Carl Rowley's Snowmobile

1923 Snowmobile, collection of the Volo Museum, volocars.com

These days, winter business at the Norridgewock Lodge in Beaver River Station is fueled by snowmobile tourism. When the Stillwater Reservoir freezes solid or snow buries the railroad tracks, snowmobilers arrive daily by the dozens.

In her memoir, Beaver River: Oasis in the Wilderness (2000), Pat Thompson, mother of the current owners of the Norridgewock, vividly recalls that the first snowmobile roared into Beaver River during the winter of 1959. It didn’t take the Thompson family very long to embrace snowmobiling. Business at the hotel picked up so much that the Thompsons were able to give up the animal trapping that previously supported them during the winter [see Thompson, pp. 125 – 129]. 

 

While modern recreational snowmobiling at Beaver River started in 1959, the first snowmobile actually arrived there much earlier. That snowmobile was most decidedly not a recreational vehicle. It was a modified Ford Model T owned by the Stillwater dam keeper, Carl Rowley. I was not able to find a picture of his actual snowmobile, but it probably looked pretty much like the one above in the collection of the Volo Auto Museum, in Volo, IL.

 

This type of snowmobile was fairly rare, but not at all unknown in snow country starting about 1915. At first, they were custom-made. The vehicle had the body and engine of a Model T Ford but had tank treads over the rear drive wheels and skis that replaced the front wheels. At about $750 [$23,590 adjusted for inflation] they were quite expensive, especially considering that a new stock Model T cost about $300 [$9,435] at the time. They were sold mostly to doctors and mail carriers. This style vehicle was originally marketed under the names “Snowflyer” or “Snowbird.” They claimed to be able to go 18 MPH through 30" of snow. This 1921 Snowbird, now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, was owned by rural mail carrier Harold Crabtree of Central Square, NY.

Snowbird, collection of Smithsonian Institution 

 

In 1918, Virgil D. White, an inventor and Ford dealer in West Ossipee, New Hampshire received a patent for a conversion kit that changed a stock Ford Model T into a "Snowmobile". He also copyrighted the term "Snowmobile." The conversion kit was still expensive at about $395 [$8,950]. By 1922, his conversion kit was being marketed by Ford dealerships across snow country. Here’s a copy of the advertisement for one of these snowmobile attachment kits.

 

It’s easy to understand the attraction of one of these vehicles to anyone who needed to regularly travel over country roads in winter. Although the Model T was increasingly popular and affordable, it was of no use in winter over dirt roads deeply covered by snow. Roads were not plowed; rather they were periodically smoothed down by horse-drawn snow rollers. The only practical way to get around was to keep a horse or two and a sleigh. Here is a postcard from the later nineteen-teens showing a snow roller on the winter road that crossed the earlier Stillwater reservoir on the ice.

Unused Postcard, Rowley family album

 

So, who was Carl Rowley and why did he need a Model T Snowmobile? Carl Perry Rowley was born Sept. 2, 1893 in the Town of Ontario, Wayne County, NY on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, fifteen miles east of the City of Rochester. He was the second son of George D. and Nellie J. Rowley. Not much is known about his early life, although photographs in the Rowley family album show him doing farm work. After he graduated from high school he lived and worked for a while in the village of Shortsville, NY, a station on the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

 

About 1922 Carl moved to Beaver River Station when he was hired by the Black River Regulating District to be the dam keeper on the future Stillwater Dam, then in the early stages of construction. Between 1922 and 1924 he helped supervise the logging of the 4000 acres of forest that would be flooded by the expanded reservoir. He met his future wife, Nellie Riley, when they were both living in Beaver River Station where she was the school teacher. 

 

Nellie M. Riley was born Jan. 10, 1901 in Malone, NY. She graduated from Malone High School and the Potsdam Normal School. In 1921 she was hired to teach at the one-room school house at Beaver River Station. Nellie and Carl were married on April 27, 1923 in Malone. She was 21 at the time. Carl was 29. In 1925, when Carl took up his duties as the dam keeper, the couple moved to a cabin in the new hamlet of Stillwater at the west end of the reservoir. Their son, Howard William Rowley, was born April 17, 1924. The Carl and Nellie Rowley lived in Stillwater year-round for the next 33 years.

 

Naturally, it would have been necessary for the Rowleys to frequently travel to Lowville, NY, the nearest town thirty miles away, for medical care and to do their shopping. The road could be covered in deep snow for much of the winter. Judging from this postcard found in the Rowley family album, the road was sometimes nothing more than a couple of ruts through deep snow.

Unused postcard, Rowley family album
 

It’s unclear when Carl Rowley acquired his Model T with its snowmobile attachment. He certainly had it during the winter of 1927 – 1928. Nellie was pregnant with twins that winter. The couple planned to go to the hospital in Lowville when it came time for her to deliver. She went into labor early, right in the midst of a severe snowstorm. The couple decided Nellie needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

 

Carl contacted Roger B. Williams, Jr. for help. Carl knew Williams had recently driven his new 1927 Buick to Stillwater before the storm, and that the luxury touring car was now in William’s garage near the Rowley’s cabin. Roger Williams and his wife Louise were spending a few days at their island camp, now the Rap-Shaw Club, presumably enjoying winter activities. The Williams agreed to help rush Nellie Rowley to the hospital.

 

Carl fired up his Snowmobile. The plan was for Carl to break a trail through the deep snow. Williams would follow close behind with Nellie lying in the back seat attended by Louise. Nellie’s labor steadily advanced. Her first child was born on the Stillwater Road at the Sunday Creek Bridge. The second child was born as they reached the settlement of Number Four. Both were boys. The two cars sped on to the hospital in Lowville, but neither child survived.

Carl Rowley used his Snowmobile for many winters after this sad event. Model T Fords were known to be durable and could be serviced and repaired by anyone handy with tools. Carl’s Snowmobile probably made many more trips to Lowville and back not mentioned in the historical record. The last notice I could find is in the obituary of Hattie Thompson, great-grandmother of the current generation. She died at the Norridgewock on Jan. 30, 1935. Carl Rowley used his Snowmobile to bring her body to town.

 

The era of the Model T Snowmobile ended when snowplowing finally reached rural roads. Beginning in the 1920s, cities began to clear the major streets using truck mounted plows. As trucks became heavier and more powerful, snow removal spread to side streets, then highways. Rural roads were the last to be plowed. I have not found a record of when the Stillwater Road to Number Four was first plowed, but based on information in L. David Minsk’s comprehensive article, “A Short History of Man’s Attempts to Move Through Snow,” https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/sr/sr115/115-001.pdf, I suspect it was in the 1940s at the earliest. 

 

At some point between 1935 and the 1940s Carl Rowley’s Snowmobile was taken out of service. Whether is still exists, and if so, where it is now, is anybody’s guess. The chances are that it’s still around somewhere since Model T Ford Snowmobiles have become treasured collector’s items. A national Model T Snowmobile Club was founded in 2000 in New Hampshire. Every year since, in the dead of winter, they hold a rally to show off their vintage Snowmobiles. Photos and video can be found on their website at 

http://modeltfordsnowmobile.com.

Vintage Snowmobiles at Model T Snowmobile Club event

 

Sources: my interview of retired Stillwater Forest Ranger Terry Perkins on 8/31/24, the Rowley archive of Virginia Thompson, and a short history of the Ford Model T Snowmobile found at http://www.modeltfordsnowmobile.com/lcmainbriefhistory.htm