FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jm 9, 1897. 
American Canoe Association, 
ATLANTIC DIVISION. PURSER'S BEPOBT. 
Oct. 1, ms, to Oct. 1, tS96. 
Receipts. 
Balance from Purser^ Thomas Hale, Jr $192 85 
Duesfor 1S94...... ........ 4 OO 
Duesfor 1895. ........s. --..^ ^...i 38 00 
Duesfor 1898 SSO 00 
Entrance fees for 1896 m...*;.. ...si, .t-.i;. 3100 
Transferred from Eastern Division , i i. ; 1 00 
E E, Mercelis to account of Thomas Hale, Jr i^,^ti-.i,',. 1 (0 
Sale of Code Signal books *.s,,iii^... 2 80 
$480 65 
'Expetidit'ures. 
B, eg:atta Committee $27 85 
Expenses of Division Meet, 18B6 31 60 
Office expenses,,^ .,...i.i.....r.'..-....... 25 00 
Postage A. C. A, Year Book. . i.., 12 08 
Kec'y-Treas. Stryker, dues, etc , , 8S 50 
Collection charges 14 00 
Balance 284 62 
$480 65 
Membership. 
Members, Oct. 1, 1895 251 
New members ...f.. ...... >■"■•>" ....33 
Reinatateo ^ , . .19 
Ti-ansferred -i— ei 
305 
Resigned. . . , , m i , 3 
Deceased 1 
Dropped ..61— 68 
Total membership Oct. 1, 1890 237 
Henry M. Dater, Purser. 
Audited and found correct. 
Fr^vnk L. Bunnell, I a„j;,„^„ 
Robert J. Wilkin, f 
Dec. ae, 1896. 
1871— N. Y. C. C— 1896. 
It happened somewhere uptown and far over on the west 
side, and though they all got there in time and got away 
again safely in good season, no one of the party yet knows 
Just where it wa.s or what the place would look like by day- 
light. Wherever it was, Col. Waring's "White Wings" had 
evidently long since grown weary of the struggle with the 
filthy grease which follows a snowstorm in New York; the 
cross streets declining to the North River were worse than 
toboggan slides. 
Outside, so far as it was visible at 7 o'clock on a winter's 
nigbt, the place was an ordinary beer saioon, the idea being 
lurtber strengthened on enteiing by the usual bar on the left 
fcide of the room. Opposite to the bar, however, was a large 
curtained doorway, and passing through this one stood at tne 
head of four steps leading down to a plain one-story shed 
about 60 by 25ft , running wi!;h the street, the far end and 
the street side being inclosed with boards, and the inner side, 
evi'tently opening on a "summer garden," with glass, In 
the left corner near the stairs stood an upright piano; on the 
right were two big casks of XXX ale on skids, and not far 
from the piano was an odd-looking stove of cast iron, about 
3ft. by 18ia. at the bottom and tapering as it rose, ihe height 
beiog about 4lt. Back of the stove was a big pile of hickory, 
cut in lengths, and beside it lay a gridiron about 3ft. long 
and IfC. wide, on high legs, At the bottom of the stove was 
a door just large enough to admit the gridiron. 
The lurniture of the room was simplicity itself; arranged 
in an oval were soma sixty common chairs, and in front of 
f ach pair of chairs stood an empty champagne box, on end. 
On each box stood two small salt cellars, and on each chair 
lay neatly folded a big thick white towel. Beside the stove 
stood a table piled high with loaves of bread, and next to 
the gridiron stood a large butcher's basket piled with steaks; 
such steaks as are never seen in the best shops, nor even the 
most noted of the city chop houses. Each was about two 
inclies tliick, the bone sirloin trimmed clean of every vestige 
of fat; the while-aproned cook who proudly tended them, 
armed with a fork about 2t't. long, volunteered the in- 
formation that they were not only speciallj' prepared for 
such occasions, but were seasoned in the cold storage for six 
weeks. 
They began to come in about 6:30, the dinner being set 
for 7 o'clock; Vaux was there, Whitlock and Stephens (W. 
P.), Stevens (0. J,), Tramp and Delevan, representing the 
oIg timers of the early Staten Island days; with Downing 
Vaux, an old ex-member. The new men, who have been 
active in the club since its removal across the Bay, turned 
put in goodly numbers; and then there were the guests, 
Zerega and Sherman, of the Seawanhaka C, Y. C. ; Stay ton 
and Ford, of the Naval Rtserve; Vernon, of the Brooklyn C. 
C. and others, in all some sixty hungry sailor men. 
As the first of them came in, the cuok looked to his fire, 
now bnrned down to a hot bed of embers, and loaded up the 
big gridiron with nearly a dozen of the steaks; while one of 
his assistants manned a sort of guillotine and began an on- 
slaught on the pile of loaves beside him, rapidly reducing 
them to slices. Each slice, about four inches sq^uare, was 
then cut in half. 
By the time that greetings had been exchanged and hata 
and coats stowed a waiter appeared at the head of the steps 
with a big tray of sherry glasses, Mr. Ddevan sounded tne 
assembly ou his cornet, and the party lormed in lock-step 
lor a march around the room, each receiving his lation of 
"grog" as he passed the steps. The march continued until 
the full circuit of the room had been made, and then all 
lound places in the oval of chairs, each tucking his towel 
around his neck until he was well covered in front. Now 
the fiist batch of steaming steaks was ready, and as it was 
withdrawn each steak was lifted with the big fork and 
dipped in a pan of melted butter, then it was passed to an 
assistant who deftly carved it into slices, each about half an 
inch thick, the culs running at right angles to the long cen- 
tral bone. The bones were laid aside and were to be had on 
special application to the head cook by those who wished 
tnem. Now a big platter was covered with the half slices of 
bread and on each slice was laid a piece of tlie steaming 
beet, done to a turn, just the right shade of red, without the 
blue tinge, and appeadng at once to eye, nose and mouth. 
As the platter started on its way down the room it was fol- 
lowed uy a second waiter with a big dish of celery, and a third 
with a tray of ale glasses. The merry conversation back 
and forth across the room in the most informal manner was 
temporarily interrupted as each in turn helped himself to his 
portion of bread and meat, to say nothing of the ale, and 
was resumed in the interval while the next round was pre- 
paring, flow many times the procession of waiters went 
round the room we cannot say, but the feast lasted from a 
little after 7 until 10 o'clock before the last platter, this time 
loaded with savory mutton chops, passed around untouched, 
all having eaten their fill. Limited as the bill of fare wag — 
steak, chop, bread, celery, salt, ale— the utter novelty of the 
repast and the surroundings relieved it of all monotony; and 
then the tongues wagged industriously whenever the jaws 
Were temporarily out of employment. 
VauS, by Vittue of long established custom, as well as his 
office of president of the club, up to midnight, was master 
of ceremonies; and equally active with him in keepinsc the 
fun going was the new president, Louis Boury. The ab- 
sence of tables, dishes and claw-bam mer coats helped to 
drive away the formality of ttie usual club dinner and to im- 
prove the quality of the speecHes, of whicn there were a 
numbej', as well as songs and recitations. At one stage of 
the proceedings tlie door was opened io answer to an imper- 
ative knock and a burly bluecoat forced his way in. Just 
what his mission was nobody seemed to know, but hia visit 
gave rise to no end of fun. While some of the guests vig. 
orously chanted the "Oouchee-couchee dance," others im- 
plored ttie "cop" to let tnem go this time; even tempting 
him with ale, which he refused with a tear in his eye. For- 
tunately the visit disclosed nothing of an "altogether" 
nature; there were no vaudeville artistes behind the ale 
casks and no Cairo dancers in the woodpile, eo the revels 
were allowed to proceed. Before 11 o'clock the last .speech 
was made, the last song sung, the fire was out in the big 
stove, and the party broke up with wishes all around for a 
Happy New Year, and another quarter of a century of pros- 
perity to the oldest American canoe club, the New York. 
The mosquito sailor of to-day, who can buy ready to hand 
almost any sort of small craft he may chance to fancy, any 
type or model of canoe or single hand cruiser, and so on up 
to the most elaborate 15 or 20 footer of .special design, and 
who has only to make a choice between half a dozen differ- 
ent clubs, can have but an inadequate idea of the advan- 
tages he enjoys over we old fellows of what is getting to be 
close upon a generation ago. At the time when the New 
York C. C. was organized, in 1871, there wa^ nothing in 
the shape of either a boat or a club that was suited for the 
uses of the small boat sailor. Rowing was then in its 
prime; there was good sport in the colleges and in the many 
big city clubs — in fact, even the smaller cities with any sort 
of water near at hand usually boasted a rowing club. Row- 
ing boats of all kinds for mere pleasure rowing, practice, 
training and racing, were to be had of good design and con- 
struction, and the many clubs offered house facilities and 
social intercourse to rowing men. 
In yachting there was nothing better in the smaller classes 
than the centerboard catboat ot the day, a case where "the 
best was but the worst," as many an aspiring novice soon 
discovered. This cratt and her mate, the small centerboard 
cabin sloop, were both poorly adapted to the uses of the 
young tyro and would-be single-bander. Between the row- 
ing boats and the sailboats there was the ordinary working 
rowboat, such as the famous "Whitehall boat" of New York, 
a craft that could be sailed fairly well, and whichj for want 
of something better, was used to a certain extent for boat 
cruising. 
Those who had no special taste for rowing racing — and the 
"revolver" and sham amateur were even then beginning to 
bring the noble sport into disrepute — found little lo attract 
them in the rowing clubs; and those who essayed to cruise in 
the open catboat were usually satisfied after a few narrow 
escapes. 
The first suggestion of anything better suited to the wants 
of the young Corinthian came in the form of an article in 
Harper's Magazine, in 1866, a brief but interesting compila 
tiou from the first of Capt John MacGregor's ci uises, then 
just reprinted from the English edition by Harper &Bros. 
To us, as wt4l as to many others, this first glimpse at "A 
Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe" opened a fairyland 
that even thirty years has not quite obliterated. The initial 
cruise of the New York C. C. was made in 1869 or '70, and 
in such a "Whitehall boat" as we have already mentioned, 
the leading spirit of the party of three or four being W. L. 
Alden, then a young newspaper man. The cruise began at 
New York, and if we are not mistaken ended in a lumber 
yard at Troy, where the party narrowly escaped arrest as 
either pirates or lunatics of no hai'mless kiad. It was not 
the New York C. C. tMn, but it was this cruise which 
turned Mr, Aiden to the idea of canoeing and the formation 
of a club. His first missionary work was among some 
fellow newspaper men and some New York. yachts- 
men—Montgomery Schuyler, the well known writer; his 
cousin, M. Roosevelt Schuyler, later noted as the most ex- 
treme of the "cutter crauKs;" Dr. J. S. Mosher, G. Living- 
ston Morse, of the New York Observer; the late Capt. Tim- 
merman, of the Alexandre Line of Havana steamers; Capt. 
S Grosvenor Porter, of the Pacitic Mail; Charles Ledyurd 
Norton, the writer; and a Baltimore canoeist, W, O'Sullivaa 
Dimpiel. Mr A Cary Smith, the dtsigner, was also a mem- 
ber, bailing in one of tne tew races held in the early years of 
the club. The first canoes were Rub Roys, built irom the 
designs in MacGregor's books or imported Jrom England, the 
original canoe ot tne club oeing a Rob Roy built by William 
Everson, then uottd as a bniluer of ^Whitehall boats. The 
young club began a correspondence with the Royal (J C, 
especially with Capt. MacGregor and Mr. W. Bauen-Powell, 
and the latter very kinoly sent out tne complete workinu- 
plans of hi^ No. 4 Nautilus Mr. Montgomery Schuyler irn^ 
ported a hauusome mahogany Nduiims ot Messenger's build, 
mote of a sailins; canou tmm the first cratt. There was at 
the time an English boat builder, Jarvis, in Ilbaca, N. Y., 
who had built cauoes at home, and who, when called on by 
the club, turned out some very tine craft, among them the 
famous old Psyche, so long owned by Kirk Munroe. 
At the outset the club had no house; in fact, apart from an 
occasional rendezvous at the Hotel Huugaria, in Union 
Square, its members were widely scattered. A couple of 
regattas were held in the early days, one in Flushing Bay, 
where some of the canoes were kept; and another, m 1874, 
on New York Bay, oft Bayonue, some of the canoes being 
kept along the Bayonne and Pamrapo shore and others on 
Staten island. At the same time the club did a good deal of 
cruising between New York and Montreal, and on other 
waters. 
Meanwhile canoeing had been growing slowly outside of 
the club, and about 1879 it received sotue important acces- 
sions— Vaux, Whitlock, Kirk Munroe, Wm. M. Cooke, L. 
F. d'Oremieulx and W . P. Stephens. In 1879, through the 
efforts of the new men, a very successful sailing regatta was 
held off Staten Island, and m the same summer, mainly 
through the labor of Mr. Whitlock, a club house was built 
at the same point, where the St. George ferry now is. 
The next six years were the most successfi^i that the club 
has ever known ; added to tlie club house at N"ew Brighton 
was "Marmalade Lodge," of blessed memory, up the Kills; 
smoky, dirty and disreputable on the outside, but for a time 
the Mecca of canoeing. From fall until spring, when the 
float was on the beach at the real club house, and in fact all 
the year around, the members squatted on the hospitable 
landlord of the "Ranche," their boats on the racks down 
stairs and their dunnage in the bunks in the second story. 
The one aim and object of the whole party was canoeing, 
and it is safe to say that with the constant work of planning, 
building, altering and rigging that went on through five 
years as much was done for the improvement of the canoe 
as was accomplished in all the rest of the country. 
With the year 1886 came a change of luck. The encroach- 
ments of the railroad that has since ruined Staten Island lor 
the yachtsman and canoeist drove the club from its old 
home and forced it to begin the long series of wanderings 
which landed it finally on the other shore of the Bay, at 
Bensonhurst. To tell all this in detail would be too long a 
story, and we can only give space to the New York C. C of 
to-day, as it begins its second quarter century. 
As most canoeists know, the club has been established for 
half a dozen years on Gravesend Bay, at Bensonhurst, and 
in this time it has more than once been in serious trouble 
through the sinking of its house and similar mishaps. For 
two years past it has been in occupation of permanent quar- 
ters on the shore, having leased the property with option of 
purchase. In its new station it has at last found a fitting 
home, and the troubles it has gone through have brought 
some compensation in that they have called forth the best 
efforts of all the members in behalf of the old club, so that 
both in numbers and personnel the membership was never 
stronger than it is to-day. The grounds of the club have a 
fine frontage on the water, with a broad outlook over 
Gravesend Bay and the Lower Bay. An old mansion of 
the comfortable kind makes an excellent home for many of 
the members, who occupy it throughout the year, and it has 
been found possible to maintain a very satisfactory cuisine 
at a reasonable price; The large boat house once used as a 
floating house is now securely established on a pier, a long 
gangway leading out to it. In front of this house is fairly 
deep water for yachts and a good anchorage. The house 
itself gives storage room for the canoe division of the fleet, 
and in front of it are moored, the "one-design" 15-footers of 
last year to the number of a dozen, with many other small 
j'achts. Outside tne moorings is the breadth of Gravesend 
Bay, the club's home sailing waters and racing course, and 
further off is New York Bay, with the Shrewsbury and Rari- 
tan Bay beyond. 
Thus located, the club at last offers what has so long been 
needed about New York, a club for the men who sail small 
boais of all types, 
We are reluctant to admit the fact that the canoe is not as 
popular to-day and will not be as popular in the future as it 
was in the past; one very good reason for this indisputable 
fact lies in the multiplication of types of small craft, all de- 
rived originally from the canoe, but now, as in the racing 20- 
footer, with none of its distinctive features. With such a 
wide range to choose from, the men who once took to the 
canoe because there was nothing that could at all compare 
with it in model, construction and general adaptability, 
to-day divide their preference among a dozen allied types. 
Wiide the New York C. C. must always continue to be a 
canoe club, at the same time there is no disguising the fact 
that its future lies mamly in amew and far broader field, as 
(Its club for the small boat sailors, both eruiaers and racers, 
of Greater New York. . '1 
In starting its second quarter century oh this new coutfee, 
it has an able hand at the helm. Its new president, Louis 
Boury, though a new member compared with such ancient 
patriarchs as Whitlock and Vaux, has enjoyed a wide ex- 
perience in different yachting and boating cliibs and in all 
sorts of smaU craft, from the 35-footer Smuggler, which he 
built as the first of the class and raced so successfully in 1891, 
down to canoes This experience, with his reputation as a 
worker in all branches of club management, and his wide 
acquaintance anaong yachting and boating men, leaves little 
room for doubt as to the success of the New York C. C. in 
1897. 
The Paddling Trophy. 
Ottawa, Dec. ^Q.—Editw Forest and Stream: At the 
annual meeting of the executive committee of Uie American 
Canoe Association, held at Toronto on Nov. 31, 1 submitted 
a resolution recommending the abolition of tue racing ma- 
chine and the establishment of a standard paddling canoe 
for all paddling races; the resolution being referred to 1 he 
regatta committee. It is now my desire to lay my -views on 
the matter, through the medium of your valuable paper, be- 
fore the members of theA. C, A., or in fact any one who 
has the interests of canoe paddhng at heart 
Under the racing regulation and regatta programme in 
the Year Book for 1896, if a man wishes to enter in (1) the 
trophy paddling, (2) tne single olade open canoe, (3) the tan- 
dem open canoe, or (4) the club fours, unless he is content to 
paddle at a disadvantage, he must have four different canoes, 
in (1) his canoe may be 16ft. by 28in., and as light as he 
pleases to make it; in (2) his canoe may be of the same 
dimensions as above, but it must weigh 501bs. ; id (3) the 
canoe must have a beam of 30in. and must weigh oSlbs, ; 
and in (4) a canoe can be of any length, weight or 
beam, provided that it is not narrower than 28in, or chorter 
than 16ft These regulations are, in my bumble opinion, 
absurd, and are enough to kill paddling racing at A. C. A. 
meets until proper regulations are made. 
The four paddling events named are just the ones that 
every paddler w ishes to enter. But is he to be put to the 
expense and inconvenience of building and maintaining four 
ditferent canoes, and, like the owneis of race horses, bring a 
"string" with him to the meets? I am strongly of the 
opinion that if we had one standard canoe for all paddhng 
events, and let that canoe be a general purpose canon as 
well, it would materially increase and strengthen the racing 
spirit not only in the Association, but also among canoeists 
generally. Nearly all club regattas are held vmder A. C. A. 
rules, and very often local regatta committees in this part of 
the world at any rate find great difficulty in arranging events 
owing to the different varieties ol canoes allowed by the 
present rules. After all, the object of competition is to de- 
cide on the best man, not the best builder or the lightest or 
fastest canoe. 
In order to arrive at the proper dimensions for a standard 
•canoe, one that would not be clumsy for racing, and still 
would be perfectly safe for cruising and general purpose use, 
I have discussed the matter with canoeists from Montreal, 
Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa. The consensus of opinion 
