72 Book of the Black Bass. 



ductor on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, in connection with 

 two public-spirited gentlemen of Wheeling (Forsythe and Shriver), 

 brought from Wheeling Creek, West Virginia, a small lot of bass 

 in the water-tank of his tender. They were placed in the Potomac, 

 near Cumberland, and from this, stock, the Potomac, for more than 

 two hundred miles, and all its large tributaries — the Seneca, 

 Shenandoah, Cherry Creek, Sleepy Creek, Great and Little Caca- 

 pon, Patterson's Creek, South and North Branch, etc. — afford 

 fine fishing. 



" They are, I know, from the Great Falls to a considerable 

 distance west of Cumberland, for I have recently so taken them, 

 and often weighing from five to seven pounds — from four to five 

 pounds is not unusual. » • * " 



The " Baltimore American " in June, 1874, in an article 

 on Fish Culture, remarked incidentally : 



" It was twenty years ago, that Alban G. Stabler and J. P. 

 Dukehart, together with Forsythe and Shriver, brought a small 

 lot of black bass in the tender of a locomotive from Wheeling 

 Creek, West Virginia, and put them in the Potomac. From this 

 small beginning, sprang the noble race of fish which now swarm 

 in the river.'' 



It is certain from the above evidence, that Greneral 

 Shriver was the leading spirit in the enterprise, assisted, 

 no doubt, by Mr. Forsythe, of Wheeling, and Mr. A. Q. 

 Stabler, of Baltimore. The latter gentleman, being the 

 conductor of the train which carried the bass — and there 

 is no evidence showing that more than one lot was taken — 

 certainly had some share in the transaction ; and if he was 

 '4 " chip ofE the old block " — for his father, above-men- 

 tioned, was an enthusiastic angler — it would naturally be 

 expected that he would have taken a lively interest in the 

 affair. 



The circumstance is one in which I have always felt the 

 greatest interest, for it occurred at the time when I first 



