Jaut 35. 1898.] 
FOREST AN13 STREAM. 
67 
m mid ^iv^r Staffing. 
MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 
III.— ^John Atwood. 
Looked at from later years John was not a bad boy, 
neither was he a good boy, but just one of those ne'er-do- 
wells that could not be kept in school nor out of the 
woods. He was long of leg and could tell where most of 
the bird's nests were within a circle of two miles with the 
schoolhouse as a center. His acquirements at school 
dwarfed beside his knowledge of the beat "fiahin' holes," 
and some parents I knew did not look upon John as a de- 
sirable companion for a younger boy. He was some three 
years my senior and his knowledge of the country roads, 
and of the birds, beasts and fishes made him easily a 
leader of boys who had a taste for such things. 
It was long after Reuben Wood had shown me how to 
fish that I sat on the railroad dock fishing with a pole and 
float, for the Albany & Boston Railroad had invaded the 
village, coming down between the present site of the 
Episcopal Church and the district echool to where the 
lower bridge to Albany now spans the Hudson, and it 
made a good fishing place for boys. John Atwood came 
there that Saturday morning and sneered at my tackle. 
"Yes," said he, "that's the way Reub Wood fishes, but 
there ain't no fun in it, for you h'ist 'em out too quick 
with a pole; throw that away and take off yer float, rig 
yer sinker below the hooks, and when you get a fish haul 
'em in hand over hand and feel 'em wiggle all the way in, 
that's sport!" John's advice was followed and approved, 
the heavy sinker with two or three hooks pendant above 
it was swung around two or three times and away it went 
with a plunk, and a new style of fishing was acquired, 
much to Reuben's disgust, but the majority of boys about 
Greenbush seemed to prefer this mode. The fish that we 
took in the Hudson then were white and yellow perch, 
bullheads, shiners, eels, spawn eaters (which were small 
minnows) and an occasional sucker; but John knew of the 
mud creek and the dead creek, a couple of miles down the 
river, where the fish were larger and more plenty. 
One Friday morning while on the way to school John 
was met. Two boys were with him, and they were on 
the way to the mud creek with all equipments. It was 
in the spring of the year, and John said: 
"Come along and have some good fishin'; I wouldn't go 
to school when the fish are biting as they are now. We 
are going to stay till Sunday night, and have three days' 
fishin' and birds' nestin'. Come along; you'i-e a fool if you 
don't." 
"Where will you sleep? ' 
"In Rivenburg's barn in the hay; it's good and warm, 
and we got lots o' grub an' lines." 
Here was temptation in very strong shape, but the con- 
spquences loomed up. His mother was a widow, mine 
was not. I could square it with mother, but — After 
some debate the books were left at the schoolhouse, a 
hasty note written to mother, saying that I would be home 
Sunday night, and we went. 
Such fun! John cooked fish over coals of fire, we cov- 
ered ourselves in the hay at night, and the crickets sang 
weird songs, the bats flapped about, the frogs simg and 
the owls hooted. Surely this beat Robinson Crusoe all 
hollow, for he was all alone for a while. This was life of 
an ideal kind. Sunday night, when a reckoning might be 
made, seemed too far off for consideration. The present 
life was perfect! 
We made explorations across the bottom lands and up 
the wooded hills, saw wild pigeons, and John wished for 
a gUD; chipmunks, squirrels, birds of kinds new to most 
of us, but which John could name, and a rabbit! Here 
was big game indeed, and when John oracularly said, 
"School is a fool to this place," there was no dissenting 
voice, and all regretted wtien the time came to depart. 
We had more fish than we could carry and only took the 
freshest and best, and toiled wearily homeward, one in 
the party at least dreading the arrival. What mother 
said over the torn clothes and spoiled shoes we will not 
repeat, but when father invited me to a conference in the 
woodshed she said: "Joseph, I have punished him 
severely, and he has promised never to go off again with- 
out permission, and he should not be punished twice for 
the same offense." A look of disappointment crossed 
father's face; he evidently missed something that he had 
mentally promised himself and me, but as I told John 
Atwood next day: "Mother spanked hard with her slip- 
per, but it was nothing to what she saved me from," and 
John. agreed that it happened just right, "But," said he, 
"ive are going there next Friday for three days more of 
it; will you go?" 
"No, I can't; I must go to school." 
"Ask yer mother; she'll let you." 
"Not now; father would object; wait a little later and 
I'll join you there on some Saturday." And I did. 
Aa near as memory serves, I was about eleven yeai'S 
old when John proposed that I join him and another boy 
in the purchase of a gun, which could be bought for 
$1,50. It was an old flintlock musiiet that had been 
altered to percussion, and we bought it. A grand hunt 
was arranged and off we went. By drawing lots it was 
decided that I was the first to carry the gun until game 
was shot at and then it was to bs passed to the next. No 
knight who, after watching his armor alone all night, 
girded it on for the first time to engage in tournament or 
battle, was prouder than I at shouldering the muskot 
after John had loaded it; nor did Natty Bumpo ever scan 
the distance for sign of mingo keener than my eyes pene- 
trated «ach bush and thicket for game. At last I saw it! 
We were in a road between two rail fences and the game 
"was in plain sight a few feet beyond a fence. Slowly I 
crept up after John had cocked the gun until the fence 
offered a rest and the game appeared unconscious of my 
presence, a tribute to my cautious approach. Surely I 
was destined to be a mighty hunter! Bj still, my heart, 
your beating may destroy my aim! Tne game was fully 
lOft. from the muzzle and deliberation was necessary. A 
long sighting of the gun and the trigger was pulled. 
"Hurrah! I killed him! I killed him!" and jumping the 
fence I picked up what had been a beautiful little 
summer yellowbird which had been picking the 
seed from a thistle top, wholly unconscious of 
danger, but now a stringy mass of flesh, bone 
and feathers. Reviewing this feat in more mature 
life it looks this way: If some kind-hearted man had 
then appeared and taken that gun and broken it on the 
fence and then whaled me with the ramrod, he might 
have taught me that the life of that little bird was as val- 
uable to him, and perhaps to the world, as my own, and 
it had been killed to serve no useful purpose. Oh! ye un- 
thinking fathers who use guns for what we call legitimate 
sport, do not give your boy a gun. A boy is a savage. I 
was one, an unthinking savage who would take life with- 
out other reason than the pleasure of taking it. Remem- 
ber this: You can carry a gun all day without shooting 
it, if no opportunity offers; you have no desire to kill 
anything except what you consider game; but a boy is 
bloodthirsty, and his desire to kill is at once intensified 
when the means are at hand. As a boy I did my share of 
killing every living thing I saw, whether of use to me or 
not, and most boys will do the same. Once I wrote: 
"Don't give a boy a gun until he is ninety years old, and 
then fit him out and tell him to shoot at every swallow, 
bat or chipmunk that he may meet." Bless me, how I 
have preached over that little yellowbird! 
John could build bird cages, and in the spring we would 
wade through the wet grass of the meadows to trap bobo- 
links, which we sold. He was most successful in rearing 
robins, thrushes and other young birds taken from the 
nest, while most boys lost theirs. Later we used to shoot 
wild pigeons in the spring and fall flights, and with our 
old musket would bring back from a doz an to a hundred 
birds in a day, with an occasional snipp, squirrel or rab- 
bit. In winter we set spring poles and box traps for 
rabbits, and within four years from our first fishing scrape 
we knew the whole country within a radius of ten miles 
frorff Greenbush on the east siHe of the river. My father 
was a stem, strict business man, at that time part owner 
in, and Albany agent of, the Eokford line of towboats, 
having three steamboats and many barges plying to New 
York, for then the canal boats came no further than Al- 
bany. Thirty years later, when John Atwood was dead, 
father told me that he once put John in charge of one of 
his barges; but he would not attend to business, and he had 
to discharge him and then give him a subordinate place, 
"Confound him," said father, "he has no sense of respon- 
sibility; he is sober and capable, but would just as soon be 
a deck hand as to be captain." He had John's measure to 
the fraction of an inch. John worked because he was 
forced to do it; if by diligently applying himself for a year 
he could attain a competency, he would have said, "I 
would rather go a-fishin'." 
I have said that John was a long-legged boy. He was 
also a very quiet fellow — never in any boyish fights or 
troubles. These qualities commended him to Mr. Charles 
Crouch, a harness maker and superintendent of the Meth- 
odist Sunday school, and John was in demand for the 
May anniversary to carry the center pole of the banner, 
while two shorter boys steadied the corners with cord 
and tassel. "Jine the Sunday-school," said John to me; 
I'll get you to hold a corner of the banner, and we will 
get the first whack at the refreshments when we stop in 
Albany." I "jined," and at the first meeting there was a 
pathetic appeal for funds for missionaries, and I chipped 
in the only sixpence I had, and which John and I had 
figured to spend in this way: six fish-hooks at Cosby Lan- 
sing's, 2 cents; ten knots of blue fish line at Tom Sim- 
mond's, 2 cents; lead at Pop Huyler's blacksmith shop, 2 
cents. "And you went and threw that to the heathen," 
said John. "Who are the heathen?" he asked. "What 
do you care about the heathen that you give 'em your 
last cent? I thought you had some sense! Now we've 
got to make a raise to get some fishin' tackle in the morn- 
in' just because you are a blamed fool! I only go to Sun- 
day-school just before anniversary so as to get in on the 
refreshments; they don't get no sixpence out of me. 
Why, them heathen is all right; they're satisfied to be 
heathen an' I'm willin'." I had done wrong and felt 
abashed in the presence of a superior mind, and to-day I 
regret the donation of that coin, for John's closing argu- 
ment is good. 
The "nut orchard" lay just out of the village and con- 
sisted of something like a hundred trees of shell-bark 
hickory, straight of stem and tall. It belonged to Glen 
Van Rensselaer, a man of middle age then, who watched 
it as well as he could in the nut season, but we boys 
always had a sentinel out when foraging, and hia shabby 
old silk hat in the distance was a signal to gather the 
plunder and leave, in order to avoid confiscation of the 
results of our labor. There had not been frost enough to 
drop the nuts and several of us who were strong and 
active climbed the trees and shook the limbs while 
smaller boys gathered the nuts. A sentinel had just 
called: "Here comes Glen!" when there was a, scream 
and a thud, and a poor little Irish boy, whose name is 
forgotten, was lying on his back. We were crying 
around him when Mr. Van Rensselaer arrived on a run 
to catch us. The boy's head was bleeding and his brain 
protruding, but he breathed. We gave him water and a 
passing hand-car on the railroad took him down to John 
Morris's rope walk, where his people lived. He died next 
day. Most of the boys were shy of the nut orchard that 
fall. The place is now filled with cottages, but the name 
is retained. The "Indian orchard" is also gone, and not 
an apple tree is left to hold the nest of a flying squirrel or 
a woodpecker. 
West of the nut orchard some acres of pasture were 
plentifully sprinkled with hawthorn bushes, which, by 
the way, were called "thorn-apple bushes," and among 
these were many of the big paper nests of the bald-faced 
hornet. What fun it was, with John as the leader, to 
advance in line, a cedar bush in the left elbow and as 
many stones as the forearm would hold against the body 
and a big stone in the right hand. "Fire!" cried John, 
and the stones flew in rapid succession, and when all were 
gone the enemy was upon us. Then how we retreated, 
swinging the bushes about our heads, and how an occa- 
sional yell would announce the wouaded ! Fun? It was 
the very height of fun, with its spice of danger, 
without which some one has said there is no sport, Those 
who know the bald-faced hornet know that he is as swift 
as a hummingbird and carries a poniard that for pene- 
tration and venom discounts a bumblebee or any other 
stinger with wings, and this reminds me: John Atwood 
and I had been away beyond Bath after berries, when we 
passed a house that stood only a few feet from the road. 
In front, just inside the picket fence, stood a tall pear 
tree, well loaded. "Them's nice pears," said John, dis- 
daining all grammatical rules, "le's have some." A 
study of the situation showed that I could easily mount 
the tree, shake it, and drop about 10ft. into the road, and, 
if the people in the house were aroused, John would be 
off with what pears he could get outside the fence, I 
shook, Hard, burning things struck my face and 
I saw the nest of a colony of bald-faced hornets 
within a foot of my head. Something dropped, 
it was I, and I dropped running. Oh, the agony of eleven 
stings on head, face and neck, and the swollen face of a 
boy whom his mother did not know an hour later! Days 
in bed and a doctor seem a trifle now. The pears were 
not good and John Atwood did not get a sting. To-day, 
in 1896, it seems as if it was my mission to volunteer if 
there were hard knocks to be got, while some other fel- 
low got the pears, but this is a most common case, and 
we see that same sort of fellow every day and in the 
economy of nature; he is a necessity to the fellow who 
gets the pears without the stings, 
J ohn taught me how to snare the brook suckers with a 
nooae of copper wire on the end of a pole. Brass wire 
was too stiff', he said, and horsehair was not stiff enough. 
We would get above the fish and drift the open loop So 
as to inclose him, and when it was about his middle a 
smart jerk landed him on the bank. If the current took 
the snare one side and the fish was not disturbed we 
would try it over. 
"There's trout in a little crick down back of Kinder- 
hook landing," said John one day so far in the past that 
it may have been half a century ago, or when I was 
from thirteen to fifteen years old. The name was strange 
and aroused no more enthusiasm than that of perch, 
bullhead or other fish, and John explained that they 
were "nice fish, handsome and good eatin'," Would I 
go? We could get a ride on a hand-car on the B & A. R. 
R,, then known as the "Western R R.," and would have 
only a mile to tramp. We went, and my first trout on a 
worm is a most distinct memory. The "crick" was a 
small brook that in places one could jump across and was 
fringed with alders and alder berries. Here John went 
back to the system taught rae by Reub Wood, for he 
said that in such small "cricks" you must use a pole, but 
it must be short. We took home about forty trout and to 
my great astonishment my father was interested in them 
and became enthusiastic over some trout fishing in his 
boyhood. At last we had tastes in common! 
Once we walked down the track of the Boston Railroad 
to Kinder hook Lake to fish for pickerel through the ice, 
after planning the campaign for weeks, and we carried 
knapsacks filled with camping goods of more or less 
utility. We got a fish and took a rabbit and three grouse 
from the snares of some poacher and had a good time, all 
of which was written up for FOREST and Stream of Jan. 
3, 1889, as a "Christmas Reminiscence." The great won- 
der to me then and now was where John learned all the 
mysteries which he unfolded to me. He never told this 
and perhaps his air of mystery helped to magnify his 
knowledge. He did not consort with Port Tyler, the 
local Natty Bumpo, who lived by rod, gun and traps, for 
Port was a solitary man, and later, when I was taken as 
an occasional companion by Port, he once said: "John 
Atwood can't stick to one thing nor one place long enough 
to do anything at hunting, he runs all over, and, durn 
him, he spoiled some good pa'tridge ground for me once." 
This remark was a little foggy, but the impression was 
that John had interfered with some fences and snares 
that Porter had set; but it was only an impression, for no 
more was said. Perhaps the snares that we took the 
grouse from were Port's! Porfs remark fitted John in 
other respects than hunting. A job in John Ruyter's 
tannery, grinding bark, in Ring's "white mill," or in Her- 
rick's distillery feeding cattle, was not kept long. My 
father's estimate of him was a just one, but of the boys 
that I knew in youth few have a warmer spot in memory 
than John Atwood. 
Among the boys of Greenbush was one named Philip 
Spencer, who came from Hudson, and at one time was a 
schoolmate of my oldest brother, Harleigh. His father 
was the Secretary of War in President Tyler's cabinet in 
1841. Young Spencer had a copy of "The Pirates' Own 
Book," and left it with one of the village boys with the 
remark, "Keep this until you hear that I am a pirate," 
and through his father he was appointed midshipman in 
the Navy in November, 1841, He planned a mutiny on 
the U. S. brig Somers, was discovered and with two others 
was tried by summary court martial and hanged at the 
yardarm on Dac. 1, 1842. This book passed around among 
the boys of the village for years until John Atwood 
loaned it to me. It had pictures of heroic pirates, with 
belts well stuffed with pistols, boarding merchantmen and 
putting the crew to the sword or making them walk the 
plank, and it had in it Spencer's autograph and newspaper 
slips of his execution, My mother found it in my trunk, 
and after making me tell where I got it, took it to Mrs. 
Atwood with the request that no more books of that char- 
acter be loaned to her son, John said: "It was a fool 
book anyway, and there was no fun in sinking ships and 
killing people," and here again we can agree with John, 
An old darky who had been a cook for my father in his 
young days, when he was a sloop captain on the Hudson, 
had small pox, and father fitted up a room for him in the 
barn, and John Atwood volunteered to attend him, and 
stayed by him until he was out of danger. As I have 
said, John may not have been a good boy, but he was not 
a bad one. Idle, shiftless and lazy? Yes, if you will, but 
that is a combination to get much out of life, in a way. 
John may have been "shiftless," but legs that followed 
him on a day's tramp would deny the charge of lazi- 
ness. It would be fairer to say that he could only apply 
himself to things which interested him. That is my latter 
day summing up of his character. Men who think that 
the accumulation of money by continuous industry is the 
main thing in life have always decried those who did not 
follow their precepts and examples, but there are other 
standards of life than those of old Ben Franklin, who 
thought that a boy or man should work like Gehenna and 
never spend a cent. John Atwood followed the bent of 
his inclination and was happy when he did not have to 
work at uncongenial labor, yet who could be more ener- 
getic at removing a stone heap and digging out a rabbit? 
But as he approached manhood the necessity of labor that 
was more remunerative gradually pressed upon him, and 
the day came when John had to leave the birds and the 
fish in their haunts and take a place as fireman on a rail- 
road locomotive. The engine which startled the wood 
duck from the lilypads had to be fed with great pieces of 
wood, and the puffing monster drowned the song of the 
bobolink and the whistle of the quail. John never could 
have loved such a noisy, obnoxious thing. One winter 
day about forty years ago his engine stood at a side track 
at Poughkeepsie, the boiler burst and the mangled body 
of John Atwood was thrown far out upon the ice of the 
