Remains of the Road

Beaver River Station is the only place with year-round residents in New York that has no direct road connection to the outside world. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, there are only a handful of inhabited places that can make the same claim in all of the rest of the lower forty-eight states. However, from its establishment in 1892 until the end of 1914, Beaver River Station did have a road to the rest of the world: the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road. That road saw considerable use until December 1914 when the crucial Twitchell Creek Bridge was destroyed by an ice jam. https://beaverriverhistory.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-twitchell-creek-bridge.html

The Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road was an important early road that once ran all the way across the central Adirondacks. Also known as the Catamount Road, or simply the State Road, it originally connected Carthage on the Black River in the west with Crown Point on Lake Champlain in the east. The course of the west end of this old road as far as Long Lake is shown on the above 1876 map included with Wallace’s Descriptive Guide to the Adirondacks.

 

This wilderness road was not much more than a wide trail through the forest intended for horse and wagon, but more comfortably traversed on foot. The course of the road was surveyed in the summers of 1841 and 1842. Clearing the road started in 1844. Most of the road was passable by 1850. Lack of regular use, non-existent maintenance and the regenerative power of the great northern forest made some sections of the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road impassable by the end of the 1880s. The Report of the Forest Commission for 1891 characterized the remaining sections of the road as “a mere string of rocks and mud holes.”

 

What is remarkable, however, is how much of this old road has survived. The eleven-mile-long gravel road from the hamlet of Number Four to the Stillwater Reservoir still follows the course of the original road with only one small deviation. Parts of other current roads also follow the route of the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road. Surviving sections include: the gated private road through Brandreth Park to Raquette Lake; Deerland Road running from the north end of Raquette Lake to Long Lake village; Route 28N from Long Lake to Newcomb; and the Blue Ridge Road from Newcomb to North Hudson. For more on the history of this route see Chapter 5 in my book Beaver River Countryand an article previously posted on this blog: https://beaverriverhistory.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-carthage-to-lake-champlain-road.html

 

At Stillwater Reservoir, the road from Number Four now ends at the parking area of the state boat landing. Before the reservoir was expanded in 1925, the road continued on east. After passing by the Beaver River Inn, the road crossed a short bridge to reach two-hundred-acre Dunbar Island, home of the Beaver River Club. It ran along some hills, now known as State, Chicken, and Williams Islands to reach the grand clubhouse that sat atop a hill now known as Hotel Island. Just beyond the clubhouse there was a long, two-part bridge across Twitchell Creek. The 1925 expansion of the reservoir destroyed this whole section of the road.

 

On the other side of Twitchell Creek, the old road still exists. It generally parallels what was the south shore of the Beaver River, now the Stillwater Reservoir. This segment is about six miles long, so it is now referred to as the Six-mile Road. These days it dead ends at its intersection with the Grassy Point Road. This section can clearly be seen on this contemporary map.

The original Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road continued straight ahead to cross a marshy meadow around the South Branch of the Beaver River. The 1925 expansion of the Stillwater Reservoir submerged the old road to just beyond the South Branch. There used to be a road bridge over the South Branch with a guide’s cabin nearby and a renowned fishing hole called the Sand Spring. On the other side of the South Branch the old road continued toward Little Rapids and Brandreth Lake. An important side road ran south up the valley of the South Branch of the Beaver River to the Lonis lumber camp and on to access the guides’ camps at Twitchell Lake. I will discuss that side road in more detail in my next post.

 

It's important to remember that the Carthage-to Lake-Champlain Road existed for about 45 years before there was any settlement at Beaver River Station. During the first 45 years of its existence, the road was used mostly by the occasional hunting or fishing party, by the hotel keepers at Stillwater, Little Rapids and Smith’s Lake [now Lake Lila] and by the outdoor guides with camps at the Sand Spring and Twitchell Lake. Here’s a photo of some hunters and their guide driving along the old road.

The situation changed significantly with the coming of the railroad. In 1891 Dr. William Seward Webb bought a huge tract of forest land surrounding the upper Beaver River. He used a sliver of this land for the right-of-way of the railroad he was planning. Dr. Webb established a station stop at Beaver River and set aside 6/10^th of a square mile of land surrounding that station for future development. A small community soon grew up around the station. Details about the earliest days of Beaver River Station can be found in my post of 03/15/24: https://beaverriverhistory.blogspot.com/2024/03/ouderkirks-sawmill.html

 

As tourists started to arrive at Beaver River Station on the train, the section of the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road between the station and Stillwater took on new life. In 1894 a group of wealthy upstate families bought Dunbar Island at Stillwater to create the Beaver River Club. The club soon had a large clubhouse and a number of member cottages. The Beaver River Club rebuilt the Twitchell Creek Bridge so they could use the road to Beaver River Station. Although club members and guests traveled to Stillwater by boat on the river in the club’s steamer, their copious luggage was transported by wagon on the road. The segment of the road from Stillwater to Beaver River Station was also used daily to shuttle employees, supplies, and mail between the railroad depot and the Beaver River Club.

 

The tourist trade continued to increase over the next twenty-five years. In 1899 the Norridgewock Hotel opened adjacent to the Beaver River railroad depot with room for 100 guests. A score of guide’s camps also opened throughout the area that were busy during the fishing and hunting seasons. Although tourists and freight typically arrived by train, the folks who worked at the Beaver River Club and at the Norridgewock Hotel often came by road as did the ever-growing complement of outdoor guides and loggers. As a result of the increased use, the old road was gradually improved. Between 1894 and the end of 1914 the section of the old Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road connecting Beaver River Station, Stillwater, Number Four and Lowville was pretty busy. 

With the influx of outdoor enthusiasts, the Beaver River was also increasingly used for transportation. Because the railroad depot was about a mile from the river, a road was needed connecting the station with nearest navigable point. Fortunately, there was an old logging road that ran from near the depot to a spot called Grassy Point on the river. That road was soon improved and put into service for use by horse and wagon. 

  

By 1901 there was a modest hotel at the river end of the Grassy Point Road near the boat landing used by outdoor guides and by the little steamer that took members and guests downriver to the Beaver River Club at Stillwater. Monroe “Pop” Bullock, who owned the Grassy Point Hotel, operated a profitable taxi service that met all the trains.

In 1896, Dr. W. Seward Webb sold about 75,000 acres of his forest land around the upper Beaver River to the state. This sale included much of the land through which the Grassy Point Road passed and almost all of the land on either side of the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road between the Grassy Point Road and the Twitchell Creek Bridge. When the state took possession of this property it became part of the “forever wild” State Forest Preserve. Under ordinary circumstances that would have meant that the roads out of Beaver River Station could no longer be maintained and would be closed to traffic.

 

Dr. Webb anticipated such a closure and he knew how devastating it would be to the little community growing up around the train station. To meet this challenge, Webb had a series of conditions on the sale written into the deeds that are still in effect known as “the Webb Covenant.” The Webb Covenant provides in significant part that “all trails and ways of communication of every kind or nature, either by land or by water across or over the land above described and conveyed shall forever remain open and free for the people of the state of New York.” The language in the deeds also explicitly mentions the section of the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road to Stillwater from Beaver River Station as well as the road to Grassy Point. Access by road to and from Beaver River Station, as it existed prior to Webb’s sale to the state, was thus preserved forever, or so it seemed at the time.

 

Eighteen years later, at the end of 1914, direct road access via the Carthage-to Lake Champlain Road ended when the Twitchell Creek Bridge collapsed. The bridge was not repaired or replaced because the state had already decided to significantly increase the size of the Stillwater Reservoir. The larger reservoir made building a new road bridge impossible.

 

Somewhat surprisingly, the orphaned six-mile section of the old Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road did not revert to forest, but continued to get regular use. Within a few years after the bridge collapse, enterprising individuals with homes or camps at Beaver River established a barge service to carry automobiles, wagons and other large items across the reservoir from the Stillwater landing to the west end of the Six-Mile Road. At first the barges were sturdy wooden rafts. In more recent years a custom steel barge capable of transporting six cars or trucks at a time has served the same purpose.

The Six-Mile Road is the most authentic remaining piece of the historic Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road. All the other surviving segments of the old road have been transformed quite a bit by modern improvements. Even with annual maintenance provided by the Town of Webb, the Six-Mile Road retains much of its original character. Having ridden over this segment myself on a few occasions, I can report that it’s a drive worth taking by any adventurous history buff. The first few miles of the road pass through the dense northern forest of the Adirondack Forest Preserve. The road is narrow and hilly, with imbedded rocks interspersed irregularly with potholes. After four miles or so, the road breaks out of the trees into a marshy section along the south end of Loon Lake. At times, the short Loon Lake section can be shallowly submerged. The road continues for about a mile and a half more before it dead ends at its intersection with the Grassy Point Road. To reach Beaver River Station it’s necessary to turn right and drive about another mile to the hamlet. 

 

Anyone interested in Adirondack history might also want stop near the intersection to take a short detour on foot to see the Colvin Rock. The rock has a carved inscription made in 1878 by Verplank Colvin and his surveying team that was tracing the western border of the Totten – Crossfield line.

 

This might seem like the end of the story about road access to Beaver River Station, but one more unlikely chapter remains to be told. The story of the 1923 proposed “Beaver River Highway” will be the subject of my next post.

 

Illustrations:

 

Map of the New York Wilderness by W. W. Ely, M.D. from the 1876 edition of Edwin R. Wallace, Descriptive Guide to the Adirondacks.

 

Map of the Stillwater Reservoir, Lewis Country Department of Regional Trails, June 2011.

 

Photos of the Grassy Point Road and Pop Bullock’s wagon and team, courtesy of Frank Cary.

 

Photo titled “Going in Old Style” from the Eighth and Ninth Reports of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York (1902-1903).

 

Photo of 1960s wooden Norridgewock barge, courtesy of Dennis Buckley