hotel in his absence.

 

When Tom got back, things seemed to return to normal. Deer hunting season brought a stream of hunters to the hotel. Tom Mallette went hunting and got a deer. On November 21, while Gertrude was at the train station seeing someone off, Tom Mallette attempted suicide by drinking Paris Green, a powerful poison. He was discovered in time. The dose proved not to be fatal. He was back on his feet by Nov. 27, but in early 1917 he and Gertrude moved to Utica where Tom secured a job as a fireman on the New York Central Railroad. The couple continued to live in Utica until at least 1932. Tom eventually became a train engineer. By 1940 they had relocated to Tupper Lake, Gertrude’s home town. They lived there for the rest of their lives. They had no children. Tom died in 1961, Gertrude in 1964.  

 

Because Etta’s journal does not extend beyond December 8, 1916 it does not relate how and when Louis Beach came to manage the Norridgewock II. In fact, Etta’s journal never says much about Lou Beach. Even though Lou’s house was located quite near the Kempton’s section house, he was not a close friend. He did not visit their home and they did not visit his. Over the years Etta’s journal mentions him several times, but gives few particulars. Sometimes it appears that Etta deliberately avoided mentioning Lou’s name, such as when Gladys set up a darkroom and was learning how to develop film, but Etta doesn’t say who was teaching her. Lou Beach had worked as a professional photographer as a young man and his brother, Henry, a successful professional photographer, visited Beaver River frequently. So, given Gladys’ strong interest in photography, why didn’t Etta mention any of this?

 

From other scattered sources we learn that Lou Beach probably took over management of the hotel sometime early in 1917 after the departure of the Mallettes. A photo in the collection of the ADKX shows Henry Beach visiting his brother Lou at the Norridgewock II in the fall of 1917 during hunting season. His 1918 liquor license lists Louis Beach as a hotel proprietor as does his 1918 draft card. The 1920 US Census concurs. A newspaper article in the Lowville Journal and Republican on Aug. 23, 1923 also lists him as managing a hotel in Beaver River. 

 

Donnelly’s Brief History of Beaver River, the only secondary source to comment on the issue, is less specific. It correctly says the second Norridgewock was built by Peter Propp in 1915. It goes on to completely ignore the Mallettes and simply says that Lou Beach leased the hotel from Propp until it was bought by the Thompson brothers [Donnelly, p. 52].

 

The 1925 NYS census shows that Louis Beach was married and living in Old Forge, working as carpenter. It stands to reason that shortly after his marriage to Myra Smith in 1923, Lou left Beaver River, probably at the same time that Propp sold the hotel to the Thompsons. One hundred years later the Thompsons still own it.

Hunters at the Norridgewock II in 1917. Standing at far left is Henry M. Beach, at far right is his son, Harry Beach. Courtesy the Adirondack Experience Museum.