Ray Burmaster, right, undated
The other two are Harlow Wheeler and Ernest Welch.
Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2022.144.173.12. Gift of Jack DruryBorn: 1886
Died: September 12, 1961
Married: Izora Stocker
Children: Marion Browne
Ray L. Burmaster was game protector for the Department of Conservation from 1933 through 1955, when he retired to Florida. He worked at 38 Main Street from 1933 until DEC moved to their new offices in Ray Brook in 1953. He lived on Maryland Avenue.
Lake Placid News, April 27, 1934
Doe Has Long Battle With Dogs, Ends in Lake
A savage wild life fight of the Adirondack woods was carried into view of scores of persons in Saranac Lake Sunday by two ferocious dogs and a doe. The torn and bloody sides of the deer gave evidence of its fight for life as it came out of the woods beyond Payeville, fleeing before a chow dog and a hound. With the dogs at its heels, the doe plunged into Lake Flower, leaving the dogs baying on the bank.
Swimming laboriously to the Riverside drive shore, a quarter of a mile across the lake, the doe was frightened back into the water by a gathering crowd. Struggling in the icy water between the crowds on either bank for half an hour, it was close to exhaustion when Inspector Ray L. Burmaster and Game Protector Ernest Welch of the conservation department were summoned.
Setting out from Lake Flower avenue shore in a row boat, Protector Welch herded the frightened deer to Riverside drive shore, where Inspector Burmaster dispersed the crowd. Mounting the bank, the doe feebly loped into the woods beyond the drive, followed by the conservation officers.
A short distance within the woods the deer fell exhausted. Guarded by the officers at a discreet distance, it lay there nearly two hours before regaining strength and disappearing in the woods.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, November 13, 1953
Our Town
by Eddie Vogt
...Some time (I hope) Ray [Burmaster] is going to take time off and write a book about his experiences in the woods. No one could do it better than he could. He has a retentive memory and a good sense of humor, and a host of experiences to fall back on. Of course it is much better to hear Ray tell the stories himself but I don't think that too much would be lost in transferring them to cold print. Besides he owes it to the coming generation of hunters...
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, September 13, 1961
R. BURMASTER GAME WARDEN, DIES AT AGE 75
Ray L. Burmaster, district game protector in this area from 1920 to 1956, died yesterday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D. C. He and Mrs. Burmaster have been living in Ormond Beach, Fla.
Mr. Burmaster was born in Irving. N. Y. on January 19, 1886 and made a game protector in Chautauqua County in 1915 and district game protector in this area in 1920.
During this period the Burmasters made their home on Maryland Avenue.
In May of 1955 the couple was seriously injured in an automobile accident and in September of that year, with Mrs. Burmaster still confined to the house, he retired. A retirement party was held for them at the Saranac Lake Elks Club of which he was a charter member. He was also a member of the Saranac Lake Methodist Church.
Besides his wife, Izora M., Mr. Burmaster is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Marion Vanoveer and Mrs. Alice Stephens of Alexandria, Va. and Mrs. Annette Lesperance of Middletown. He also leaves two brothers, Everett of Irving and Evan of Sheridan and five grandchildren.
The Wheatley Funeral Home in Washington, DC. is in charge of funeral arrangements, which are still incomplete. Burial will be in Alexandria.
