688 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 3, 1906. 
Governor Stone’s Angling Preserve. 
“For brick and mortar, breed Filth and crime 
With the pulse of evil that throbs and beats, 
And men are withered before their prime 
By the curse paved in with their lanes and streets. 
And lungs are poisoned and should rs bowed 
In Ihe smothering reek of mill and mine; 
And death stalks in on the struggling crowd— 
But he shuns the shadow of cak and pine.” 
—Nessmuk. 
From Ansonia to Blackwells, in Tioga county, 
Pennsylvania—sixteen miles— is the famous Pine 
Creek Gorge. Until the Vanderbilts con¬ 
structed a railroad through this canon in 1883, 
there was no way of penetrating it save by the 
primitive method of the red man, who> paddled 
up and down the river in his canoe between the 
Indian villages located at these points. At 
Blackwells dwelt the famous Seneca chief, 
Tyagaghton, after whom, tradition says, the 
stream was originally named. It was more 
popularly known among the aborigines as 
‘.'River of Pines,” which has been' corrupted by 
the present irreverent age into prosaic “P.ne 
Creek.” 
It is a limpid, rapidly flowing eccentric stream, 
quick to take offense, easily roiled, and when in 
anger, dangerous and treacherous, as Hon. 
Robert K. Young, Attorney for the State Capi¬ 
tol Commission and Republican nominee for 
Auditor General and Henry C. Cox. State Fish 
Commissioner, both residing at Wellsboro, can 
testify, for both of them were precipitated into 
its raging current in the early spring, and after 
buffeting the waves for a mile, were landed more 
dead than alive. Swimming of the most strenu¬ 
ous, chilling character only, prevented vacancies 
in official positions. 
Mountains rise perpendicularly on either side 
of this gorge to a height of about 900 feet, leav¬ 
ing but a narrow passageway for railway and 
river. In this canon the sun does not shine to 
exceed two hours out of the twenty-four. 
The hills have been denuded of their virgin 
pine and hemlock, millions upon millions of feet 
of which has been floated to the Williamsport. 
Lycoming county, boom. The greater part of 
this wild land has been sold to the State 
Forestry Commission, .which owns 40,000 acres 
of land in Tioga county. Nature, quick to re¬ 
cuperate, is rapidly covering these hills with 
“second growth.” The child is now living who 
will see these mountains clad in their primitive 
■glory and fishing and hunting of ante-bellum 
abundance. 
However man in his greed has marred and 
scarred the faces of these hills, he has not been 
able to abate one jot or tittle of their grandeur. 
To the religiously inclined, their placidity, im¬ 
movableness, unchangeableness and unalterable¬ 
ness call to mind the words of the Psalmist: 
“And the strength of the hills is His also.” 
The “River of Pines” is the most famous trout 
stream in the state. Its swift moving current, 
fed on either hand by mountain brooks and 
springs of pristine purity, with deep holes that 
graduate into long riffles is where the brook 
trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, shyest, gamiest of fish, 
king of waters, makes his home. At twilight he 
goes down to the head of the “riff” to feed or 
else comes from the depths of pools into the 
shallow mouths of refreshing tributaries to sport 
and feast. It is then that the skilled angler, with 
rod as light as woman’s fancy, line as delicate 
as her embroidery silk, and artificial flies as de¬ 
ceptive and alluring as her smiles, lands his 
victims. 
The lumberman, the tanner, the acid factory 
man have done their worst by turning refuse 
into this noble stream, which, in spite of their 
pollution, has absorbed the poison, leaving no 
sign. 
Pine creek’s most important tributary on the 
west is Four-Mile Run, so named because of 
its distance from Ansonia. It is the ideal trout 
stream of which there is knowledge. Its crystal 
waters, its cascades, deep rock-bottom pools, 
overhanging cliffs and trees and secluded nooks 
are where the brook trout loves to hide ana 
spawn. And “time whereof the memory of 
man runneth not to the contrary,” _ it has 
yielded to the patient, skilled angler its finny 
denizens from their ideal haunts in abundant 
quantity and of sportsman size. Such deep, 
dark holes, transparent to the very bottom, in 
which one might dfown and leave no trace! 
Convenient shelving rocks under which the 
bashful trout loves to play hide and seek, with 
its notable falls and mossy glens make it the 
brook trout’s paradise. 
As a barefoot boy, ex-Governor William A. 
Stone, of Pittsburg, lawyer, politician, states¬ 
man, oft waded its shallows. It was from the 
ravine down which it tears and foams, that the 
last elk, with which the Northern Pennsylvania 
mountains once abounded, were annihilated. In 
the early fifties rain, following a heavy snowfall, 
succeeded by intense cold, made a crust through 
which the animals broke, and seven, the rem¬ 
nant of a once noble band, were captured and 
confined in a barn in Delmar township. With 
other curious farmer boys the Governor saw 
them, the nine days’ wonder of the neighbor¬ 
hood. 
For a quarter century Governor Stone has 
coveted this run, genuine, true, skilled sports¬ 
man that he is. He has realized that the poison¬ 
ing of streams supplemented by the work of the 
dynamiter, the limer and pot-hunter, would make 
trout catching in his day in this vicinity as 
scarce as elk hunting, and that to insure a con¬ 
tinuation of the sport for himself and his 
friends, the preserve was his only alterna¬ 
tive. He has fished the rivers and lakes of the 
East and West and the waters of the Provinces 
of Canada in search of a preserve location that 
was accessible; but he has ever traveled in a 
circle and came back to Four-Mile Run as the 
finest in the country. And in addition to its 
ideal location there are for him the boyhood 
associations—memories of care-free youth as 
fragrant as the sweet-fern, whose intoxicating 
perfume mingle with the healing balsam and fir 
which is wafted to one there—and the roar of the 
stream is as the music of the spheres, and the 
soughing south winds through the pines is as 
sleep-enticing as a mother’s lullaby. 
Greedy land companies and selfish tanning 
corporations had to be dealt with; but after 
years of work and waiting, the Governor is 
the proud possessor of 1,300 acres of wild land, 
including the trout streams of Four-Mile and 
Bear Runs. There has been no happier day in 
his whole career than the one in which he 
looked down that ravine as his and “his heirs’ 
forever.” 
In a rude log cabin Governor Stone spends 
every minute he can spare from his busy Pitts¬ 
burg life, and in the primitive, simple pleasures 
of the place he finds his greatest comfort, en¬ 
joyment, happiness, recreation and recuperation. 
What it means to him is merely conjecture to 
us, but the peace, placidity and satisfaction that 
are depicted on his rugged features while there, 
speak more forcibly than words of the supreme 
content he finds at “Heartsease Cabin” in the 
heart of the happy hills. 
In the interior of the shack rude bunks are 
fitted up. It is easy enough to tell which is the 
Governor’s by the extra length and width. On 
hemlock browse with sweet-fern pillow, this big 
hearted man, one of Tioga’s most illustrious sons, 
worn with the “cares that infest the day,” after 
a day’s successful fishing in the glen, is lulled by 
the laughing cascade, the gentle murmuring 
brook, the bass solo of an owl down the valley, 
the sharp bark of the fox, the plaintive whippoor¬ 
will, into that dreamless slumber, that “sleep 
which knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the 
death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, balm 
of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief 
nourisher in life’s feast,” while forest runes swing 
censers of nature’s choicest odors which creep in 
between the chinks of the cabin till “the ever¬ 
lasting gates of the morning are thrown wide 
open, and the lord of the day, arrayed in glories 
too severe for gaze of man, begins his state.’’ 
The preserve is in charge of ex-Commissioner 
Louis Doumaux, of Wellsboro, one of the Gover¬ 
nor’s tent mates of the 187th Pennsylvania Volun¬ 
teers during the Civil War. Much of the time they 
spend alone around the cheerful camp-fire, and who 
doubts that the battles of Cold Harbor, Peters¬ 
burg, Fort Hell and other important engagements, 
in which their gallant regiment participated, are 
through the smoke of the pipes of peace, modestly 
fought over again. 
The whole country round about teems with 
game. Four bears were seen from the cabin door 
last season and not infrequently a mammoth 
buck, pursued by dogs crashes through the brush, 
swims the river, climbs the steep ascent on the 
other side and pauses to look triumphantly at 
the yelping hounds running up and down the bank 
seeking the trail which the swift water has 
washed away. Or a doe and fawn walk leisurely 
to the run .to. drink long deep draughts of its 
sparkling waters and retrace their steps into the 
bushes. Pheasants, foxes, rabbits and quail 
abound, with an occasional wild cat to disturb the 
harmony. In the river there is excellent bass 
fishing. 
Governor Stone is never happier than when 
dispensing hospitality, for which he is famous; 
and many trout dinners, the fish for which are 
secured through his prowess, are served to those 
for whom he cares to have with him. Seated at 
the head of a rudely constructed table out of 
doors commanding a picturesque view of moun¬ 
tains, river and sky, in a rustic chair of more 
than ordinary substantial proportions constructed 
expressly for him, Governor Stone is the ideal 
host and story teller. 
In this simple life, this wholesome quiet exist¬ 
ence far from the haunts of men, the Governor 
has solved the secret of the heart’s content. It 
is not marble halls, dazzling drawing rooms with 
their insincerity, artificially evanescing popularity, 
bauble and tinsel, but back to the soil, near to 
nature’s heart, contact with the sweet, brown, 
healing earth from which we sprang and to which 
we must return and from which we hear con¬ 
tinually in our ears as well as our sub-conscious¬ 
ness the “call of the wild.” 
William Lincoln Shearer. 
