Annals of the Beaver River

The Dunbar Fish and Game Club was informally founded in 1905. Ever since then a small group of member sportsmen have come to the club at Stillwater on the Beaver River for hunting and fishing expeditions. The club was founded by James C. “Jim” Dunbar who lived and worked at Stillwater from 1879, when he was just fourteen, until his death in 1926 at the age of sixty. During his forty-seven years as a full-time Stillwater resident Jim Dunbar worked as a guide for sportsmen, a hotelkeeper, the first Stillwater dam keeper, a subsistence farmer and as the founder and first president of the Dunbar Club. Jim Dunbar was born on July 27, 1865 on a farm a few miles north of Dannatberg, Town of Watson, Lewis County, NY. His parents were Joseph C. Dunbar and Mary E. Warmwood [sometimes spelled Wormwood]. About 1877 the Dunbars purchased the Wardwell place at Stillwater on the Beaver River plus 100 adjourning acres. They demolished or repurposed Wardwell’s cabin and built a two-story frame hotel wi