October 13, 2018 - Henry Beach Postcard Map
Post date: Oct 14, 2018 2:0:23 AM
Special thanks to Frank Carey for providing a high resolution scan of this wonderful Henry Beach postcard map of the Beaver River, Stillwater Reservoir area. I have added the map to the Paper Maps page. The postcard also contains several pictures of structures in the area. In his original post, Frank described this image as...
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my "Rosetta Stone" postcard that predates the Stillwater Reservoir and which identifies the locations of many of these places that were flooded. Also identified are camps in wilderness locations not historically described with sufficient precision to enable hikers (or cartographers!) to find them. The following places are identified:
- Elliot's camps
- Grassy Point
- Chris Wagner's Camps
- Charlie Smith Camp
- Elmer Wilder's Camp
- Rap-Shaw Club
- Durham Camp at Loon Lake
- Stanton Camps
- Little Rapids Park
- Brandreth Station (name clipped)
- Lonis Camp
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Frank went on to explain more details:
The post card was never "postally" used yet has a personal handwritten message. Unfortunately, the message has nothing of historical relevance. It may have been sent in an envelope, or maybe the writer never found the needed mailing address? The publisher was Henry Beach, the well known Adirondack photographer and seller of postcards. The message side has the standard Beach header: BEACH REAL PHOTO POSTCARD GENUINE HAND FINISHED. but ... Beach's biographer, Bob Bogdan, tells us that Beach's studio would make postcards from any picture brought in. And these cards were always identified as BEACH REAL PHOTO POSTCARD. So, this card may have been produced from a walk-in's negative or from a negative of a photo by Henry Beach himself. I'd guess the latter.
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Comparing the map to my own historical depth maps, I believe this map was created sometime between 1893 and 1914. Only after the the dam was raised 5 feet in 1893 would the reservoir have looked like it does in the drawing. Prior to the dam raising but after the first dam construction, the original winding river bed would have still shown east of picnic island. Prior to any completed dam on the Beaver River in the area of Stillwater (pre-1888), the entire map would have been river bed only. Perhaps further cross-referencing against any known histories of camps shown on the map could further refine the possible date range? Nearly all of the man-made structures shown on this map match the 1903 NYS topographic map, where their locations are probably a bit more precise. However, this map is special because it ties the owners' names to the structures, which the state topo does not.
I was excited to see the Stanton camps identified on this map, the namesake of the "Stanton Meadows" that are shown on the earliest maps of the area. Using this map and the 1903 topo together, and comparing them against the 2001 draw-down imagery, I was able to determine that the Stanton Camps were quite likely on what is today known as Betty's Island. This is the island east of campsite #6, with the large fallen tree on its beach that is a common attraction to visitors. At the time the camps existed, the water was low enough that Betty's Island was a peninsula, extending out into the smaller reservoir of the time period. The 1903 topo also shows an island directly off-shore from the camps, which very closely matches a rock shoal found in the 2001 imagery. Also the shoreline shape in the 1903 topo map very closely matches the Betty's Island peninsula. See the attached comparison image.
Thanks again Frank, for sharing a great map!
8-AUG-2020 Edit: Refined the upper date estimate from 1924 to 1914, when the Norridgewock Hotel burned.
7-DEC-2023 Edit: Refined the estimated age to between 1901 (Rapshaw @ Witchhopple opened) and 1906 (Stanton evicted in Dec '05).
