ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



21 



Rock River Game Preserve 



Deputy Game Warden Mrs. Rebecca H. Kauffman, of Oregon, Illinois. 

 has written so intimately and entertainingly of the Rock River Game Pre- 

 serve, that the Editor takes the liberty of printing the letter in full. Mrs. 

 Kauffman has long been active in the work of arousing interest in the 

 conservation of wild life, and when the opportunity to continue under an 

 official title the work which her son was obliged to lay aside, she accepted 

 the title and duties of deputy game warden as if they were "all in a day's 

 work." The newspapers, however, thought differently, and Mrs. Kauff- 

 man. as "the first woman game warden of the United States," has had to 

 submit to considerable newspaper publicity. Below is a reproduction of a 

 snap shot taken for a Philadelphia press bureau, showing Mrs. Kauffman 

 standing by her pheasant coop at Cedar Lawn, on the Rock River Game 

 Preserve. 



"The Rock River Game Preserve had its beginning in December, 1913, 

 when Colonel Frank O. Lowden learned that the Game and Fish Com- 

 mission of Illinois, of which C. J. Dittmar, of Freeport, was the head, 

 would pay a nominal sum an acre per year to any land owner in the State 

 who would set aside his land as a game preserve under the law enacted the 

 previous winter by the General Assembly. The now Governor said at once 

 he would make Sinnissippi Farm a game preserve immediately, without any 

 pay at all. Then, later, when Mr. and Mrs. Medill McCormick purchased 

 the 1,200 acres of land they have now made into their estate of Rock 

 River Farms, near Byron, at the northern end of Ogle County, they, too, 

 at once wished to make a game preserve of it, especially since a herd of fine 

 deer are running wild in that part of Ogle County. Mr. McCormick has 

 offered a reward of $500 for the arrest and conviction of anyone shooting 

 one of these deer. There are about 

 forty of these handsome creatures 

 in the herd. Years ago a man liv- 

 ing near the Kishwaukee River 

 owned several, which bounded 

 out and away one fine day, and 

 ever since that, deer have been 

 "running wild" in the north end 

 of the county. One recently was 

 found in the barnyard w i t h the 

 stock at the farm of Mr. Robert 

 Newcomer, at the north edge of 

 M ount Morris. The increase 

 would have been more than the 

 number now seen, but it is said 

 (sub rosa, if you please) that 

 there is scarcely a farmer in the 

 deer neighborhood who does not 

 know the taste of venison. 



"My son, Harlan B. Kauffman, 

 was appointed deputy game warden 

 in February last, having the April 

 previous taken the Civil Service 



