PORTER TYLER. 



MY EARLY TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT. 



AT first Old Port Tyler was a far-off and almost 

 mythical person. He appeared vaguely in the 

 stories of older boys who had really seen him, al- 

 ways in connection with fish and game. Garry Van 

 O'Linda had seen him cross the ferry to Albany with a 

 lot of rabbits and partridges, and Charley Melius saw him 

 with a great load of wild pigeons ; but to me he was a mys- 

 terious person who lived by fishing, shooting and trap- 

 ping. A man rowed a light boat around Dow's Point 

 and John Atwood said: "That's Old Port; he's been down 

 the dead crick after snipe," and here was the real live man 

 at last, but his mysterious and poetical life seemed as far 

 off as ever. A most ideal life to me, and he was at once 

 enthroned among my collection of idols, which then in- 

 cluded Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Baron Trenck, 

 Natty Bumpo and Charles XII. of Sweden. These men 

 I had not seen, but Port Tyler had passed Dow's Point 

 before my eyes, and his boat may have contained untold 

 numbers of snipe and countless fish. 



Gradually it was learned that he was a bachelor and 

 lived alone near the red mill "Mechanic street" they call 

 it now; then it was "up by Fred Aiken's woods," and they 

 said that he had huts and caves all over the country and 

 lived in them when he pleased. These stories, and the 

 fact that a lunatic named Asher Cone had a hut back of 

 Harrowgate Spring and chased the boys with a club when 

 he saw them, added mystery and perhaps a bit of awe to 

 the personality of Old Port. In my own case this was 

 true, and at the age of twelve I never even hoped for per- 

 sonal acquaintance with a man whom I placed higher 



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