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Edward Rorke was a guide in the St. Regis area, near Paul Smiths in Franklin County, according to Charles Brumley's book, Guides of the Adirondacks. He was listed in the New York State Forest Commission Report (1893) and in S. R. Stoddard, The Adirondacks Illustrated (1895).
An Ed Rork was the subject of an Adirondack Almanac story, May 4, 2023, "Will Martin’s 1902 Tragedy," by Dick Tucker.
In the comments on the story, he adds:
Ed Rork, somehow ended up at Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal for treatment of the severe frostbite to his feet. Details are unknown, but it would seem that the doctors there saved his feet which were being considered for amputation, something which would surely have ended his guiding career and made a lot of other things in his life quite more difficult. Kudos go to the doctors in Montreal who would seem to have saved his feet. Now, to answer your question: I am not sure that Ed Rork was all that much of a trapper. Details are lacking, but I think he was merely accompanying his friend Will Martin, who was a trapper and fellow guide on that fateful day which in the beginning seemed like a nice day to spend in the woods. Anyway, after recovering from his frostbitten feet, Ed Rork was able to continue his work as an Adirondack guide taking ‘sports’ from the city into the woods hunting and fishing during the seasons. In 1926, he was chosen by Phelps Smith at the Paul Smith’s Hotel to be the chief fishing guide for President Coolidge during the summer of 1926 when the president was at White Pine Camp.
