236 Reminiscences of 



commissioner of fisheries. Near our shelter was the site 

 of Dr. G. W. Bethune's camp, for many years occupied 

 by this gifted and eloquent divine of New York, who 

 was a most devoted fisherman and lover of Nature, 

 and who had died in Italy two years previously. 



One of our party was Walter M. Brackett, of 

 Boston, the distinguished and celebrated painter of 

 fish, especially trout and salmon, whose pictures 

 ornament the houses of many foreign purchasers, 

 and whose completeness in presenting on canvas the 

 subject of his art has never been excelled. From 

 his youth up he has been devoted to the piscatorial 

 art, much undoubtedly at the expense of his time, 

 which could be given to the gaining of golden results; 

 but with him of secondary interest, though dependent 

 upon his profession for livelihood. But his palette and 

 brush were always laid aside whenever an angling friend 

 visited his studio, for the entertaining comparison of 

 fishing experiences. Now, at the age of eighty, still 

 active and vigorous he pursues the bent of his inclina- 

 tions in annual visits to his salmon stream in Canada. 

 At his living rooms and studio in the upper part of a 

 house on Tremont Street, where he has resided for 

 nearly half a century, I have passed many pleasant 

 evenings in his genial society and with mutual friends, 

 and owing to his peculiar attractiveness I have met 

 many prominent people there, distinguished in politics 

 and the arts, Henry Ward Beecher, Robert Ingersoll, 

 Anna Dickinson, ' ' Petroleum V. Nasby ' ' — whose amus - 

 ing letters were the particular delight of the lamented 

 President Lincoln — Edwin Booth, William Warren, 

 the favorite comedian of Boston, and others ; and many 

 pleasant sit downs in the evenings I have had there to 



