142 AMATEUR RODMAKING 



London. This date has been accurately de- 

 termined for me by his son, Mr. Frank 

 Stevens.' 



" At the Chicago World's Fair, in 1893, I 

 had on exhibition in my department a number 

 of Phillipe's rods of four strips and six strips 

 of split bamboo, in addition to the one with 

 the ash butt, just mentioned. 



" Phillipe's son, Solon C. Phillipe, informed 

 me that his father made four-strip rods as 

 early as 1845, an d that his books show that 

 the first rod made for sale was in 1848 and 

 was a four-strip rod in three pieces, all, includ- 

 ing the butt, of split bamboo. He was also a 

 gunsmith and a skilled workmen in wood and 

 metal, and at one time received a silver medal 

 at the Franklin Institute Fair, Philadelphia, 

 for a violin, and also made the first ' Kinney ' 

 fishhook from a pattern furnished by Phineus 

 Kinney of Easton, Pa. 



" Archery bows and rod tops, and probably 

 entire rods, were made of hickory or other 

 hard woods in England long before Phillipe 

 made his first split bamboo rod; but it is not 

 at all likely that he knew or even heard of 

 such rods, living as he did in a small interior 

 town in Pennsylvania. He at first made rods 

 only for his own use or for friends, several 



