The Covered Bridge 1942

The Beaverkill Covered Bridge

Ackerly (the Post Office) Adams

    Enlargement

The Ackerly Barn

    Enlargement

The house on the left: Woelfle (Lawrence) Obecny
The main house: Kinch Woelfle B. Loizeaux

Kinch Woelfle Loizeaux

Whitehill Loizeaux

Whitehill Loizeaux

Husk (Simpson) Mormon Adams Root

    Enlargement

Kinch Vogel

The Beaverkill Schoolhouse

    Enlargement

The Beaverkill Church
Note:  The evergreens were planted by Jessica Foote,
who thought the church looked too bare.

    Enlargement

Rogers Schneider Adams/Wiser

    Enlargement

Sharpless/Gordon Shae Enger

Sharpless/Gordon Shae

    Enlargement

Trout Valley Farm: Fred Banks' house

The Beaverkill Valley Golf Course Clublhouse

Trout Valley Farm and the Annex

The Beaverkill Church and the First Tee

The Church and the First Tee

Sawmill

Smith Foote 

Foote

   Tim Foote's Comments as to the identity of the two photos purportedly taken at Clear Lake

Decrepit as I am, I don't go back far enough to have been in Beaverkill in 1922. Arrived age 6 months in late fall of 1926. For the rest of the 1920s as a little kid of three or under ( though fairly precocious) I must be regarded as an unreliable eyewitness. In those early days, and all through the early thirties, I lived in Beaverkill almost year round, got local news from Mr. Hornbeck, trailed around after Miss Tobey's stalwart nephew Franklin Tobey as he painted and caulked boats etc. for her for many summers. Though it occurred before my time I knew about the building of the infamous dugway, etc. My mother, moreover, was listed as one of the sponsors of Clear Lake cottages in 1928 when the whole thing was transferred by Old Mrs. Tobey to her niece Miss Marian Tobey. (See Clear Lake brochure and TFoote 1930s piece in Stories of the Beaverkill). And I have never heard of, or knew of, any heavy building, rebuilding, or tearing down of buildings at Clear Lake until the time of Jim Marble about 1950.

Nor in all the years I hunted birds and rabbits (with rabbit dog) around Clear Lake, including all the land between the road (originally the only road to Roscoe) that leads immediately past the Main House and on past Jane Lott's, did I see any sign of an old foundation, of a large house, or houses.

When I look at the "new" Clear Lake pictures, as the Main house I see a big box like edifice without gables. And with a string of tall doors or windows along one side. The main house that I knew as a boy, and that may be seen partially in the Stories of the Beaverkill Clear Lake brochure and in the picture of it from across the lake in the tgf "Beaverkill in the 1930s" piece, did not have such a row of doors (or windows) but did have two big gables. Not only are the two buildings different, but the second one looks as if it could not have been structurally adapted from the first. 

Additionally, the two buildings seem to be located on different sites. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Main House was (as its site still is), set about with huge pine trees. Richard Giggengack estimates their age as at least a hundred, and one assumes they were planted by Old Mrs. Tobey shortly after she arrived in the 1880s. But when you look to the right of the building in both the "new" Clear Lake pictures, there are no pine trees, small or large.

Compare the two buildings a bit further. In the 1920s (I feel sure) and in the 1930s (I know) the Main house, like Mrs Tobey's cottage, sat on a flat space beside the road leading along the flat crest of the hill that separates the lake from the river. In the "new" pictures you can see that the hill rises directly behind the house at about a 25 degree (?) angle. So I think anyone examining the material will grant that the building in the "new" clear Lake pix and the building in the other Clear Lake pictures printed in Stories of the Beaverkill, are not merely different, but not in the same place.

It seems most unlikely that the Main house could have been totally reconstructed AND moved up the hill to the flat in the 1920s without my having heard about it. There is certainly no old foundation between the known site and the lake.

Also, to the left of the Main House in the picture that also shows a boat house on the water, stands another LARGISH white house, located I'd guess a little below the road toward the lake and about opposite where the Shaw house now stands. I think there is no record of such a house. The Haney cottage, which the Shaw house replaced I think, was low, nearly flat roofed and grey.

Since Fred Banks's dad, whom I knew and my parents knew well, was not a man to be inaccurate, I have to wonder when he is supposed to have captioned those pictures and given them a date. At best they seem to be to date from considerably before the 1920s, and they suggest a major tearing down and rebuilding of at least two buildings and of relocating one.

Which in turn suggests a much more extensive establishment on Clear Lake much earlier than any of the narratives suggests,either put up by Old Mrs. Tobey or by somebody before her. I doubt that, but it would be fine to locate such records and expand the Clear Lake story a lot further into the past.

Personally, I think it's not Clear Lake at all.

Please let us know if you can shed any light on the identity of these two pictures!   back

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