108 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Feb. 28, 1889. 



mm, 



THE CUMli B K I. A N 1) CLUB HOUSE. 



THE SHOOTING CLUBS OF CHICAGO. 



VIII. — THE CUMBERLAND CLUB. 



ONCE upon a time, so goes the story, there was an 

 English lord, and this English lord Had two sons, and 

 these two sons had a friend, and this friend had a pro- 

 clivity, and the proclivity has a story. 



The name of the English lord was Lord Parker— if 

 there ever was any such a lord — and in due time the 

 eldest son would he called Lord Parker. The simple- 

 minded country folk of Indiana, however, called young 

 Lord Parker and his younger brother both Lord Parkers, 

 and if there had been any more of the family they would 

 have called them lords too. Captain Blake, the guide, 

 philosopher and friend of the resident Parker lords, was 

 only a plain military man, and as such to be pitied. 



The young Lord Parkers — for, as the novelist says, so 

 must we call them from this time forth — were sent to 

 America to see life, to grow up with the country, to go 

 into the fine stock business, and, incidentally to all this, 

 to invest about $110,000 of good English gold. Just how 

 they happened to drift down into Indiana and buy land 

 along the edge of the Kankakee marshes is something 

 that no fellow can rind out. Nevertheless, they did do 

 this. They hauled lumber from the nearest railway 

 station, Crown Point, distant eighteen miles, and built at 

 a very considerable expense the large, commodious and 

 comfortable building which soon became known far and 

 wide throughout the country as the "Lord Parker place." 

 They bought 160 acres of land, back from the marsh a 

 little, embracing a part of the bottom grove of native 

 timber, and running back toward the timbered ridge. 

 They stocked this farm with the best of blooded stock, 

 put up extensive barns and granaries, and laid the 

 f oundation far a grand stock farm. The house itself stood, 

 as it stands to day, upon a little swelling crown of land 

 some ten acres in extent, which overlooks the vast sweep 

 of the Kankakee marsh. The knoll is covered with mag- 

 nificent forest trees, and affords a building site whose 

 picturesque qualities it would be hard to duplicate any- 

 where in that immediate section. Provided with num- 

 bers of spacious rooms, well furnished, well lighted, fitted 

 with a perfect view to comfort, this big building is some- 

 what of a curiosity to-day, when one reflects that it was 

 constructed by two young bachelors, the one little over 

 thirty and the other' barely twenty years old. 



If the young Lord Parkers were careful ahout any one 

 portion of their house, it was about the cellars. 'That 

 cellar was the wonder of northern Indiana, stocked as it 

 soon was with the best and most expensive wines the Old 

 World could produce. It does not seem to be known 

 whether Capt. Blake helped fill this cellar or not, but he 

 did much toward emptying it, and in this he was ably 

 seconded by the young Lord Parkers and their friends, 

 and by everybody else whom they could invite in from 

 the country round about. 



Nothing less than a grand tally-ho coach would do for 

 these gentlemen when they drove over after their mail, 

 or when they sallied forth to the chase. Elaborate ken- 

 nels were provided, and it is probable that no known 

 race of sporting dog lacked a representative therein. 

 There is conflict in the statements as to the numbers of 

 these dogs, but it is never put less than fifty or sixty, 

 and Mrs. Driscoll, wife of the present tenant of the 

 place, declares that there were over two hundred dogs of 

 all sorts in the Parker kennels. Each dog slept on a 

 spring bed. The kennel was of brick, circular, with a 

 cement floor sloping toward the center, A man and his 

 wife were employed to attend to it. They cooked all the 

 meals for the dogs and had none but kennel duties to 

 perform. A cyclone destroyed the kennel and the barns 

 and took off one corner of the club house. 



But these dogs did not serve to satisfy the ambition of 

 these young gentlemen. They had also a great quantity 

 of wild animals, among others a captive bear. Once in 

 a while they would announce a grand bear hunt and 

 would hunt this unfortunate bear all over the country 



with foxhounds. The bear in desperation would run out 

 into the marsh, and the hilarious lords would follow it 

 out with the tally-ho as far as they could go, and finally 

 bring bruin h jme in the stage coach. 



There was no form of sport which these madcaps did 

 not prac tice. They must have had grand shooting at 

 wildfow l in those days, and there was also upland and 

 timber shooting. It seems, however, that they some- 

 times wearied of such tame sport as this, and were con- 

 tented with nothing but to lie in bed and shoot flies on 

 the ceiling with the pistol. The walla of the rooms were 

 peppered full of holes from one end of the house to the other. 



All this sort of thing took money. Remittance after 

 remittance came from the old country, but didn't seem 

 to do anything but create a demand for more remittances. 

 At length the old Lord Parker, or whoever constituted 

 the remittance-sending power, over in England, grew a 

 little suspicious, and despatched an agent to investigate 

 this singularly bottomless stock farm. The true state of 

 affairs was disclosed. The remittances stopped. 



When the remittances stopped everything else stopped. 

 Then the young Lord Parkers, to pay what were probably 

 gambling debts or other extravagancies brought about by 

 Captain Blake's proclivity for spending money, resorted 

 to the good old English expedient of borrowing money. 

 They mortgaged "Cumberland Lodge" to Mrs. Clark, 

 mother of Dave Clark, whom many Chicago men will 

 have seen about the Circuit Clerk's office. When their 

 mortgages fell due they had them renewed, again and 

 again. At length, so goes the story, the elder Lord 

 Parker went back to England and went insane, probably 

 from drink. What became of the younger boy I do not 

 know. Capt. Blake was last heard from in charge of 

 somebody's kennels in Philadelphia. The mortgages 

 were now foreclosed, and a rapid decadence in the 

 whilom glory of Cumberland Lodge ensued. 



But, Phoenix-like, this structure whose foundations 

 were laid in a genuine, if wild and reckless, love of out- 

 door sports, was destined to rise again for life in a similar 

 atmosphere, and to flourish in an existence more endur- 

 ing if less glorious The property not yielding returns 

 the heirs of Mrs. Clark sold it to a club of Chicago sports- 

 men, organized for that purpose, and incorporated under 

 the name of the Cumberland Club. That was in 1881, 

 and since then the big house has echoed again to good 

 cheer a trifle less unbridled than that of the old days, 

 and the present owners of the property have paid their 

 regular respects to the wildfowl of the big marsh, until 

 these last two years of dearth, when there hasn't been 

 anything much to pay respects to; failing of which they 

 have devoted themselves to trap-shooting, to fishing and 

 to those large and enthusiastic picnics, half club meet 

 and half Fourth of July, wherein the Cumberland men, 

 in common with their jovial brethren of the other clubs, 

 delight occasionally to revel. 



The present railway station for Cumberland Lodge is 

 Lowell, Indiana, on the Monon route. It is distant about 

 six miles from the lodge, over a very pretty and restful 

 country road. If the shooter takes the night train down, 

 he will be obliged to take tliis drive at an hour near mid- 

 night, and if this be in duck season , the temperature may 

 he a trifle low. Against this he has the alternative of 

 spending the night at the sleepy old town of Lowell, at a 

 hotel which has a firm grip on the early half of this cen- 

 tury. This, however, and his further contact with a 

 quaint and simple life among the inhabitants of that easy 

 and untroubled land, will be a new and pleasant exper- 

 ience to him, and the more prized as he is proportionally 

 not more duck hunter than hunter of odd corners of life. 

 If he chooses to forsake the marsh entirely, and wander 

 back along the sweeping ridges of nut-bearing woods, he 

 may, I pledge him, find himself in surroundings which 

 will take him back to the days of Daniel Boone. True to 

 the instinct of the early pioneer, the settlers who live in 

 these little log houses preferred to hew out their homes 

 and farms from the solid forest, rather than take up the 

 wide reaches of rich prairie lands and open glades, and 



here, in much the same simplicity, and quite the same 

 apparent poverty of the earliest days, they live to-day, 

 heedless of the bustle of the busy world near by. You 

 may find here hoarse-voiced and gray-haired squirrel 

 dogs, whose stiffened limbs will lead you after a sport of 

 days gone by. Here you shall find still the old muzzle- 

 loading rifle, and some long-legged fellow who will wield 

 it with much of the old-time skill. Yonder are the still 

 brown woods, sombre, mysterious, quieting, pathetic, 

 mournful; and as you pass on to these, following the 

 ghost of dog and rifle, there at the clearing's edge stands 

 an old white-haired man, even yet deft wielder of the 

 axe, and turning toward you a face lit by the light of 

 other days. You are, even now, even here, in the land 

 of the axe and rifle. 



Hard by and in close contrast is the land of the boot 

 and breechloader. And in Cumberland Lodge, big, well 

 furnished, cheerful, modern in all its appointments, you 

 shake off the feeling of sadness, which is so closely at- 

 tendant upon a near look at the past, and settle down to 

 a big dinner, which Mrs, Driscoll, wife of Martin Dris- 

 coll, the club superintendent, will have prepared for you. 

 After that, even if you do not care to go out on the 

 marsh, you will have plenty to amuse you in a stroll 

 through the big house, in a trip to the well-stocked boat 

 house, and a visit to Mr. Driscoll's pen of tamed Cana- 

 dian geese, who will softly honk to you if they think you 

 have some corn. A portion of these geese in the wire 

 pen are a cross between the Canadian and the Chinese 

 goose, and are a small, singular looking bird, of a gen- 

 eral bluish color, and with a hairy crest extending down 

 along the neck. Their note is hoarse and strident, and 

 does not very closely resem'cle the resonant and not un- 

 melodious honk of Canadensis, 



The Cumberland Club owns in fee simple only the little 

 wooded knoll upon which the club house stands, a plot 

 of about ten acres. It holds 3,600 acres of the marsh by 

 lease, and its territory covers some exceptionally good 

 duck country. The records shosv the shooting to have 

 been at times very heavy, and quite as good as the aver- 

 age of the other clubs up to within the past few years, 

 when, as everyone frankly confesses, the shooting has 

 been capricious, and, indeed, almost worthless. There is 

 little doubt, however, that a year of high water and good 

 feed will bring the mallards and teal and bluebills back 

 iu as good numbers as before, and the member who has 

 Cumberland stock should hold it with jealous care, for 

 there is not any prettier stretch of marsh out of doors 

 than that which sweeps up almost to the door of the lodge. 



The strip of marsh Which lies right at the edge of the 

 grove, just below where the trap grounds are arranged, 

 is said to be the best jacksnipe ground in the country. 

 It must be full of the feed most sought by that bird, for 

 it can scarcely be driven away from it. A bag of twenty 

 to forty each, made by two guns in the morning, has been 

 reported in the afternoon on the same ground, and very 

 often the bulk of the birds will drop in again not far 

 behind the shooter. 



There has been a great deal of trouble with fire on the 

 Cumberland marsh, and it has been repeatedly burned 

 over in large section within the last few years. The 

 marsh was on fire to the southeast on the evening of my 

 visit, and it seemed probable that the flames would make 

 considerable headway into the body of the marsh. These 

 fires are probably set out by malcontent natives who 

 imagine they are doing themselves good by injuring the 

 sport of the club members. There cannot be any doubt 

 that these repeated fires have injured the feed. The 

 spongy and peat like soil, made up largely of matted 

 roots, continues to burn for days after the passage of the 

 surface fires, the gases thus generated exploding in min- 

 iature eruptions all over the marsh. In such a state of 

 affairs the roots of all vegetation cannot fail to be de- 

 stroyed over the whole section not actually lying under 

 water. There can be no benefit in this, A mallard duck 

 does not naturally resort to a barren and blackened waste 

 in its search for a resting place and food. 



