

JULY 13, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
51 

old friend of mine, then governor of the State, 
said I “could catch trout out of a stone wall.” 
Many and many a good breakfast have I 
brought home for a Sunday morning, sometimes 
twenty, sometimes forty, ranging from five to 
eight inches long, seldom finding any larger 
ones in these small mountain brooks, and al- 
ways returning to the water the fingerlings of 
three or four inches, which sometimes I caught 
when using small hooks, till I learnt wisdom and 
adopted No. 1 or 1-0 hooks. These held a larger 
bait, attracted larger fish, and avoided hooking 
so many of the little fellows. 
My boyish fishing closed at the age of 17, 
when I went to Lowell, to enter a business life, 
but I had a red letter day at its close. It was 
a warm, early spring, and one bright morning, 
the last of April, ’41, I tramped out over the 
hills four miles to a favorite brook, and in two 
miles’ fishing filled my basket, getting one trout 
so large that he broke the tip of my rod, and 
I had to open the cover to get him in, as he 
would not go through the usual hole cut in it. 
From Lowell I went to help build up the new 
City of Lawrence, where I got no fishing, ex- 
cept a day or two-on salt water at Gloucester, 
or the Isles of Shoals, where [I caught cod and 
haddock. 
In the summer of 1850 my health failed me, 
and I went to Europe to study manufactures 
and purchase machinery for the new city. I 
served three months in the summer of 1851 on 
the jury at the International Exposition in 
London, traveled extensively through England, 
and visited France and Belgium. 
Returning in the autumn, I had a couple of 
months’ shooting with my brother, at my old 
home, and then installed and started the ma- 
chinery which I had purchased in Europe. The 
next year was spent in New York, in‘connection 
with the so-called ‘Crystal Palace’ Exhibition 
in Reservoir Square. In 1854 I built and started 
up a cotton mill, at the village of Indian Or- 
chard, in Springfield, Mass., and here got some 
trout fishing in the north and south branches 
of Mill River, which supplies the Springfield 
Armory, and in neighboring brooks in Chicopee 
and Ludlow. In January, 1858, I went to Man- 
chester, N. H., where I found good trout brooks 
in abundance, within easy reach, and I had an- 
other red letter day on one of them in the 
spring of 1861. Taking advantage of a holiday 
with three companions, I visited the once cele- 
brated Bear Brook, in Allenstown. After a 
twelve-mile drive, we reached the old Ely farm 
about 7 o’clock in the morning, and at once 
started up the brook. We had been advised to 
go up about half a mile before beginning to 
fish, which we did, and worked up with moderate 
success till noon, when we stopped for lunch. 
It had come out bright and hot, and we set out 
for home. On our way up we had found some 
deep holes in the edge of the woods, in which 
my companions, who were in the lead, got a few 
fair trout, and they stopped to try them again 
on our return, while I kept on down the stream. 
Just as the sun was setting, I reached the spot 
where we had begun to fish, and a few yards 
below it I struck a nine-inch trout. I kept on 
striking them, and when my companions reached 
me at the farm, at almost dark, I had filled my 
basket with fish from eight to'ten inches long 
and a weight of catch equal to all of their three 
baskets combined. Some of my friends and 
neighbors had a good breakfast the next 
morning. 
After the close of the war I was in the govern- 
ment service four or five years and did-no fish- 
ing to speak of, but returned to Manchester in 
1871, and haunted my old brooks again. 
In 1876 I was appointed chairman of the New 
Hampshire Fish and Game Commission, and at- 
tended the first national meeting at Phila- 
delphia, meeting my old friend Livingston 
Stone, with whose fishculture labors I was al- 
ready familiar; Charles MHallock, Professor 
Baird, Robert B. Roosevelt, Fred Mather, and 
others, interested in fisheries. In the spring of 
1877 my colleague, Mr. A. H. Powers, and my- 
self visited the upper waters of the Merrimack 
River, in search of a suitable site for a hatchery, 
which we found at Livermore Falls on the 
Pemigewasset River, about three miles above 

Plymouth, and established it the next season. 
In 1877 Mr. Powers and I procured a small 
number of young fresh-water salmon from Com- 
missioner Brackett, of Massachusetts, which we 
divided and planted in Asquam and Sunapee 
lakes, being the first plant of these fish in New 
Hampshire. In 1878 we received from Com- 
missioner Atkins, of the United States Com- 
mission, a lot of salmon ova from Grand Lake 
Stream in Maine, which were successfully 
hatched at the new station at Plymouth, and in 
1879 I took a lot of fry to the Connecticut lakes, 
after rather an arduous journey on a buckboard 
for the last five miles over stumps and roots 
and through mudholes, having the water nearly 
jolted, out of the cans on the way twice, but 
finding brooks to replenish with. These fish we 
planted in the Second Lake, but they soon 
escaped, and went down to First Lake, follow- 
ing the habit of their Maine ancestors. First 
Lake is now well stocked and affords good fish- 
ing. In 1880 I took another lot to the Dia- 
VON WwW.’ ) 
SAMUEL WEBBER (“" 
mond Ponds, in Stewartstown, but after the 
first year they all disappeared, and probably 
went down into the swift Diamond River. In 
the two or three years following, we stocked a 
number of other lakes and ponds in New 
Hampshire with these salmon. 
We also placed and hatched a great many 
thousand eggs of salt-water salmon in the 
Plymouth hatchery, but though a few fish re- 
turned to the hatchery every year, the number 
was so small that the enterprise was finally 
abandoned. During these years I had a great 
many days’ pleasant fishing in the Connecticut 
Lakes and the Diamond Ponds, with their ad- 
jacent streams, but have no record fish stories 
to tell, except that of one afternoon, 
caught thirty-six red-fleshed trout, weighing 
just 12 pounds, in the Big Diamond. This was 
fully up to the average weight for that pond, 
though the pale- fleshed trout in Little Dia- 
mond run larger. It is also worth noting, that 
while the trout of the Androscoggin watershed 
had colored flesh—those of Big Diamond es- 
pecially so—those from the Mohawk River, a 
Connecticut tributary two miles distant across 
the divide, were quite white-fleshed, as well as 
those from the Connecticut Lakes. 
I must also acknowledge that the greater part 
of my angling has been done with the humble 
worm, the mountain brooks of New Hampshire 
and Vermont being too overgrown and tortuous 
when I, 
to cast a fly, though I have used the fly with 
pleasure and success in the upper lakes. 
I have sdid enough about fishing; let me add 
a few words about my sltooting experience, 
which, as I have said, has been confined to 
“small game.” My father taught me the use 
of firearms, when I was ten years old, and when 
I was twelve gave me a gun of my own, an old 
flint-lock ouhne piece, apparently of French 
manufacture, which probably antedated “the old 
French War.” The use of this was combined 
with that of a couple of small bore rifles, made 
by Robbins & Lawrence, of Windsor, Vt., be- 
longing to some of my schoolmates, for seventy 
years ago the use of the rifle as a sporting 
weapon was a New England tradition. From 
these primitive weapons I gradually progressed, 
until, on my return from England in 1851, I 
owned a 12-gauge double gun which has lasted 
me ever since, and with it I have killed many 
gray squirrels, ruffed grouse, woodcock, northern 
hares and upland plover. 
In 1850 I got acquainted in New York with 
the ‘Old Spirit crowd,’ Wm. T. Porter, editor 
of the Spirit of the Times; Frank Forester, 
Phil. Anthon, Albert Pike and others of that 
set from whom I received some information and 
much enjoyment, learning at that time to use 
Eley caps and Curtis & MHarvey’s powder, 
though I have since found Hazard’s and Du- 
pont’s equally satisfactory. 
My profession as a hydraulic engineer has 
harmonized admirably my inclinations as an 
angler, and made me familiar with the waters 
of New England, and I have added much to 
my enjoyment by rambles after wild flowers, in 
search of which I have tramped many miles and 
gathered many armfuls, gaining a pretty good 
knowledge of the flora of New England, and 
laying in a stock of health with my pleasures 
which has gone far to insure me a ripe old age. 
Von W. 
CINCINNATI, July 6—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Like Brother Davidson I cannot be 
classed as among the original contributors, al- 
though I have been a constant reader ever since 
the “best paper on earth” was instituted, and 
have been an occasional correspondent under 
the signature of “Grey Eagle,” “E. S. W.” and 
my full name for fully twenty years. 
The allusion by Mr. Davidson to the noted 
Ole Bull, brought very forcibly to mind the 
occasions of both my first and last meeting with 
the famous violinist. In 1853 I went from 
Central New York to visit an uncle, Dr. M. R. 
Gage, at Coudersport, Pa., and there did my 
first trout fishing. One day the Doctor asked 
me to accompany him on a trip to the Nor- 
vegian settlement distant some fifteen or twenty 
miles, and said I would hear some good music, 
and could also pick up some trout. 
Arrived at the settlement we stopped at Mr. 
Bull’s house, and while the Doctor was visiting 
his patients, Mr. Bull, at the Doctor’s request, 
entertained me with his violin, and afterward 
sent a young Norwegian with me to guide 
me to the best trouting waters. near. 
Some twenty-five years later Prof. Bull had ac- 
quired a national reputation and was giving 
concerts, and on his appearance in Cincinnati, I 
made it a point to attend. At the close of the 
entertainment, I visited his dressing room and 
asked him if he recalled a red-haired youth for 
whom at the request of Dr. Gage he had played 
at his home twenty-five years before. At the 
mention of my uncle’s name, he became quite 
animated and said he well remembered the oc- 
casion, as Dr. Gage was one of his dearest 
friends, and he recalled the interest with which 
his nephew had enjoyed his music upon that oc- 
casion; and giving my hand a hearty shake, ex- 
pressed his gratification at again meeting me, 
made many inquiries in regard to the Doctor, 
and was pleased to learn that he was then resi- 
dent ‘in Wisconsin, as the Professor was then 
living at Madison, and said he should certainly 
make him a visit. : 
These epistles from members of the Old 
Guard have thus a tendency to awake pleasant 
memories of days that are gone. 
E. S. WHITAKER. 

