Beach Lake:
What’s in a name?

By ADELE WOLFE

I’d like to echo Mr. McNulty’s sentiment about preserving history wherever we can as he spearheaded the laudable effort to retain Plank Road as… “Plank Road.” And, I’d like to supplement the related articles regarding the historic significance of retaining names of original intent with this: BEECH LAKE.

Because it has bugged me for the 12 years I’ve been here… because it’s stupid. It makes no sense. It’s virtually a contradiction of terms. I mean, Beach… Lake?! (I’m O.K. with the lake part.)

Refusing to believe that this is its original name, rather than the whimsy of someone of influence wistfully fantasizing of Florida during January and February, or, one of equal influence who was somewhat geographically challenged, I first consulted “Webster’s Original Edition” to confirm my suspicion of definitional correctness. Beach (n): The pebbly or sandy shore of the sea, or of a lake, which is washed by the tides and waves. Syn: seashore, coast, seacoast.

Having lived on Lake Michigan, I can readily assert to it having a “real” beachy shoreline; but then again, it has real tides, too, due to it being one of the largest bodies of fresh water on the planet. But to apply this rather forthright definition here? To preach Lake Pennsylvania? Tides? Just because the water gets a little wavy in a stiff wind?

It’s patently ludicrous, and if for no other reason (which isn’t true either), we sound like a bunch of illiterates, or very bad spellers. Or, equally challenged. (“I didn’t know PA bordered the ocean up there—doesn’t NY get in the way? Or maybe, NJ?” “Welcome Lake isn’t on Cape Cod?”)

Oh gee, then it hit me: surely “they” meant “beech,” as in a tree. As in the genus fagus, one which grows to a large size, has hard wood, smooth bark, dark green leaves. Such as those all around my place and all around this area. (Even though they’re being hit by a fungal blight, not unlike the one that took out our elms and chestnuts; notice the blistering all over the trunks as they rot from the inside out. Three noble hardwoods gone inside a century. But this is a different story.)

O.K., next: to find evidence of original intent, which I did courtesy of friend and neighbor, Jeanne Petta, longtime active member of Wayne County’s Historical Society, who presented me with the “Centennial and Illustrated Wayne County,” Editions 1900-1902, Benj. F. Haines, Publisher, Honesdale, PA 1902, reprinted by The Wayne Independent for the Bicentennial by the Wayne County Historical Society. Attached quotations as follows, and note the treatment of upper and lower case in “lake.”

The village:

“Beech Lake, located in Berlin Township, is 1,330 feet above sea level, 330 feet higher than Honesdale and 616 feet higher than Narrowsburg. It is nine miles from the former and six miles from the latter place. It is a pretty country village, but the chief attraction is the lake, which is described [below]. There are several commodious cottages, in which summer boarders are generously entertained and as the demand becomes greater there will be more erected. Berlin Township, in which Beech Lake is located, is noted for its excellent roads. [A legacy of then Roadmaster Supervisors.] It is an easy grade from either Honesdale or Narrowsburg to the lake, and views along the road from Indian Orchard are unsurpassed for rural scenery. There are no great elevations in the township. The surface is undulating and the lake is on about the highest point, thus giving a grand view of the surrounding landscape with the hills of the Delaware rising up majestically to the eastward.”

No contest: We’re talking about the same place.

The lake:

“Beech lake derives its name from the ridges of beech woods that formerly surrounded this beautiful body of water. It is situated near what was formerly the dividing line between the “Beech” and “Open” Woods, the latter consisting of oak, chestnut and yellow pine. One body of water was called Beech, the other Open Woods lake, the distance between them being about one mile.

“Beech lake is at present about one mile long but at no very remote period was of huge proportions. It was little wider than today, in its original form, but it was at least triple or quadruple its present length. The other lake spoken of as being about one mile above Beech lake was once undoubtedly apart of the latter, but they are now separated by a heavy marsh, into the depths of which a pole can be thrust 24 feet without touching solid bottom. This marsh was caused by the growth of water plants, moss and other vegetation, which held sand, dust and other matter.

“Beech lake is 1,350 feet above the sea level, and is surrounded by low rounded hills of a highly picturesque character. Some of these hills nave been stripped of trees and given to agricultural purposes, being now under a high state of cultivation. Others are covered thickly with timber, the rich verdure of which show the exceedingly fertile character of the soil.

“In 1894, Gilbert White, a prominent ax manufacturer, of Honesdale, PA, built a very handsome and commodious summer villa for his family on the shores of Beech lake, and named it Tuscarora cottage in honor of Tuscarora John, an Indian, who lived near the lake when the white men first appeared there and who was friendly to them. The cottage is situated on the east shore in full view of the lake… The shore is sandy and the bathing fine… The lake is stocked with different kinds of bass, pickerel, perch and other fish.

“…Beech Lake, a pretty rural hamlet surrounded by a fine farming country, is eight miles from Honesdale, reached by one of the finest drives in the county, and six miles from Narrowsburg, a station on the mail line of the Erie railway….”

Similarly as to not knowing how/when Plank Road got changed, I don’t think we’ll discover who did the dirty deed to Beech Lake at some point over the last 99 years. But it’s downright shameful that mail order “customer representatives” get it right… and I wound up correcting them. [“No, it’s b-e-a-c-h.” “Oh…Are you by Cape May?”] Equally shameful was my ordering return-address labels, dutifully sending in “Beach.” You guessed it: they came back as…Beech Lake, PA, 18405. As it’s suppose to be.