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The shanty I call Red Beard's Cabin does not stand any longer, it used to be positioned in a well-concealed stand of spruce at the
base of a bump of an unnamed mountain a half-mile from Duck Hole in the High Peaks. Richard Smith always referred to the mass as Beartrap Mountain because a friend of a friend, during on of his benders, left
an illegal steel-jawed trap up there somewhere. Positive the bear trap was forsaken with it's big jaws sprung open and armed to go off, everyone agreed it would be safer to stay off the mountain.
In 1937 Phil and Vince, older teenage chums of Red's, erected the cabin from spruce logs and building materials salvaged from the
scrap pile left behind from the demolition of the Civilian Conservation Corps side camp that was located in a clearing before the confluence of Moose Creek and the Cold River. Today, Cold River lean-tos 1 and
2 are a short distance beyond.
Origins
Phil and Vince, while serving in that "Three C's" camp, met Noah John Rondeau, a reasonable facsimile of a hermit.
His camp at Big Dam a few miles downriver was a hangout for a number of the CCC enrollees on weekends. This was a boon to Noah's larder because he became the beneficiary of much surplus food from the mess kitchen. Phil and Vince were outdoorsmen, loved life in the woods, and got along well with Noah. Once the Corps' main project of rebuilding the dam at Duck Hole and upgrading the lumber camp tote road along Ward Brook for motorized vehicles was completed, the government works camp was torn down.
Richard Smith, nicknamed "red" or "Red Beard" for the bright color of his whiskers and hair, took over the cabin from Phil in 1940
when Phil joined the military. Red's inherited cabin was a green-timber affair, the upright constructed from trees cut off state land.
It was illegal. Red told me the cabin's development was hidden from the law, but eventually the game protector's path brought him into it. The local law overlooked it's location for the short term. The enforcer's note placed on the table left no doubt about his feelings: "Your camp is illegal but I see it being a benefit. It places someone in a remote area where they could be watchful for fires (i.e. lighting, careless hunters and fisherman). It might also save a lost hunter's life. It is so well hidden, it hurts nothing so leave it for now."
For almost eight years Red never met a game protector.
It wasn't until the fall of 1947 that one came up to him and politely mentioned that if he knew the owner of the unlawful camp near Duck Hole, he might want to pass on the message that any valuables stored there should be removed since it was scheduled to be burned during the spring when snow still covered the ground.
Red used his outpost for fishing, hunting and trapping. "For almost eight years I lived a life similar to that of Noah John,
whose backwoods wisdom and interest in me had first stirred my senses." Red told me one day in 1992 as we sat inside Camp Singing Pines, his converted chicken coop hunting shanty in Wilmington, N.Y.
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