stt AX ANGLER'S REMINISCENCES. 



sportsmen there and no end of game at that time. E. W. Jadis, E. H. Fulierton, 

 Andrew Sammatt, Bill McGillie, a Scotch half-breed, whose father had served the 

 Hudson Bay Company, the Benson boys and the Carneys were in the lead, especially 

 for jumping deer, moose, elk, bear and other big game, which was common enough 

 then. Bands of elk came within a few miles of town; once a moose ran directly 

 through the village, past the post office ; a black bear came up out of the bottom 

 to play wilh the school children at recess ; a couple of pet bears were always kept 

 on hand for the Swedes to practice boxing on; \volves would tree settlers in zero 

 days when food was scarce; one winter I had an empty store half full of pelts of 

 both timber wolves and coyotes ; prairie chickens nested on the edge of the town. 

 Out on the Roseau there was a famous nesting place among the reeds for wild 

 geese, and mallards and teal afforded good sport. Dean Benson took the Phillips 

 party out (they were from Penn Yam, N. Y.), and at the end of three weeks they 

 brought in seven moose, two elks, five deer and seven wolves. This was in 

 October. The Indians used to bring in considerable game and fish (pike) from 

 that section, and once a son of Chief Koopenas killed a whisky trader by way of 

 variety. Another chief named Mikenok had been in the earlier tribal wars and 

 lost most of his scalp. It is not often that a man lives after losing his "top knot," 

 because as a rule he has first been clubbed, shot, knifed or tomahawked. 



Judge John Swainson, of Upsala, of Sweden, and I laid out to raise a stock 

 company for a sportsmen's hotel and game preserve and got a few thousand dollars 

 subscribed, chiefly from St. Louis people (Col. Hunt and friends), and John 

 Davidson, of Monroe, Mich., and A. W. Hubbard, of Philadelphia, came up and 

 shot over the ground, and so did Jim Hill, several times. Andrew Carnegie made 

 me a call in his private car. But the prospective millionaire declined to help, and 

 the scheme fell through for want of a brace. The hotel had a precarious record 

 for twelve years, and was destroyed by fire one Christmas eve. I had no insurance. 



But sakes alive ! How I do ramble, sure enough ! I have run fifty years ahead 

 of my chronology ! When I left the trail I was working over a list of sportsmen 

 I had met in my adolescence and early manhood; and as I hark back memory opens 

 out a whole galaxy of illuminati whom I met casually in the sanctum of Win. T. 

 Porter, the "Tall Son of York," in the 50's, while I was on the Journal of 

 Commerce editorial staff. I was then contributing some wild west sketches for the 

 "Spirit of the Times" over the signature of "Lariat," and that is why I dropped in. 



Charles Banks was a member of the N. Y. Sportsman's Club in 18-58, two years 

 before me, and is still an active worker in the reorganization of the New York 

 Association for Protection of Game and Fish. We used to meet at the Sinclair 

 House, at 754 Broadway, and the president occupied a chair made of horns, which 

 was presented by "Grizzly Adams," a noted mountain man from the Great Divide. 

 P. T. Barnum and he fell together at the old Museum, opposite St. Paul's church, 

 and startling exhibitions were given, to which Daniel and the lions were as 

 nothing. Then there were Isaac McLellan, who used to do poems for the Journal 

 of Commerce when Wm. C. Prime wrote fishing sketches over the signature of 

 "W.," and his cousin, Sam'l C. Clarke; Daniel Webster, their intimate angling 

 companion; George A. Boardman, Prof. Henry and Spencer F. Baird, of the 

 Smithsonian ; Robt. Ridgeway, X. Y. Maynard, Edward A. Samuels and his 

 partner, H. H. Kimball ; Geo. D. Lawrence, who donated a marvelous bird collection 

 to the National Museum, the latter eminent naturalists and game seekers whom 

 I knew personally, and often intimately, now gone the way of all the earth. 



Lieut. Geo. F. Ruxton, of the English army, exploited all the notable plainsmen 



