The transformation of Little River Preserve in Star Lake

Snowshoeing on the 257-acre property that’s near Five Ponds Wilderness, part of growing list of Northeast Wilderness Trust properties

By William Hill

I recently saw a social media posting for the “Little River Wilderness Preserve” in Star Lake. The 257-acre preserve is a new addition to the Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT) properties.

Several years ago, I hiked some of the lower section of the Post & Henderson (P&H) railroad/trail to Little Otter Pond. The upper section was private property. The new preserve encompasses the route of the long-gone Post & Henderson Road and railroad grade. You can faintly make out the old roadway from state Route 3 (if you know where to look). The first thing you notice is a gate with a posted sign.

History of the property

P&H was a logging/sawmill company out of Oswego.. Their first endeavor into the North Country was with a sawmill in nearby Jayville (now Pitcairn) in the early 1890s. They later expanded with another sawmill in Benson Mines (Star Lake) in the mid-1890s. Sources vary from 1895 to 1898 as the start-up date.

From the mill at Benson Mines, a logging railroad was laid out to the southwest along Little River and Alice Brook. The railroad ran about 8.5 miles, terminating just short of the Herkimer County line, by about 1.5 miles. The path of the railroad is easily seen from satellite map imagery. The mill ran for about a decade (give or take) and ended with the company selling most of its 6,500-acre holdings to NYS in April 1908. Today the property is part of the 107,000+ acre Five Ponds Wilderness. The remaining parcels on the north end (but south of state Route 3) of the property were privately purchased. Everything north of state Route 3 would become part of Benson Mines, and later J&L. The Little River Wilderness Preserve is a piece of those private inholdings.

The Post & Henderson Road paralleled the railroad grade to the west, by approximately 350 feet. The road ran 0.8 miles to an intersection with the railroad. The road still shows on maps, but it’s not much of a road and is hard to find in some sections. USGS topo maps for 1916 show the railroad as gone, but the road still shows, with no less than 15 buildings along the roadway. I have seen this mentioned as the “Post and Henderson Settlement.” Mr. and Mrs. Earl LaVoy ran a boarding house and general store in the settlement for a time. By 1966, the USGS topo maps showed no buildings, and the road was labeled as the “Post & Henderson Trail.”

Winter outings on the Little River Preserve

 I have made two excursions to the preserve so far. The first was a dark and dreary January day with temps around 20 degrees. I parked along the road (Route 3), about 250 feet east of the Star Lake/Benson Mines Road. There is a short right of way to the gate and the preserve boundary.

The old roadway took some work to follow. It was pretty well grown over, and there was a lot of snow hanging on the trees. It was an exercise in bushwhacking and getting snow down the back of your neck. I got close to the point where the road and the railway should intersect. While poking my way through the tag alders and underbrush, I broke through some ice along the edge of a beaver flow. Luckily, the water was only a bit over my knees.

Instances like this emphasize the need for proper clothing for winter activities. I always wear a combination of wool and modern wicking synthetics. Other than the initial dunking, I wasn’t particularly cold- just soggy. Had I been wearing plain cotton clothing, it would have been a very serious issue. But as I was wet, and my boots extra heavy with pond water, I made my way back to the car. I had covered about 2 miles and the majority of the P&H Road.

My second trip to the preserve was bright and sunny. We had received more snow since my prior excursion- there was about 2 feet in most places. And also the trees had more fresh snow waiting to find its way down the back of my neck! (There seems to be a pattern here.)

My objective for that trip was to explore a side trail west of the roadway- about 0.6 miles from the trailhead. This trail through mature evergreens was much easier to follow and had less brush to contend with. A few minutes later, I reached an old cabin (but not old enough to be part of the P&H community). This will be removed at some point to coincide with NEWT’s rewilding efforts.

From there I looked for a place to access a hardwood ridge behind the cabin. Likely in the summer, you could scramble up it most anyplace. With 2 feet of snow and breaking the trail, I looked for an easier route. I trekked northeast along the base of the ridge for about 350 yards. This offered an easier route. I found several open spots that I expected were sections of bare rock when not covered with snow. From these, you could see the Little River floodplains through the trees.

My map showed a height of land further southwest from my location, I was currently at 1,508 feet. By that point, I was feeling the workout in my legs, and I had enough snow down the back of my neck, so I headed back to the trailhead. This was another 2-mile day.

Overall impressions

I was struck by the diversity of the 257-acre preserve. Little River and its floodplain make up a fairly large chunk of the property. And to anyone who’s looked southwest across Little River, you would expect this to be all wetland. In fact, a good bit of it is (70 acres according to NEWT). Beaver activity is all around. I saw plenty of otter tracks as well. No doubt it will bustle with ducks, geese, and herons in the spring.

The evergreen stands consisting of white pine, hemlock, spruce, and firs are a completely different environ than the wetlands. Then you have the hardwood ridge, covered in typical Adirondack fashion with soft maple, black cherry, and ash. For such a small tract, there is plenty of variety.

More about NEWT

NEWT has a “minimal to non-existent” approach to wildness management. At a NEWT program a few years back, I first heard the term “rewilding.” The idea behind this is to let the forest take care of itself, without the interference of man. This is a somewhat stricter version of New York state’s Forever Wild. There is some wisdom in this. While I wouldn’t want to see all the forests trail-less and roadless, the idea that some places will be is fine with me.

Locally, NEWT currently has three Adirondack preserves in its roster that I’ve visited: the Little River Wilderness Preserve), Bear Pond Forest Preserve (1,056 acres, town of Webb), and Grasse River Wilderness Preserve (1,433 acres, Russell).

The Grasse River Wilderness Preserve acquisition was especially appreciated by me. For many years that parcel was owned (in part) by my grandfather. Three generations of my family fished, hunted, hiked, and camped there for many years. It was eventually sold to a timber company and became private property that the family (and public)  no longer had access to. To learn decades later that NEWT had purchased the property and allowed public access was incredible. I wasn’t long in making a trek there. Even 30-odd years later, I was able to find my way around quite well.

NEWT also has three preserves to the east of me: Eagle Mountain Wilderness Preserve (2,434 acres, Chesterfield), Split Rock Wildway (405 acres, Essex), and Moriah Wilderness Preserve (1,775 acres, Moriah). These are on my list to visit. (Here’s an Explorer article about Split Rock Wildway and one about the Moriah Wilderness Preserve.)

In addition, NEWT has two easements near the St. Lawrence River. These are the Grand Lake Reserve (1072 acres, Theresa NY) and the Thousand Islands Region Easements (2054 acres, various Locations near Chippewa Bay, Hammond, and Theresa). I have trekked many of these, and they are every bit as nice as the Adirondack parcels- but in a much different way. Unlike NEWT’s exclusive holdings, these have marked trails and improvements, but still maintain the wildness first idea.

More to Explore

The past few years have given the public some great new places to enjoy the outdoors in the way of nature preserves. Along with the NEWT holdings, we have the St. Lawrence Land Trust, Thousand Islands Land Trust (TILT), and the Indian River Lakes Conservancy working to conserve the wilderness in the North Country. Whether you are an outdoor explorer looking for a new challenge or someone who rests easier knowing that there are still wild places being protected, the conservancies/preserves make that possible.

Another exciting thing on this front is New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation’s recent purchase of 965 acres near Cranberry Lake. It’s an exciting time to be an outdoor adventurer in the North Country right now.

Special thanks to NEWT’s Janelle Jones for her help with the preserve’s details.