866 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Eastern Handicap 
Ninth Eastern 
Handicap, one of the Five Interstate Classics, 
Brings out Fine 
Scores 
Written and Photographed by W. G. Beecroft. 
Through the wholesome generosity of members of 
The Bradford (Pa.) Gun Club, the Ninth Eastern Handi¬ 
cap is added to trap shooting history as a delightful 
outing to over one hundred red blooded men and tacks 
another success to the untarnished management of 
Elmer E. Shaner. Bradford, as most every one knows, 
is one of the arteries of the great oil region of Penn¬ 
sylvania—as a facetious trappist remarked: Socially in 
Bradford Hoyle is Standard, commercially its Standard 
(H) oil—Rotten, yes? In other parts of the country 
we find wells in the back yards to supply water for 
household purposes. In Bradford every house has its 
oil well in the yard, to supply the house with fuel— 
when the lamp burns low they go draw a quart of oil 
and fill her up—what they do for water is not evident, 
perhaps they use none—may be it’s oilright the way 
it is. But to digress for a moment from petroleum. 
The Bradford Gun Club is delightfully situated in the 
lap of the mountains, with spacious, well kept grounds 
and an architecturally beautiful club house of brown 
stone, roomy lockers and shell houses; reached by auto¬ 
mobile over a fine state road and a pleasant trolley ride. 
The hotel accommodations, though limited, are first 
class, and the proprietors, especially of the Holley, are 
courteous and personally interested in the welfare of 
guests. Incidentally, and once more to stray from the 
bang, bang end of this story, it is worth while for 
those shooters, who never have attended one of the big 
interstate shoots, to know that this, like others of the 
series, was free from the money grubbing spirit among 
contestants—as one man, who had come out to the 
grounds after a sitting in the night before remarked: 
“This is my vacation, my recreation. I didn’t come 
here to work, I came to enjoy myself”—and he did. 
Everyone there, excepting of course the dandy bunch 
of professionals, to whom our play is work, had a health¬ 
ful, enjoyable outing and a chance to mingle and swap 
stories with a hundred other sportsmen—and these are 
some stories turned loose among that bunch, this may 
be corroborated by Sim Glover—who told one about 
a lumberman who always went to bed with a cud of 
Piper Heidsick in his face. Just before he plunged 
into his final doze he very carefully stuck the cud on 
the head of the bed, ready for work in case he woke 
during the night. His wife didn’t care for his habit 
and figured that if she could get rid of the cud without 
his knowledge, he would wake a few times, find the cud 
missing, go to sleep and eventually outgrow the habit. 
Her difficulty was to devise means of getting rid of 
the chew without her husband’s knowledge. Finally 
she decided to put the cud in her mouth until morning 
when she could dispose of it. At the end of a few 
weeks she found her husband didn’t miss the chew any 
but to her surprise, discovered she couldn’t go to sleep 
without a chew of tobacco. Moral—Ask George Lyons, 
Bill Joslyn, Sim Glover or Bill Foord, I don’t know. 
But speaking of tournaments, this one was, of course, 
called promptly to order, by the only Elmer Shaner, at 
9 o’clock Monday for limbering up the guns, and push¬ 
ing the shoulder into place for a three days task. A 
cold east wind was blowing synchopations into the tar¬ 
gets and icicles into the shooters, but even with bad 
scores good temper prevailed. The practice event 
went to “Dol” Richardson of Dover, Delaware, on 
the rattling score of 96 x too. Some cracking of a 
bunch of wind blown targets. Hank Stevens lifted pro 
high on exactly the same score. The first day on regu¬ 
lar program blew in from the east accompanied by 
varying small gales that put all the new dances into 
the targets and made shooting hard. H. W. Heikes, 
son of the captain of the old guard Rollo Heikes, made 
the remarkable score of 144 x 150 in this event taking 
first place by a wide margin, Billy Foord was second 
with 142. Les German, the most conscientious trap 
shooter, and the best, in the world, was high for 
wads only, with 141. In this event Billy Foord won the 
Holley Trophy, presented by F. P. Holley to high 
gun on the first day, not figuring those who win or 
are placed in the handicap. We didn’t see the trophy 
but as Billy thought it good enough to give to Mrs. 
Billy—enough said. Second day came in gloriously 
though still under control of a western atmosphere 
vacuum. Bill Crosby was the bright particular star 
going down the line, cracking steadily without a miss 
until he finished with 100 straight. George Lyon was 
upper amateur with 99. Right here a discussion arose 
as to loads used by the shooters. Old Fred Gilbert, 
who has been in the hospital more than two months 
with rheumatism, is credited with using the heaviest 
load among all shooters, then comes Tom Marshall, 
followed by Bill ‘Crosby. After George Lyon broke 
99, some one asked him what his load was. “Nine 
drams of Greenriver and three ounces of Bull” said the 
quick witted Durhamite, who wears an imperfect 
diamond bull in his neck tie. L. E. Mallory, Jr., presi¬ 
dent of the Bradford Gun Club was second high ama¬ 
teur with 98, while J. Mowell Hawkins seconded the 
pros, with 98. Doubles went into a tie at 46 x 25 
pair, great scores, by F. S. Wright and G. E. Painter, 
while George Maxwell, the marvelous one armed shoot¬ 
er, broke the same number for the pros. 
The weather for the preliminary was as a shooter’s 
day should be—no wind, good light and no humidity. 
Many high scores were made, the winner being Dr. 
W. C. Wooten, of Buffalo Audubon Club, with 97. 
After a double shoot off with H. B. Blackmer, C. A. 
Galbraith took third on 96. J. M. Hawkins took high 
pro gun with 96. The warm up for the big event, 
was shot Thursday morning with 106 entries. R. H. 
Bruns, a dangerous man at all times but a Hellion 
when in form, broke 98 and won, after a shoot off with 
W. S. Behm and F. M. Edwards. Lester German was 
upper professional, missing only one of his century. 
The big event, the Eastern started at noon, with 126 
entries, a short lay off to attend the inner man was 
taken, after two squads had shot, and then back to the 
scores and the finals of four days’ shooting. Through the 
entire event interest was keen and the result was not 
known until pretty near the end. First E. W. Kelley 
came down the line with 94, that looked pretty good, 
at least for place. Then along came R. J. Gumbert with 
three nineteens, then a twenty and things looked toward 
Gumbert—he fell down on his last string to eighteen, 
finishing with 95—he went right over and shook hands 
with Bill Crosby and we took his photograph. Down 
came W. Hart with a 95 followed by John Martin, with 
one gallus flying in the breeze. Pretty soon, just 
after the money had been divided in the minds’ eye of 
the bunch around the score board, Ward Hammond, who 
had left the peerless bandmaster for a moment, slipped 
in with the tip that the winner was shooting on trap 
five; sure enough he was, it being no other than 
F. S. Wright who went out with 97 and won the Ninth 
Eastern Handicap. The crowd remained while Elmer 
Shaner presented the prizes and pulled one of his 
characteristic little speeches, with the modesty of David 
Belasco and the oratory of the king of the grape juice 
circuit, and right here we feel constrained to add that 
Elmer oratorically could go around the bases smooth 
shod faster than Bill Bryan could cover ’em with 
spikes. Bradford Gun Club wants the G. A. H. after 
Dayton gets through and Elmer said he hoped they 
wouid get it and pledged his vote—we hope they get 
it, but first they build a new hotel and run in a 
couple more railroads. It was an exceptionally well 
managed shoot, and the officers and members of Brad¬ 
ford Gun Club deserve great credit for their efforts. 
SIDE NOTES. 
Ward Hammond would have shot better had he not 
had visions, framed in the mountain background, of a 
powder man hobnobbing with John Philip Sousa. 
A coterie of crackers was discussing the momentous 
proposition as to who is the best trap shot in America. 
Every one was suggested from Ralph Spotts. to Wm. 
Magee, when a small trap boy piped up with “Bart 
Lewis is the best shooter in the world, he told me so 
hisself.” 
•WINCHESTER 
LOADED SHELLS AND SHOTGUNS 
BY INVITATION 
MEMBER OF 
NEW YORK.,U.S.A^ 
The Big Winners at the Eastern Handicap 
EASTERN HANDICAP : Won by Frank S. Wright, of South Wales, 
N. Y., with a Winchester Repeating Shotgun. SCORE: 97x100, 
from 21 yards. 
PRELIMINARY HANDICAP: Won by Dr. W. C. Wootton, of 
Buffalo, N. Y., with Winchester “Leader” Loaded Shells. 
SCORE: 97x100, and 35x40 on shootoff of tie, from 17 yards. 
HIGH PROFESSIONAL: J. M. Hawkins with a Winchester Re¬ 
peating Shotgun and Winchester Loaded Shells. SCORE 96x100, 
from 21 yards. 
HIGH AMATEUR AVERAGE FOR 16 YARD AND DOUBLE TARGETS: Won 
by G. E. Painter, of Pittsburgh, with Winchester Loaded Shells, 
SCORE: 375x400. 
LONG RUN: W. R. Crosby, with Winchester “Leader” Shells, 
1-0 straight. 
The W Brand Leads in Victories and in Popularity 
