Yachting Magazines—Past and Present 
BY C. G. DAVIS. 
Away back years ago, when the early settlers 
of America had all ihey could do in fair weather 
to grow produce enough to prevent starving 
during the winter, and when the frequent at¬ 
tacks by Indians or wild beasts necessitated 
carrying one’s shooting iron, there was no 
time for reading—when not working, one 
wanted to rest. There were no gas or electric 
lights either in those days to read at night by, 
and for that matter, no literature save, possibly, 
the much-cherished family Bible to read. 
Yachting is but one of the many channels of 
sport for man’s recreation, made possible by 
civilization, ,and following yachting, came pub¬ 
lications dealing with that sport. 
It is of these publications I was thinking and 
comparing the happy lot of a yachtsman of to¬ 
day with that of one fifty years ago. There 
was then practically no yachting lore in this 
country, and any one who was fortunate enough 
to have a copy of some English work on that 
subject was indeed a lucky man. 
But to-day, as night comes on, instead of the 
uncertain light from a tallow dip, as the poor 
pioneers had. we turn a little key on the chan¬ 
delier and the room instantly is flooded with a 
white light that rivals daylight itself. Easy 
Morris chairs to flop in, pipes and tobacco at 
one’s elbow and a bookcase loaded down with 
bound volumes of yachting magazines, books on 
yachting subjects and letter files full of clippings 
or photographs on yachting. Pictures of yachts 
dot the wall paper—some bouncing along down 
wind, with balloon jibs drawing hard as china, 
or two or three in a bunch having it hammer 
and tongs in a close scrap to windward. 
Some pictures are actual photographs, instan¬ 
taneous reproductions of some of the happiest 
moments in one’s life, and we sit back and blow 
lings of smoke as we close our eyes and dream 
over again that particular race. Some are 
colored lithographs or paintings, where the 
artists have added their cunning to accentuate 
certain features of a race that long ago caused 
a sensation in yachting. 
Relics-of good days past, such as a silver 
mug, a prize for some race sailed, an old 
tattered but much cherished flag or two, a 
sheath knife that has clung to one like a true 
companion, a varnished board with a name in 
tarnished brass letters, all that remains of our 
first boat, and many more such objects all dear 
to a yachtsman’s heart adorn the walls. 
But to come back to the bookcase and its 
magazines. Here indeed extremes meet—the 
past and the present. The past represented by 
what are now known as Peverelly’s Aquatics; 
the present, by four new magazines started in 
1907. 
Peverelly’s Aquatics was perhaps the oldest 
magazine published in the interest of yachting 
and rowing in this country. Cushing, Bardua 
& Co. were the publishers, and for editor they 
had the best known marine writer on the New 
York dailies at that time, a man who then had 
had twenty-five years’ experience to draw on, 
Charles A. Peverelly. 
The first number of this monthly appeared, in 
June, 1872, a blue paper-covered book 6 by g/ 
inches in size, with 66 pages of reading and 
several pages of advertisements of such old-time 
yacht builders as P. McGiehan, James Lennox, 
Henry Smedley, Thomas Fearon and the old 
sail-making firm of John Sawyer. 
The cover design represented the schooner 
yachts Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta prepar¬ 
ing to start on their wintry race across the At¬ 
lantic in 1866. The shell boats racing repre¬ 
sented the Atalantas taking their last pull on the 
Passaic River. These were framed in rope 
design, with oars, anchors, windlass and mooring 
buoy scattered about. 
There was a frontispiece, an engraving taken 
from the celebrated painting by A. Cary Smith, 
of the Sappho rounding the Southwest Spit in 
her last race with the Livonia. 
This monthly cost $4 a year, and was the 
greatest boon to yachtsmen. It had the field 
entirely to itself for nearly three years, when it 
stopped publication. 
The next oldest paper on yachting is the 
Forest and Stream, a weekly magazine that 
started with Mr. Charles Hallock as editor on 
Aug. 14, 1873, the year after the Aquatic Maga¬ 
zine. and is still running to-day, thereby enjoy¬ 
ing the distinction of being the oldest yachting 
publication of to-day. Few are the yachtsmen 
not acquainted with this paper, and all remem¬ 
ber reading, either as man or boy, the delight¬ 
ful accounts of yachting experiences as told by 
Forest and Stream’s first yachting editor, C. 
P. Kunhardt, who joined the paper in 1876. 
Mr. Kunhardt was a cutter crank, but a frank 
outspoken one. and a practical yachtsman, and 
did more for the cutter model in this country 
than any other man. His sketches were the de¬ 
light of thousands, and the large book called 
“Small Yachts,” which he gave the yachting 
public, will keep his memory forever green 
among those who love the sport. Mr. Kunhardt 
was lost with all on board the steamship Con- 
serva, which he was taking to Samana, San Do¬ 
mingo. 
Forest and Stream was first published 11 by 
15 inches in size, and cost $5 a year—this has 
now been reduced to $3. It had no cover but 
the name across the top of the first page, and 
the date, etc., with the reading matter beginning 
right on the first of its sixteen pages. Its title 
across the first page is as shown, this idea 
being preserved to-day, only instead of an old- 
time engraving, a half-tone print has been sub¬ 
stituted to make it more up-to-date. 
In 1906 the size of Forest and Stream was 
reduced to g ]/ 2 by I2j4 inches; but the number of 
pages being increased, the amount of reading 
matter remained about the same. 
W. P. Stephens succeeded Kunhardt in the 
editorship, and being a practical canoeist, the 
small boat sailors and yachtsmen were well 
catered to. Many a yachtsman, after reading 
his fill of salt water, has turned to the front 
pages and gone off into the woods on a bear 
hunt with Geo. B. Grinnell or gone trout fishing 
with Perry D. Frazer, the present editor. 
Forest and Stream catered largely at one 
time to canoeing, which along in the ’80s was 
much more popular than to-day. 
In the canoeist ranks of those days were men 
whose enthusiasm did no't die with the approach 
of cold weather. They continued to meet and 
recount their summer adventures with smoke 
and good cheer in abundance. One of them, 
Arthur Brentano, being in the publication busi¬ 
ness, started a little canoeing magazine _ in 
February, 1882. called the American Canoejst. 
Col. Chas. Ledyard Norton, who, along with 
John Habberton, author of Budge and Toddie, 
published their canoeing experiences in a book 
called “Canoeing in Kanuckia,” was editor. 
Various canoeists had a hand in running this 
canoe paper at that time, among them such well- 
known canoeists as Wm.. Whitlock, C. K. 
Monroe, C. G. Y. King, R. J. Wilkin, R. B. 
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Burchard and C. Bowyer Vaux. It fell to Mr. 
Vaux eventually to run the paper for two years 
or more, until December, 1887, when it was 
transferred to H. H. Soule, who got out one 
number in June, 1888, with the name changed 
to The American Canoeist and Single Hand 
Cruiser. In January, 1889, the paper made an¬ 
other start under the name of Sail and Paddle, 
published by the Nautical Publishing Co., of 
Watertown, N. Y. » 
There were during those years from 1882 to 
1890 many very witty and amusing little con¬ 
tributions published in that canoeing paper. 
Any one who has ever read any of those 
Jabberwock stories written by George A. 
Warder, will never forget them—they stuck. 
About this time there was a young man in 
New York, working as a salesman for J. J. 
Bockee, 47 Dev street, dealer in St. Lawrence 
River skiffs, canoes and steam launches. This 
young man in one of his trips up to the boat 
works met Pitt J. Baker, who then controlled 
the Nautical Publishing Co., of Watertown, N. 
Y., and as the result of a few moments’ conver¬ 
sation, decided to start another publication—one 
that would appeal to yachtsmen as. the Sail and 
Sweep had done to canoeists. So in May. 1800, 
a thin, gray-covered pamphlet appeared with the 
name “The Rudder” worked in rope letters 
