Camp owners at Twitchell Lake in the Adirondacks have made a tradition of hiking the seven-mile trail north to the isolated hamlet of Beaver River for an annual Octoberfest celebration.
On our 2007 excursion, I stopped at a large stone with a bronze plaque reading: “In Tribute to Verplanck Colvin (1847-1920), Land Surveyor, Founder and Champion of the New York State Forest Preserve and the Adirondack Park, remembered by his friends and admirers on the Centennial of the Adirondack Park, May 20, 1992.” [Read more…] about Verplanck Colvin’s Survey of Twitchell Lake
Many of the lakes in John Brown’s Tract had guides who took their sporting parties to their own fishing or hunting camps north and south of the Beaver River. This is how lakes like Hitchcock, Beach, and Salmon got their names. 
On July 8, 1874, The Lowville Journal and Republican ran an article about a party of six men who trekked to Twitchell Lake in Big Moose, NY, for a nine-day stay. They came by horse and buggy up the Number Four Road through Watson Township from some town to the west. 
“Melancholy Occurrence” was a fairly common expression for a tragic event in the middle of the 19th century. A search of historic newspapers revealed the phrase was used some 250 times from 1820 to 1870. Several of these were murder cases, such as the son of the Spanish Consul being stabbed through the heart with a cane sword by an angry neighbor. But most were unexpected events such as a fatal strike by lightening, a young fire victim, or a drowning. 
Ever wonder how one of the hundreds of lakes and ponds in the Adirondack Mountains got its name? Around Brown’s Tract, there are lakes named from nature such as Loon, Beaver, Trout, Gull, Bear, and Moose. There are also a dozen or more lakes named for noted guides or people who lived in or frequented the area during the Sporting Era (1860 to 1890), including Mosier, Francis, Hitchcock, Beach, Tuttle, Thayer, Smith, Salmon, and Wood. 
The Twitchell Lake History Committee is working on documenting the story of Twitchell Lake in Big Moose, NY, and how it was named, with an account of the individual camps, hotels, and highlights down through the years. Twitchell Lake is 5 to 6 miles south of the old Lake Champlain Road, now under the Stillwater Reservoir in Northern Herkimer County.