By: Roy Crego
October marked the 100th anniversary of a tragic event at Little Moose Lake. On October 20, 1913, a hunting accident took the life of Frank M. Holmes, a popular Adirondack guide.
The accident took place on the Adirondack League Club preserve at the private camp of Eugene H. DeBronkart, a 24-year-old businessman from Chicago.
The camp was located in the East Bay of Little Moose on Lot 51.
DeBronkart and the veteran guide Holmes, age 40, were making preparations on the front porch for a deer hunt at 8 a.m.
DeBronkart loaded his rifle and thought the weapon was half-cocked, but it slipped to full cock and discharged. Holmes was struck in the side.
A distraught DeBronkart immediately summoned help, and Dr. Stuart W. Nelson rushed to the camp from Old Forge by automobile and boat.
Despite the doctor’s efforts, the wound proved fatal, and Frank Holmes died about four hours after the shooting.
The Rev. John J. Fitzgerald, who also responded, performed the last rites. The coroner, Robert S. Lindsay, found that the shooting was purely accidental.
The death was a shock to Holmes’ family and friends. Frank was a native New Yorker, born in December 1872, and a son of Patrick and Ellen Holmes of Boonville.
In addition to his parents, he left two brothers and two sisters.
Frank was a member of the Brown’s Tract Guides’ Association and had also been employed by the Adirondack League Club at the Combs Brook Hatchery, where he helped stock streams and lakes with fish.
Following his death, the body was moved by boat and road to Old Forge and then by rail to Boonville.
The funeral was at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Boonville on Thursday, October 23.
The bearers were Lewis L. Grant, Superintendent of the Adirondack League Club; fellow guides Merrill W. White, Frank Yule, and Fay Brown; Fred Bosworth; and Lester Smithling.
Holmes’s client, Eugene H. DeBronkart, was born in Denver, CO, on December 27, 1888 and became a member of the Adirondack League Club in 1911. He had graduated from Williams College in 1912.
DeBronkart went on to become an investment banker in New York City for Van Alstyne, Noel & Co. He died on October 15, 1968 in New York City at the age of 79.
Unfortunately, hunting accidents still occur, but thankfully at a lower rate.
In 2010, New York State reported four fatal hunting accidents compared to 19 in just the fall of 1913.