294 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May, 1918 
NESSMUK, POET AND PRACTICAL WOODSMAN 
% 
THE PERSONALITY OF GEORGE W. SEARS AS SHOWN BY HIS WRITINGS ON WOOD¬ 
CRAFT ENDEARED HIM TO READERS OF FOREST AND STREAM FOR MANY YEARS 
T O the readers of Forest and Stream 
the word “Nessmuk” is at once well 
known and strange. To the later gen¬ 
eration of readers it is in some vague man¬ 
ner an epitome of woods lore, woodcraft, 
and all things pertaining to the world of 
the great outdoors; but those of the earlier 
generations who have read and loved For¬ 
est and Stream regard it as the symbol of 
a unique and interesting personality which 
was unfolded to them through a series of 
writings in this magazine extending 
through many years. 
George W. Sears, in the character of 
“Nessmuk” by which he was known to the 
readers of this journal, was the product of 
peculiar circumstances. Emerson’s expres¬ 
sion of the reward of worth—“Though you 
live in the heart of the woods, the world 
shall make a beaten trail to your very 
door”—were never more truly spoken than 
of Nessmuk. His was a woods life, much 
in solitude. He wrote for his own pleas¬ 
ure and his writings were the simple over¬ 
flow of a life of deep experience, yet many 
of his practical ideas on camping and “go¬ 
ing light” have been adopted by the United 
States Army, his book on “Woodcraft” is 
considered not only an authority on the 
subject but a classic in style as well, his 
rods and lures have never been surpassed, 
the canoe which he designed has been pre¬ 
served in Smithsonian Institution and, be¬ 
cause of its extreme lightness and superior 
utility, it is now being used by the United 
States Government as a model in develop¬ 
ing life boats light enough to be carried 
on naval airplanes. Could Nessmuk’s im¬ 
agination have pictured such a destiny for 
the little craft “Sairy Gamp”? 
Nessmuk, as he once humorously put it, 
“took to the woods for very life.” When 
at an early age, being of consumptive ten¬ 
dencies, he was told by his physicians that 
but a year or two of "life lay before him, 
with pluck and resolution undaunted, he 
sought healing and strength from the for¬ 
ests and the mountains From that day 
he was for 'much of the time annually a 
woods dweller, sleeping under canvas, in 
“brush camp” or beneath the rough bark 
lean-to; following the deer and the bear, 
Studying the secrets of the wilderness; and 
all the while proving the blessed influences 
of the simple outdoor existence to build up a 
fragile constitution and restore to health. 
But while dwelling thus apart from society, 
there was nothing of the spirit of the re¬ 
cluse in him; he was in touch with his 
fellowmen, alive to the questions of the day, 
concerned with the problems of society, a 
student of human nature. He was gifted 
with a superior intellect and it did not stag¬ 
nate in the woods. Uneducated in the 
schools, he was yet self-taught, and well 
taught. He knew the best authors. That 
was no idle boast of his, on being asked 
what books he took into the woods, that he 
found it necessary to take none, seeing that 
he carried Shakespeare and other poets 
under his hat. He possessed a rich store 
of mother wit, a vast fund of practical 
common sense, a philosophy of his own. 
He commanded the respect of intellectual 
T N the June issue of Forest and 
* Stream will be published Ness¬ 
muk’s description of his canoe “Sairy 
Gamp,” illustrated by photographs 
and working drawings of the orig¬ 
inal canoe by W. Starling Burgess, 
of Marblehead, Mass., who is using 
her as a model for developing life¬ 
boats light enough to be carried 
on naval airplanes. [Editors.] 
men with whom he came in contact. A 
distinguished clergyman once wrote us after 
spending a fortnight in camp with “Ness¬ 
muk,” “Of all the men I have ever met, 
Sears is the best.worth knowing.” 
The salient points of “Nessmuk’s” life 
.are best told in the following modest notes 
which he himself prepared as a preface to 
a volume of verse, “Forest Runes,” which 
was published in 1887: 
I T is a sad necessity, he writes, that com¬ 
pels a man to speak often or much of 
himself. Most writers come to loathe 
the first person singular, and to look upon 
the capital I as a ptonominal calamity. And 
yet, how can a man tell aught of himself 
without the “Eternal ego”? 
I am led to these remarks by a request 
of my publishers that I furnish some ac¬ 
count of myself. For instance, I W2s born 
in a sterile part of sterile Massachusetts, on 
the border of Douglas Woods, within half 
a mile of Junkamaug Lake. This startling 
event happened in the “South Gore” about 
sixty-four years ago. I did not have a fair 
average start in life at first. A snuffy old 
nurse who was present at my birth was 
fond of telling me in after years a legend 
like this: “Ga-a-rge, you on’y weighed fo’ 
pounds when you wuz born, ’n’ we put ye 
inter a quart mug ’n’ turned a sasser over 
ye.” 
Junkamaug Lake is six miles long, with 
many bays, points and islands, with dense 
thickets along its shores at the time of 
which I speak, and a plentiful stock of 
pickerel, perch and other fish. It was just 
the sort of country to delight the Indian 
mind; and here it was that a remnant of 
the Nepmug Indians had a reservation, 
while they also had a camp on the shores 
on Nepmug Pond, where they spent much 
time loafing, fishing, making baskets, and 
setting snares for rabbits and grouse. 
The word Nepmuk, or as it is sometimes 
spelled, Nepmug, means woodduck. This, 
in the obsolete lingo of the once powerful 
Narrangansetts. The best Indian of the 
band was “Injun Levi,” as the whites called 
him. He was known among his tribe as 
“Nessmuk”; and I think he exerted a 
stronger influence on my future than any 
other man. As a fine physical specimen of 
the animal man I have seldom seen his 
equal. As a woodsman and trusty friend 
he was good as gold, but he could not 
change the Indian nature that throbbed in 
every vein and filled his entire being. Just 
here I cannot do better than reproduce a 
sketch of him and his tribe which appeared 
in the columns of Forest and Stream. I 
will add that Junkamaug is only a corrup¬ 
tion of the Indian name, and the other 
names I give as I had them from the In¬ 
dians themselves: 
Nessmuk means in the Narragansett 
tongue, or did mean, as long as there were 
any Narragansetts to give tongue, Wood- 
duck, or rather Wooddrake. Also it was 
the name of the athletic young brave who 
was wont to steal me away from home be¬ 
fore I was five years old and carry me 
around Nepmug and Junkamaug lakes, day 
after day, until I imbibed much of his 
woodcraft, all his love for forest life, and, 
alas, much of his good-natured shiftlessness. 
Even now my blood flows faster as I 
think of the rides I had on his well-formed , 
shoulders, and a death-grip on his strong, 
black mane. Or rode “belly bumps” on his 
back across old Junkamaug, hugging him 
tightly round the neck, like the selfish Ego- ■ 
tist that I was. He tire? He drown? I 
would as soon have thought to tire a wolf 
or drown a whale. At first these excur¬ 
sions were not fairly concluded with a final 
settlement at home—said settlement consist- 1 
ing of a head-raking with a fine-toothed 
comb, that left my scalp raw, and a subse¬ 
quent interview, of a private nature, with 
Pa behind the barn, at which a yearling 
apple tree sprout was always a leading fac¬ 
tor. (My blood tingles at that recollection, 
too.) 
Gradually they came to understand that 
I was incorrigible, or, as a maiden aunt of 
the old school put it, “given over”; and, so , 
that I did not run away from school, I was 
allowed to “run with them dirty Injuns,” I 
as the aunt aforesaid expressed it. But I 
did run away from school, and books of 
the dry sort, to study the great book of 
nature. Did I lose by it? I canijot tell, 
even now. As the world goes, perhaps yes. 
No man can transcend his possibilities. I 
am no believer in the supernatural; mes¬ 
merism, spiritualism and a dozen other 
(continued on page 303) 
