Annals of the Beaver River

  The ruined Twitchell Creek bridge in 1915 On June 1, 1841 Nelson Beach and his surveying team set out from the frontier village of Number Four following an old hunter’s trail leading east. They were just beginning a monumental survey for a new road that would cross the central Adirondacks. The plan was to find a route linking existing trails and roads to facilitate settlement in the interior of the great north woods. The road was to connect Carthage on the Black River in the west with Crown Point on Lake Champlain in the east. This road would come to be known as the Carthage to Lake Champlain Road. One part of the surveying crew was already working its way east from Carthage along the Beaver River valley toward Number Four. Beach’s part of the surveying crew travelled to Number Four on an existing road from Lowville to survey the next section of the proposed road. The hunter’s trail they followed on the first day of their survey was a short distance back from the west side of the...