116 



THE GAME BREEDER 



THE REMINGTON CELEBRATION. 



Millions of adult sportsmen the world over 

 — and boys, perhaps, in particular, who are 

 sons of farmers and of blacksmiths — are look- 

 ing toward the Mohawk Valley this year with 

 a special interest. At Ilion, N. Y., in that 

 historic country of the Leather Stocking Tales, 

 one hundred years ago, a boy of seventeen was 

 working with his father in a little blacksmith 

 shop on the family estate. In the boy's mind 

 had long been growing a yearning for a rifle — 

 the hills about his father's farm were alive 

 with game. On this memorable morning in 

 1816 the youth plucked up courage to ask his 

 father for money to buy the coveted arm. 



All hail the courage of American boyhood 

 — and the traditional conservatism of Ameri- 

 can fathers ! 



For the boy's request was refused and right 

 there was laid the foundation of Remington 

 arms ! 



The boy was Eliphalet Remington, Jr. 



In August this year the people of Ilion vil- 

 lage — now a community made up largely of 

 skilled gunsmiths who treasure and are jealous 

 of the Remington story, past and present— will 

 celebrate the making of the first Remington 

 rifle which the boy Remington started im- 

 mediately upon his father's refusal. 



TOLD FROM FATHER TO SON. 



It is familiar history in the valley — told and 

 retold from father to son by many a fireside — 

 how young Remington picked up scrap iron 

 here and there, how by infinite labor he ham- 

 mered it into a billet on the smithy anvil, how 

 he carried the bar fifteen miles to Utica to 

 have it bored and rifled, and how he finally 

 assembled the complete rifle. It was a well 

 made rifle and there was a demand for more- 

 first among neighbors, then the people of the 

 adjoining counties looked to Ilion for their 

 hunting weapons. Day by day the Remington 

 fame spread until the state and the nation, 

 and finally the whole wide world found the 

 path to the always growing factories for 

 which this farmer-smithy boy genius laid the 



foundation. Today more than 25,000 workers 

 are making firearms and ammunition which 

 go forth under the Remington name. 



So the citizens of Ilion — and Ilion has 

 grown in these hundred years from a cross 

 roads to a thriving town of 10,000 people — 

 have long planned this celebration. There will 

 be a great pilgrimage to the scenes of the 

 early Remington activities. The forge has 

 long since gone — crumbled and rotted and 

 washed away by the years — but on the site, 

 well marked by generations of dwellers in the 

 valley, a commemorative tablet will be placed. 

 And in the village, in the shadow of one of 

 the gigantic Remington arms factories, there 

 will be parades and pageants, speeches and 

 spectacles, games and various other forms of 

 entertainment, all to bring back to the present 

 generation a glimpse of the progress of one 

 hundred years and to emphasize the old adage, 

 "Despise not the day of small things.". 



THREE DAYS' CELEBRATION. 



Three days, August 29, 30 and 31, are an- 

 nounced as the celebration days by the Ilion 

 Centennial Committee. These will be desig- 

 nated, respectively, as Ilion Day, New York 

 State Day and Industrial Day. Appropriate 

 programs have been tentatively arranged and 

 details are being carefully and elaborately 

 worked out — Ilion has an enviable reputation 

 for doing things on a big scale. So far, it is 

 known that Governor Whitman of New York 

 State will be among the speakers. Other rep- 

 resentative men will also talk to the great 

 crowds that Ilion will entertain. Major Gen- 

 eral Hugh L. Scott, Chi&f of Staff, United 

 States Army, will be in attendance on one day 

 at least. 



Just now— two months distant from the 

 celebration time — the event is forecasted in 

 many ways. For instance, in a McDougal 

 Alley studio, ' New York, just on the edge of 

 Washington Square, Albin Polasek, the Bo- 

 hemian sculptor, is creating, in clay, his con- 

 cep'ion of the making of the first Remington — 



