Sew. SS, 1866.] 
FOREST ~ AND STREAM, 
249 
MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 
XIII.— Capt. Stephen Martin. 
Steve was a different sort of fellow from any of the 
boys of whom I have written. He came into our boyish 
set after we went across the river to live, and I naturally 
dropped into Scott's occasionally by day, but frequently 
in the evenings. W, J. & E, H. Scott made, sold and 
repaired guns on Beaver street, between Broadway and 
Green street, and after their rival — poor Steve Van 
Valkenburgh — died theirs was the only place of the kind 
in Albany. Gunners of all kinds had business there, and 
every evening a few could be found in the salesroom dis- 
cussing all kinds of questions pertaining to guns, their 
proper loads and powers, as well as telling their personal 
experiences while trying to conceal the exact location of 
a bit of snipe bog or partridge cover. 
We boys soon got acquainted — ^it never takes boys long 
to do that, especially it they have a common interest in 
anything. Martin was one that dropped in there, and as 
he was about the age of our party he went with us on a 
lishing trip to Normanskill, a brook which rises some- 
where off toward the Helderberga* and enters the Hudson 
a few miles below Albany, We called it the Normanskill 
Creek in ignorance that "kill" was Dutch for creek, and 
that the added word^was a repetition, but then what 
would jo\i do with Kaaterskill anglicised into Catskill 
as the name of a village, a range of mountains and a 
stream? And then the word creek is used in New York 
for a bayou or arm of a river which forms an island, like 
the Popscheny, and also for a brook or even a river like 
the East and West Oanadas which form the great 
Mohawk. All this has nothing whatever to do with 
Steve Martin, the subject now under the scalpel and 
microscope. A cog slipped and some ink went astray, 
only this and nothing more. 
The day was quite young when we reached the stream 
near its mouth and some distance below the first dam. 
George Scott was going to try a new bait, and had brought 
a lot of fresh- water mussels, Unio, "for," said he, "if 
these things aren't good for bait, what good are 
they? What do they have shells on 'em for if it is not to 
keep the fish from eating 'em?" 
"Lemme smell 'em," said Steve, and he took a sniff and 
with a look of disgust said, "George, a fish couldn't eat 
that ching;'you can't eat it, and it's my opinion that noth- 
ing will eat it. What do you think of it, Fred?'' 
"I dunno, the only way to find out is to try 'em. Old 
John Chase has used 'em for bait in his eel pots, and he 
wouldn't fool his time with the things if they are no good. 
I've seen him pick up a peck on the fiats at low tide. 
Hogs eat them, and Port Tyler said that some kinds of 
wild ducks eat the little ones. I don't see why they 
shouldn't be as good as clams or oysters; they live like 
them." 
"Oysters!" yelled Steve, "I'll bet you daren't taste of 
one. Nobody eats them, and I believe they're poison." 
"I'll eat one if you will." 
"That's fair," said George Scott. 
Pete Loeser remarked, "I dink Stefe he vas scart to eat 
von of dose muschels, he don'd got some peppersauce. 
Oh, Stefe! you vas scart uad you pack oud." 
The question had assumed a personal form, and Sbeve 
was getting warm. The reflection on his courage braced 
him up, and after giving Pete a look which might have 
meant that he would like to cut him up for fish bait, he 
asked, "Where is the pepper and salt?" These things put 
before him, he selected a mussel of medium size, groped 
about until he found one to match it in siza and shape, 
and with one in each hand he offered me the choice in 
the courtly manner that duelists are reported to do upon 
the field of honor. My careless challenge might have 
. been passed by if only Martin and I had been present, but 
the comment of Loeser settled it, A contest was unavoid- 
able. A choice was made, and each opened his moUusk, 
salted and peppered it with deliberation. Then, eye to 
eye, we raised the shells and took in the contents, 
Charley Scott, brother to George and the firm of gun- 
smiths, watched the faces of the contestants closely, and 
after the last morsel was swallowed by each said, "Well! 
if mussels ain't good to eat, you fellows lie. I've been 
a-waitin' to see one of you weaken on 'em, but you only 
looked at each other as if you were chewin' oysters." 
The truth is that we afterward acknowledged to each 
other that fresh -water mussels might be good for fish bait, 
but we had no very great desire to eat any more. There 
is a remembrance of a combination of toughness, sweet- 
ness and sliminess which did not provoke an appetite for 
more. We put on a bold front and challenged the other 
boys to try them, Martin even went so far as to say that 
they were as good as oysters. This statement was re- 
ceived with some doubt, and Charley Ssott suggested that 
if Steve thought so he could save money by using them in 
place of the salt-water product. George offered to eat 
one if we would each eat another, but the German was 
mean enough to ask: "Oof Sfcefe dinks dose dings was so 
goot we oysders, vy don'd he ede 'em some more?" A yell 
turned the conversation; George had thrown his line back 
in the wrong direction, and the hook took Loeser in the 
ear and tore a hole big enough to let it be taken out easily. 
Years afterward, at a dinner of the Ichthyophagoiis Club, 
we had a bisque or some other preparation of Unios fixed 
up by the cJief of one of New York's crack hotels, and I 
tasted it, with a thought running back to an early day on 
the Normanskill. After tasting it I looked around to 
see how the rest enjoyed it. Frank Endicott made a 
show of taking frequent spoonfuls, but his plate seemed 
as full as ever. Mr. B. G. Blackford tasted it and said, 
"That is very fine," but somehow let it go at that; and 
when the waiter removed his plate you could not miss 
what had been eaten, No doubt the mussels are good, 
but you've got to learn to like 'em. I never persevered in 
this direction. As bait that day they took a few fish, but 
the verdict of the boys was that they preferred the old 
reliable angle worm. 
Down in the lower end of Albany is a portion called 
Bethlehem, and on the river road was the Abbey, a noted 
road house a couple of miles below the city. An English 
sportsman named Kenneth King lived in Bethlehem, and 
the Abbey was kept by another English shooting man 
*• This spelling Is phonetic because the name is not in any work at 
hand. The name lor mountain Che Dutch pronounced "beric," and 
the name of this range of hills west of Albany was corrupted by the 
English into "Heiabarricks," the only way I ever heard it spoken 
■when a boy. Mr. A. O. Stolt kindly corrects me on the spelling of 
"Popscbeny" and will probably straighten the kinks out of this. The 
Dutch spoken of in these articles are the original whit« settlers of New 
York who came from Holland. 
named Sheldrick, who got up pigeon shoots, and we boys 
used to attend them. At these affairs we used to make 
matches to shoot at ten birds each, the loser to pay for 
and the winner to have them. One day after the shoot- 
ing was done Martin said to me: "We are not going to 
shoot any more because there are not enough pigeons for 
a match, but as your gun is loaded and there are a few 
pigeons left, I'll shoot you a match of two each. We 
want to shoot off our guns any way. What d' ye say?" 
I had left my gun standing in the corner while I had 
gone on the front porch for something, and had just re- 
turned when Steve made this proposal, "All right," 
said I, "we might as well shoot at a couple more and 
empty our guns before going home," He picked up his 
gun, and as I reached for mine Ken King quickly passed 
me his and with a wink said: "Take mine." 
Without thought I went to the score after Steve had 
killed one of his birds and missed the other, and killed 
both of mine. The boys laughed, and Sbeve looked sur- 
prised as I hastily walked back and put up King's gun. 
While they were talking things over outside King 
asked me: "Do you know why I gave you my gun to 
shoot?" 
"No, but you gave me a wink and I asked no questions. 
Why did you do it?" 
"When you went out on. the front porch Steve drew 
the wads and took the shot out of both barrels of your 
gun. See the joke? They're talking about it now." 
I went out and took my three birds, Steve paid for four 
and merely remarked: "Well, you beat me this time; 
we'll have to try it over again next Saturday," 
"As we got ready to start I stepped back and shot off 
both barrels, and Steve asked: "What gun did you kill 
the pigeons with? I thought it was your own." 
"No, I used Ken King's to see how it shoots, as we may 
want to trade. It shot very well ; couldn't have done 
better. When I shot off my gun just now it made a Ught 
report, perhaps I forgot to put shot in it." 
Steve made no reply, but Pete Loeser said: "I kess Stefe 
he dinks dere vas no shot dere; hey, Stefe?" 
The laugh was on Stephen, and the boys guyed him so 
that he had to own up, but after that event we each kept 
our guns in sight at pigeon matches. 
It was after this that I bought the pointer Nell from 
Ken King, the one referred to in former sketches, and 
King showed us the woodcock grounds on the Albany 
side of the river, and we shot with him over his dogs and 
Nell. Sometimes when he was not with us we consulted 
Mrs. Sheldrick, who was well posted on these matters 
and far more communicative than her husband. In her 
vocabulary "birds" meant woodcock only; all others were 
spoken of by name. For instance, she would say: "Well, 
boys, you won't find many birds in the swamps this 
morning; you might get an odd one up in thjB cornfield 
after the rain last night, but you can find plenty o' 
pigeons in yon wood, an' mebbe some plover on the hill 
or a few yellow-legs along shore. But birds '11 be scarce 
to-day." 
Steve was wonderfully good on woodcock and usually 
beat us all in bringing down that bird of erratic flight. 
He used a short gun of 12-gauge. Just how short the bar- 
rels were is more than I would like to say now, perhaps 
20in., while my gun was an extra long one of 12in. more. 
I once saw him drop five "birds" in succession in a 
swampy thicket where this swift dazzling bird would drop 
out of sight within 20yds., and this was not an exceptional 
case. Those who have shot this quick, zigzagging, noise- 
less flying bird in close thickets are the only ones who 
know just how quick and unruffled a shooter has to be to 
get a fair proportion of the birds he flushes. They had 
all learned from Ken King the lesson which I had been 
taught by Port Tyler in former years, to use small shot in 
small quantity, with a very light charge of powder, for this 
kind of shooting at close quarters, in order not to mutilate 
this royal game bird. 
At upland plover shooting he was a good shot; but the 
German boy, Pete Loeser, whose slower method lost him 
many a woodcock that Steve would have killed, on plover 
always beat Steve, whose forte lay in snap shooting. 
Once a single wild pigeon crossed the road ahead of us 
while we were in a bunch and safely ran the gauntlet of 
six barrels from Steve, Geo. Scott and myself, while 
Pete brought it down with his first when, according to 
our pacing, it must have been 75yds. away, he shooting 
last. Steve went with us on several fishing trips, but 
never in the open season for game; fishing arnused him 
when there was nothing else to do, it was fun, but hardly 
sport to him. He cared little for camping out or for the 
fields and streams outside of the fact that game abounded 
in one and fish in the other, hence I said at the beginning 
of this article that he differed from any of those of whom 
I have written. He was impatient of apy delay and eager 
to be stirring, hence some of the ingredients of a good 
fisherman had been left out of his mental make-up. 
Steve developed into a strong, finely formed young 
man, with a full, handsome face, which was perhaps over- 
weighted by a mustache which some might Jiave thought 
a trifie too robust, but he had a large, full eye which was 
frank and open. I have no photo of him and know noth- 
ing whatever of him except what I tell here. He touched 
my orbit for a brief season and then vanished into space 
as far as I know. When I first knew him he was con- 
nected in some way with Delahaniy & Co., tinsmiths and 
plumbers, but just now it is impossible to say in what 
capacity. At the close of this sketch I will tell you the 
last I knew of him. 
In the early 50s there was an epidemic of rifle shooting 
in the State of New York. Not shooting at game, that is 
one of our steady and never-decreasing infirmities, but 
this prevalent disorder took the form of long distance 
target shooting. Heavy rifles were shot on bench rests 
at 600yds. , mainly in winter on the ice below the city. 
They had "patent muzzles," a detached piece with pins 
to set over the true muzzle whUe seating the bullet in 
order to leave the muzzle perfectly square; the enlarge- 
ment necessary to start the bullet in the way it should go 
being entirely in the false muzzle. These guns were all 
handmade. If there were machine-made rifles in these 
days I never heard of them. All rifles were handmade. 
Soldiers did not use them, their muskets were smooth 
bores, and to give you an idea of gune in those days you 
must know that it was believed that rifling was a princi- 
ple that would work well up to a certain caliber, but was 
only practicable for guns which were shot from the 
shoulder. For field pieces which threw a 61b. shot it was 
believed to be useless, because it was thought that the 
weight of the projectile would prevent it from following 
the twisted groove. To-day they rifle not only the lar- 
gest cannon, but even mortars. In the 6O3 I handled 
rifled guns up to those known as 1001b, "Parrots," but 
now such a gun is only a toy and our 10 in. seflcoast mor- 
tars with their smooth bores are obsolete. This digres- 
sion is not for the benefit of the old fellows who know all 
this, but is intended for the boys of to-day who have 
the cartridges for their breech-loading shotguns filled for 
them before they go afield and whose machine-made 
magazine rifles are wonderful pieces of mechanism. Ee- 
member, boys, in my shooting days we went afield with 
powder flask on one shoulder, shot pouch on the other, 
cap box and either cut wads or newspapers for wadding 
in the pockets. If we shot the rifle we moulded our own 
bullets, measured our powder and carried greased linen 
patches to envelope the bullet, a ramrod and box of caps; 
Such a thing as buying prepared ammunition was not 
dreamed of. 
There was a little squad of rifl? shooters from both sides 
of the river which met in contests on the ice. There was 
Billy Wish, the ferryboat engineer; William Tallman, Sr., 
a machinist; Steve Martin; and John Clark, a printer, who 
in spite of having but little color in his eyes was the best 
shot of all. It has been said that gray-eyed men make 
the best rifle shots, but Clark's eyes were lighter than 
gray. 
The shooting was counted by string measure, and the 
targets were displayed nightly at Scott's. Such discus- 
sions over the wind in explanation of a bad shot, and such 
arguments over the merits of rifle makers would fill vol- 
umes of Forest and Stream. The merits of Lewis and 
James as makers of rifles was the main point. One lived 
in Troy and the other in Syracuse, and they were always 
going to shoot a match with rifles of their own makes, 
but, like some gladiators of to-day, it ended in talk. Bil- 
linghurst, of Rochester, was another famous maker; I 
remember him because he made the first open reel for 
fishermen. Scott made a rifle for Martin and he induced 
me to join the shooting and use his gun. There was no 
betting, just pure sport, and I tried it. The rifle was 
sighted long and deliberately, then a rest of the eye and 
it was gone over again until the shooter had it as fine as 
he knew how. Then the flags were watched, with the 
eyes off the rifle, until the long strings of muslin hanging 
from the poles placed at intervals showed the wind to be 
right, and the hair trigger was touched. 
I never made much of a shooter of this kind; my eyes 
blurred at 100yds, then and they do at 20ft. to-day, 
although I read and write without glasses at sixty-three. 
Black-eyed Steve Martin was a fair shot, but that did not 
satisfy him, he always had an excuse for not being first 
— the powder was not as good, the patch was too thick or 
too thin, a puff of wind came just as he pulled the trig- 
ger, etc. 
Pete Loeser once said: "Stefe he shoot pooty goot, but 
never so bpsser as he can; dere vas alvays sometings dot 
spile his string. Oof dot clout had not come der sun be- 
tween ven he make der sixt shot he peat Shon Glark all 
hollow. I dink he makes besser string in te efening by 
Scott's stofe, by shimminy!" 
To this George Scott replied: "Pete, if you could make 
half as good a score as Steve you might be proud. There 
are his targets, look at 'em; they show a splendid average, 
and one hard to beat. It's not a good one for two or 
three days and then a durned bad one, but a steady, good 
lot of shooting day by day." 
"Dot's all ride," said Pete, "but he alvays got some 
excuse for de one shot wot makes de oder nine figger oop 
big on de averich." 
Just then Steve came in and George said: "Steve, you 
are just in time. Pete says you can't hit a pancake if it's 
tied over the muzzle of your gun," 
"That may be so, but I'll tell you what I'll do, Pete, If 
you'll stand 1,000yds. down on the ice and let me shoot a 
pipe out of your mouth I'll buy you a new hat if I don't 
break the pipe." 
Another way in which Steve Martin differed from my 
other fishing companions was that he was a practical 
joker. Now, fun is one thing and "practical joking" is 
another. In the mind of the p, j. they are the same 
thing, but no other human being agrees with him because 
the txm is all on his side, and the misery of others is his 
joy. Therefore he is a selfish mortal and that settles 
him. We were once rowing round Douw's Point against 
a stiff current, just all that two pairs of oars could do to 
make a bit of way at the extreme point. The scow had a 
plugged hole in the bottom to let out water without tip- 
ping her over when beached. As we were near the shore 
Steve said: "I guess I'U lighten the boat," and jumped 
ashore, taking the plug with him. The water was up and 
wet our feet before we noticed it, and we were only saved 
from a ducking by promptly beaching the little scow. 
The author of the mischief was up the bank and off. A 
new plug was whittled out and wo went our way scold- 
ing, not so much at what had happened as at what might 
have occurred. 
Of course he was forgiven, although he never asked to 
be, but for a time he was made to feel that his fun was 
not appreciated by the boys that were in the boat. We 
often shot together over Nell at woodcock, snipe, golden 
plover and shore birds. He sometimes took her out alone, 
and when I learned that he was trying to make her re- 
trieve I protested, Steve insisted that a pointer could be 
taught to retrieve as well as a setter, and instanced one 
that we both knew, but I still objected. She was lost for 
about a month before I went West in '54, but Steve found 
her after I had gone, and so she came into possession of 
my father, as mentioned in a former sketch. 
When I returned, over five years later, my old chums 
were looked up. Steve had grown into a strong man, 
Pete Loeser had gone West, George Scott had accidentally 
killed himself while pulling a loaded gun from abed, and 
quite a number of changes had taken place, I did but 
little at fishing or shooting for a year and then the war 
broke out. Some time in July, 1861, Steve told me about 
the scheme of Col, Hiram Berdan to recruit a company 
of sharpshooters, every man of which must be able to 
make a string of ten shots at a certain distance whose 
united measurements from the center of the target should 
not exceed a certain number of inches. I forget the 
figures, but they were not in excess of the scores usually 
made by the riflemen on the ice. 
"Now," said Steve, "you can pass this test, it is not a 
severe one, merely intended to get men who are fair 
shots and know how to use and care for a rifle. After 
enlistment and muster every man will be given the rank 
and ijay of a second lieutenant and will have a darky to 
