246 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May, 1920 
JAMES ALEXANDER HENSHALL 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE APOSTLE OF THE BLACK BASS, 
FATHER OF THE GRAYLING AND DEAN OF AMERICAN ANGLERS 
THIRTEENTH PAPER 
A FTER spending ten very pleasant 
years in Wisconsin I was back 
again in Old Kentucky, for a year 
or two, to complete the scientific history 
of the black bass, before going to Cincin- 
nati to superintend the publication of 
the “Book of the Black Bass.” As I in- 
tended to spend the next winter in Flor- 
ida, several young men, patients of mine, 
were desirous to go with me. Some of 
them were afflicted with pulmonary 
troubles, others were the victims of va- 
rious functional disorders of the digestive 
organs owing to the generous manner of 
living common to the Blue Grass section 
of Kentucky, where it is said that many 
dig their graves with the frying-pan. 
The boys were, more anxious to go with 
me after being assured that the best and 
most agreeable cure, if not the only one, 
for their several ills was an outdoor life 
for four months. 
Accordingly, early in December, 1878, 
five young fellows, myself and my Lav- 
erack setter “Queen,” departed for the 
bright and sunny skies of Florida. I had 
shipped a complete outfit of tents and 
camp equipage to Jacksonville. Arriving 
in that city I called at once on Dr. C. 
J. Kenworthy, who was known to the 
readers of Forest and Stream over the 
pen-name of “A1 Fresco” in an article or 
log of a cruise along the Gulf Coast. As 
my destination was Indian river and the 
East Coast, he could give me but little 
information, as that section of Florida 
was scarcely known at that time to north- 
ern tourists or sportsmen. 
The Doctor was much interested in 
trolling with handline for tarpon at May- 
port, at the mouth of St. Johns river. In 
those days rod-fishing for the silver king 
was unknown, or unheard of. With the 
Doctor’s valuable assistance I purchased 
provisions and supplies for a five months’ 
cruise, which w r ere securely packed and 
shipped to Titusville at the head of In- 
dian river. 
We took passage on the little steamer 
Volusia, warranted to sail in a heavy 
dew. After an interesting three days’ sail 
we left the St. Johns just above Harney’s 
Lake and entered Snake creek, and after 
steaming and poling around the serpen- 
tine bends of that stream, through shal- 
low water and sawgrass, we at length 
reached Salt lake, the head of navigation, 
two hundred and seventy miles south of 
Jacksonville, and six miles, overland, to 
Titusville. Transporation from Salt lake 
to Titusville was primitive, but inter- 
esting. It was effected with a small car 
over a wooden tramway, the motor power 
being furnished by two mules, one at- 
tached to the port side and the other to 
the starboard, at the front of the car, and 
outside of the track, so that at times the 
mules were several feet above the track 
and sometimes only their long ears were 
visible as they trudged along several feet 
below the bed of the tram-car road. 
At Titusville I succeeded, very fortu- 
nately as it proved, in purchasing a 
twenty-foot catboat, the Blue Wing, skip- 
jack model, quite fast, decked over at bow 
and stern, centerboarder, with some eight 
or ten inches freeboard when loaded. 
She was intended only as a means of 
transportation, inasmuch as we would 
camp ashore. As the Blue Wing was the 
first sailing vessel the . boys had ever 
seen, they were of various minds about 
trusting themselves aboard on the great- 
est expanse of water they had ever im- 
The wonderland 
agined ; but after seeing other boats 
gracefully sailing to and fro their ti- 
midity and scruples were overcome, and 
they professed great haste and anxiety to 
be off. And then, with promising skies 
and propitious weather we cast off the 
moorings and went bounding down the 
river with a quartering breeze. 
Indian river is really a salt water la- 
goon with two inlets from the sea. It is 
one hundred and fifty miles long, and 
from fifty yards, at Jupiter Narrows, to 
several miles in width. It is separated 
from the sea by a strip of sandy land 
from a hundred yards to a half mile in 
width. Being so close to the sea there 
was a fine sailing breeze nearly every 
day. At the time of which I am writing 
the entire length of Indian river was but 
sparsely settled below Rockledge; in fact, 
I became acquainted, I think, with every 
one along the river, about one or two to a 
mile on an average. The only store 
south of Titusville was a small one at 
Eau Gallie. 
Our first camp was at Rockledge, then 
famous for its fine orange groves, the 
oldest on the river. Here we camped 
several weeks in order to accustom the 
boys to life in the open, which they soon 
began to enjoy. The first fish caught 
was a forty-pound channel bass, or red- 
fish. Quail were abundant and Queen 
had her share of sport. Across the river, 
at Merritt’s Island, ducks, snipe and plo- 
ver were to be had at any time. Every 
day or two the settlers caught mullet, a 
delicious panfish, with cast-nets, so that 
our larder was well-supplied and replen- 
ished. They also furnished us with fresh 
vegetables, oranges, bananas and guavas. 
In return we gave them quail, water- 
fowl and shore birds, so that honors were 
even. 
Our next camp was at Eau Gallie, 
twenty miles below Rockledge. There 
were several creeks within three or four 
miles, among others Elbow, Horse and 
Crane, affording good sport in fur, fin 
and feather. Here we had our first wild 
turkey and venison. There was a small 
store at this place carrying a few articles 
in common use, which with one or two 
cottages and the “State College” com- 
prised the settlement. The college was a 
roomy building of coquina rock, intended 
as one of a group of buildings for a state 
college but the plan collapsed, as the 
best laid plans of mice and carpet-baggers 
often did at the time. 
W E arrived at Eau Gallie a few days 
before Christmas, and a dance and 
a Christmas tree had been ar- 
ranged for the settlers up and down the 
river for fifty miles or more. Among 
other features planned for their enter- 
tainment was to be a play by the resi- 
dents, but for lack of Thespian talent it 
had been abandoned at the last moment, 
and I volunteered to furnish a substitute. 
I rehearsed a shadow pantomime with the 
boys to be staged in the large hall of the 
college. It proved to be a howling suc- 
cess, as it was new and novel to the audi- 
ence and very amusing. 
The Christmas tree, quite a large 
spruce, held a present for every one. The 
boys received a small green turtle, a piney 
woods gopher turtle and an abundance of 
fresh vegetables and berries, and a lib- 
eral supply of oranges, bananas and 
guavas fully ripe. Then the dance was 
on and joy was surely unconfined till 
daybreak, when after a really sumptious 
repast, so far as viands were concerned, 
to which our party contributed, the happy 
guests sailed away as they shouted greet- 
ings for a Merry Christmas and a Happy 
New Year. The affair was voted the 
most successful and enjoyable function 
ever experienced on the river. 
We camped a few days at Turkey 
creeL, ten miles below, mooring the Blue 
Wing in the snug little harbor at that 
place. After supper one night the boys 
departed for a ’possum hunt, a la Ole 
Kaintuck. After their departure I lay 
