My Grampa's Woods, the Adirondacks

by

Larry Beahan

My Grampa's Woods, the Adirondacks, (ISBN 0-9703104-0-4), is a 173 page, soft cover, six by nine-inch book illustrated with 50 black and white photos. The cover is a wraparound picture of Grampa Tom Beahan and one of his logging crews, taken in 1911. North Country Books is making it available at $12.95 through Adirondack booksellers. It may also be purchased from the author at 716 839 3112 or larry_beahan@adelphia.net.

Five generations of the Beahan family have been in the Adirondacks, one way or another. In 1902, three Beahan brothers, Tom, John and Barty, Tom's wife, Minnie, and John's wife, Liva, began the epic with a logging job near Star Lake on the Little River. Children from the camp worked some in the woods and returned to hunt and fish.

Larry Beahan, a grandson, grew up a city kid in Buffalo. On trips to visit his Gramma and Grampa in Carthage at the edge of the Adirondacks, he tasted the flavor of the woods but didn't catch the significance of it until his forties. Kerosene lamps, double-bitted axes, two-man-crosscut saws, grindstone, wooden vice for carving axe handles, the wood cookstove and water from a pump were just the way things were at Gramma's. Then he began exploring the Adirondacks, climbing mountains, skiing, canoeing, camping and digging into family lore. He, his sons and grandchildren have explored the site of the family lumber camp, where Larry's dad was born, nearby Five Ponds Wilderness, Cranberry Lake Wild Forest, Stillwater and a good bit more of the Adirondacks.

His stories will take you to there and span the century, 1900 to 2000. In Barty's Girl, visit the Camp on the Little River the day they took the cover picture. In Grampa's Watch and Chain listen to Tom and Barty banter about the days when they were bachelors. Witness Grampa Beahan break up a fight and make a little profit out of it. Watch Larry's Dad in trouble on his first independent job in the woods. Read a logging contract the Beahan brothers signed on to. Read a little boy's first hand account of the camp by Larry's Uncle Raymond, and a hunter's charming thank you after his stay with the Beahans. Visit the site of the Camp on the little river with Larry and his kids by canoe and overland. Listen to stories of tragedy, death, the demolition of a lean-to and construction of a new one as a memorial. Ski the Old Kunjamuk road. Laugh at fuel bottle blues. Struggle through Larry's failure at Winter Mountain School, then return and conquer it with him. Thrill at mountain climbs and bushwhacks. Try the 25mile one from Stillwater to Wanakena. Come see Minnie Beahan's misery in that lonely camp and share her joy when her mom and dad arrive by sleigh for a Christmas on the Little River about 1905.

Larry Beahan is a physician living near Buffalo. He has been an officer in The Niagara Frontier Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club, a governor of that club and active in its conservation endeavors. He is Chairman of the Niagara Group of the Sierra Club, a member of the Public Health Committee of the Erie County Medical Society and Secretary of the Allegany State Park Historical Society. He has been a National Ski Patrol Mountaineering Instructor. He races a J24 sailboat. He and his wife Lyn travel considerably. In the Adirondacks, she has a preference for condominiums. He is a free lance writer, published in Adirondac, the Allegany Historian, and the Buffalo News.