November, 1917 
529 
FOREST AND STREAM 
March. They had wonderful shooting 
during these years; they killed, among 
other large bags, on “Northwest Point” in 
one day’s shooting, 251 head, principally 
red heads and broad bills. About the year 
i860, Chadwicks reached the zenith of its 
glory as a shooting resort. Many wealthy 
men from New York and Philadelphia 
made it their headquarters and the rivalry 
to secure the best shooting points was very 
keen. My father and uncle became dis¬ 
satisfied with conditions, and in 1863 moved 
their outfit to Ortleys, where they contin¬ 
ued their shooting until the infirmities of 
age removed them from the field. 
There were many noted market shoot¬ 
ers in those days, some of the names I 
still recall, the Lovelands, the Hulses, 
John Ortley, the Claytons, the Applegates, 
the Bryants, the Wilberts, and last but not 
least Bill Miller, who was believed by 
many to be the best shot of them all. I 
remember him killing eighteen black ducks 
in twenty shots at singles and pairs, and 
an entire flock of eight geese, with one 
shot from a single barrel four bore, this, 
of course, being a sitting shot. 
first duck shooting trip was made 
in November, 1865, as a boy of thir¬ 
teen years. I had been trained and 
prepared for this trip, by my father, and 
I believe showed promise of being a “chip 
from the old block.” Mrs. Achsa or 
“Mammy Ortley,” was the widow of Mi¬ 
chael Ortley, who owned about one thou¬ 
sand acres of beach and meadow land, 
reaching from Chadwicks on the north, to 
the old Cranbury Inlet on the south. In an 
unsuccessful attempt to reopen this Inlet, 
Mr. Ortley lost a comfortable fortune for 
his day and generation, and left his family 
land poor. Their house had been built in 
Colonial times and must have been at one 
time quite an attractive home. It was sur¬ 
rounded by a grove of very large willow 
trees and two large silver maples, these 
being the only trees on “Squan” beach. 
This grove was a noted landmark, many 
of the captains of coasting schooners in 
•early days using them in their reckoning; 
the grove is gone now, except for a gnarled 
stump or two and the house is in ruins. 
The Ortley family, when I made their ac¬ 
quaintance in 1865, consisted of Mrs. Ort¬ 
ley, then over seventy years of age, one 
daughter, Lydia, a cripple, and two sons, 
Jacob and Michael; one son, John, and a 
daughter, Mrs. Josie Clayton, had left 
home, and another daughter with her hus¬ 
band, Captain Bill Miller, and their family, 
occupied the south end of the house. 
These people were very poor, but hos¬ 
pitable. Everything in their power was 
ffone to make 
us comfort- 
able, and this 
trip was the 
beginning of a 
friendship, that 
endured during 
the life of the 
family. 
The long 
stretch of Ort¬ 
ley beach had 
many noted 
shooting points 
on the bay, the 
side points be- 
“West Point,” 
“Stooling Point,” “Mike’s Island,” “Jones’s 
Point” (now Wilds Island), and “Pelican 
Point’; in stormy and windy weather, 
there were many desirable inshore points, 
the Crab Pond, Muskrat Creek, “Gabes 
Point,” Broad Thoroughfare and Pelican 
Thoroughfare. 
West Point” in 1865 was a very noted 
shooting point; there were no buildings 
where the town of Lavelette now stands, 
and the cove that comes to their present 
dock was known in those days as “Nigger 
House Cove.” In heavy easterly or west¬ 
erly weather, the fowl would work up in 
the cove almost to the shore, and under 
such conditions made excellent shooting 
on West Point, and in the “Crab Pond,” 
but with the building of Lavelette, the 
glory of West Point departed. 
We found the shooting conditions en¬ 
tirely different at Ortleys from what they 
were at Chadwicks, from Bay Head to 
Chadwicks the water is quite deep on the 
average, this seems to be the natural feed¬ 
ing grounds of the diving ducks, the can¬ 
vas backs, red heads, broad bills, etc.; 
from Chadwicks to “Stooling Point,” in 
the center of the bay, is a long stretch of 
shoals, commonly called the “Dry Flats,” 
this is the home of the geese, mallards, 
black ducks, “smees” or pin tails, wid¬ 
geons, etc. By changing our outfit of de¬ 
coys, we soon adapted ourselves to the new 
conditions, and so passed many contented 
years. In some seasons we would have 
glorious shooting, in others not so good, 
depending on the weather conditions. 
By changing, our base from Chadwicks 
to Ortleys,/ we secured the entire right to 
shoot from their points during our stay; 
this gave us plenty of shooting room, so 
we added to our party from time to time, 
until there were eight of us, all boon com¬ 
panions, who agreed well together, and all 
fairly good shots. Many happy hours were 
spent on the points, and before the roaring 
fire, in the open fireplace, piled high with 
driftwood. A member of our party for 
many years was Mr. Henry Wilds of Jer¬ 
sey City, a genial Scotsman, whose breech 
loader was the first ever shot at Ortleys. 
W ITH the coming of the breech loader 
the shooting gradually fell off, but 
we still made good bags, and then 
after a few years came absolute disaster, 
in the building of the railroad down the 
beach. Mrs. Ortley having died some 
years before, the property had been di¬ 
vided under her will; most of the heirs 
now sold their holdings to real estate pro¬ 
moters. My friend Michael, who had been 
bequeathed the homestead and central por¬ 
tion of the estate, held his portion a few 
years longer and then sold for a large sum, 
and moved to Toms River, where lie died 
a few years later. In 1881 a few of our 
party, seeing our control of the shooting 
points about to pass from us, bought 
“Stooling Point” and “Mike’s Island.” 
After Michael Ortley’s departure, the 
house was run for a few years by Jim 
Bryant and his wife, and then came 
that prince of good fellows, Peter 
Johnson and his good wife Matilda, 
with their six children. The coming of 
the Johnsons caused great rejoicing in our 
party. Once more the “Clan” gathered 
around the festive board, for be it known, 
Mrs. Johnson was a good cook and house¬ 
keeper, once more were happy days. To be 
sure the shooting was poorer than before, 
but we were housed well, and fed well, 
and so for over thirty years, these excel¬ 
lent people catered to our wants, until in¬ 
creasing years compelled them to retire to 
their little farm near Toms River. 
One by one the members of our happy 
company have been cut down by the “Grim 
Reaper” until at this writing in 1917, of 
the original eight, I alone am left behind. 
T HE advent of the railroad brought an 
ever increasing number of shooters 
to the bay, until after a few years 
they overran the country like the locusts in 
Egypt. They dropped off the train at every 
station. They had house boats in every 
cove. The local people called them 
“Meadow Gunners” and their decoys were 
put out from every sod bunch; they shot 
in season and out, from dark till daylight, 
until they drove the ducks from all their 
inshore feeding grounds, to the “Dry 
Flats,” there alone they were safe, and 
there they stay to this day, thoroughly edu¬ 
cated. The shooting became so poor, that 
we came down from habit and merely for 
the outing, seldom, excepting at rare inter¬ 
vals, getting any shooting worthwhile. 
These conditions continued until the 
passage of the Federal Migratory Bird 
Law, this causing the abolishment of spring 
shooting, with the better enforcement of 
the law, has worked wonders in a very 
few years. The summer of 1916 saw hun¬ 
dreds of pairs of ducks nesting in the 
marshes of Barnegat Bay. The past sea¬ 
son’s shooting has been the best I have 
enjoyed in thirty years, and I believe there 
were more wild fowl in the bay, when the 
season closed, than there has been at one 
time since the railroad has been built. 
With a loud snap the blazing logs at my 
feet fall apart, 
*> 
f* 
and my rev¬ 
erie is rude¬ 
ly interrupted. 
As I take the 
tongs to place 
them together 
again, a famil¬ 
iar voice from 
the stair head 
calls, “Are you 
going to sit 
up all night? 
Don’t you 
know it is 
after eleven 
o’clock ?” 
