530 
FOREST AND STREAM 
October, 1919 
JAMES ALEXANDER HENSHALL 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE APOSTLE OF THE BLACKiBASS, 
FATHER OF THE GRAYLING AND DEAN OF AMERICAN ANGLERS 
SIXTH PAPER 
J OHNNIE and I were now attending 
the collegiate course at the high 
school, and for two or three years our 
sporting activities were restricted to Sat- 
urdays and other school holidays. These 
were devoted to fishing, shooting and 
sailing along the Patapsco and upper 
Chesapeake Bay. Sometimes we were 
accompanied by Andrew or Robert, and 
we enjoyed sport galore for fish of all 
kinds; shore-birds and ducks were very 
abundant at that time, and were not 
far to seek. 
One day we were fishing off the Laz- 
aretto, opposite to Fort McHenry, and. 
a stiff breeze blowing, we could hear, oc- 
casionally, the snapping and flapping of 
the big garrison flag. Then, Johnnie, 
who was already an incipient rebel, 
sang: 
“ ’Tis the Star-Spangled Banner, 
0 long may it wave 
O’er the land of the free and 
the home of the slave.” 
Robert called him down, and then pro- 
ceeded to tell us the story of the Na- 
tional Anthem. 
It was during the latter part of the 
war with England, in 1814, that a Brit- 
ish fleet, in command of Admiral Cock- 
burn, was assembled at the mouth of 
Baltimore harbor, a menace to the fort 
and the city as well. It was then that 
Francis Scott Key, a prominent lawyer 
of Maryland, with others, was selected 
to visit the Admiral, and endeavor, by 
using all the arts of diplomacy, to pre- 
vail with him to forego a bombardment 
of the city. After the conference was 
ended Key and his associates were not 
permitted to return, and so were com- 
pelled to remain aboard the flagship and 
witness the battle between the fleet and 
the fort which followed. 
And through the long vigil of that 
terrible night, exposed to the fire of the 
fort, the “rocket’s red glare,” and “bombs 
bursting in air,” disclosed to their 
strained vision that the flag was “still 
there.” 
When the sun rose from the broad 
bosom of the Patapsco the next morn- 
ing its new-born rays kissed the tom 
flag, causing its “broad stripes” to gleam 
more deeply crimson, and its “bright 
stars” to shine more brightly. As the 
sun rose higher through the murky at- 
mosphere Old Glory waved proudly, de- 
fiantly and triumphantly over the crip- 
pled fleet that lay still and quiet with 
broken spars, tom rigging and tattered 
sails. It was during the “perilous night” 
that The Star-Spangled Banner was con- 
ceived and firmly fixed in the patriotic 
mind of Francis Scott Key, and regis- 
tered in words of fire in his loyal brain, 
needing only pen and paper to preserve 
it to the Nation. 
Then Robert told us of the Battle of 
Baltimore, on September 12, 1814, when 
a British army, under General Ross, ad- 
vanced against the city. He was met 
by an American force, including the “de- 
fenders,” or home guard. Among the 
latter were two apprentices. Wells and 
McComas, who as sharpshooters or 
“snipers”, were ensconced amid the 
branches of a tree by the roadside. 
The brave but reckless General ad- 
vancing at the head of his troops de- 
clared that he would eat his breakfast 
either in Baltimore or in Hell. When 
he came within easy rifle range of the 
boys two shots rang out, and the luck- 
less General fell headlong from his horse, 
and like the antiquarian gent of the 
Stanislaus, the subsequent proceedings 
interested him no more. The advance 
Bringing him to net 
of the foe was stayed and the city was 
saved. It is presumed that the doughty 
General partook of his matutinal repast 
the next day in some Plutonian hostelry, 
where it is hoped that the cuisine and 
service were to his liking. 
I N 1852, when I was sixteen years of 
age, and had just finished my studies 
at the high school, my father conclud- 
ed to anticipate the advice of Horace 
Greeley and “go west.” There were sev- 
eral reasons for his determination, the 
chief one, however, was that the change 
of climate might prove beneficial to my 
mother’s health. Accordingly, our family 
removed from the historic city of Balti- 
more to the “Queen City of the West.” As 
the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was not 
completed farther west than Cumberland, 
Maryland, we traveled by the Pennsyl- 
vania railroad to Pittsburgh, thence by 
steamboat to Cincinnati, Ohio. 
While the journey was slow and some- 
what tedious, it was not uninteresting, 
as the scenes and incidents were new and 
novel. Railway transportation was then 
in its infancy. The rails were flat strap 
iron bolted on continuous stringers, and 
the rolling stock was quite primitive. I 
saw a freight locomotive that was 
equipped with a walking-beam, like a 
low-pressure steamboat. At that time 
the Appalachian mountains were not 
tunneled, so that they were crossed by 
means of a series of inclined-planes, by 
which the cars were hauled up or let 
down by stationary engines at the sum- 
mit of the inclines. The car was affixed 
to a heavy iron cable running on pulleys 
in the middle of the track. I think there 
were nine inclines between Johnstown, 
on one side of the mountains and Holli- 
daysburgh on the other side, so that the 
passengers experienced many ups and 
downs on this portion of the journey. 
As the canal was also interrupted by 
the obstruction of the mountains, the 
canal-boats were built in sections, so that 
they could be taken from the water at, 
say, Johnstown and transported to Hol- 
lidaysburgh, there to be again placed in 
the canal, and vice versa. The inclined- 
planes were furnished with double tracks, 
so that while a car was ascending on one 
track, a section of a canal-boat was de- 
scending on the other, the weight of each 
being thus somewhat counter-balanced. 
In this day of rapid transit when even 
the Atlantic has been crossed by sea- 
plane and dirigible balloon, it seems al- 
most unbelievable that such primitive 
methods of transportation were in use on 
one of the greatest of our railways but 
sixty years ago. 
At Pittsburgh the high-pressure steam- 
boat was both a puzzle and a curiosity. 
It was hard to imagine why, with such 
a low boiler deck and so few inches of 
freeboard, the boat was not swamped, 
or the fires under the boilers extin- 
guished. When I was informed that 
some of the up-river boats, with over- 
hanging guards, had a draft of but 
twelve or fifteen inches, the wonder to 
me was, that with such a lofty and heavy 
superstructure the boat was not capsized 
in a heavy blow; but when I saw the 
big twin engines and the battery of huge 
boilers, and the inunense deck load that 
served as so much ballast, the mystery 
was explained. 
As we journeyed down the Ohio River 
I was much impressed with its extreme 
loveliness. The low, green hills on either 
bank, the quiet coursing of the stream 
around the bends, and the reflection of 
the drifting clouds in the still reaches 
formed a never-ending panorama of 
beauty and delight. 
O N arriving at Cincinnati everything 
seemed strange and different. In- 
stead of a forest of tall masts and 
tapering spars of vessels, as in the har- 
bor of Baltimore, there was a jungle 
of smoke-stacks rising from hundreds of 
steamboats that were crowded, tier after 
tier, about the wharf, boats and levee. 
