Sport -- Past, Present and Future
It may be a pleasant task for the sporting antiquary or the historian of some future period to trace the rise and fall of shooting in the section where the Potomac bursts foaming through its narrow bed at the Great Falls to Point Lookout, where the wide, majestic river mixes its fresh waters with the brine of Chesapeake Bay. But retrospection only brings sadness and regret to the sportsman of to-day, who sees the finest shooting-ground for wild fowl on the American continent now denuded of its game, except in scantiest quantities.
Potomac in the Indian dialect signifies "The River of Swans." A pleasure or health seeker as he passes down the bay en route to Old Point, or a tourist on a pilgrimage to Mount Vernon, admires from the steamer's deck the fine scenery, the bold headlands, the sweeping curves of the shore, and the ever-shifting scenes of the beautiful river, but he will never catch a glimpse, in a lifetime's travel, of the stately birds that were so plentiful that the river was named after them.
All the observant traveler now sees is the settling of, perhaps, a dozen broad-bills in the water, or the alighting of a solitary shuffler or mallard. He will learn with surprise that not many years back the steamer literally ploughed its way through vast flocks of ducks, who only took wing when the sharp prow was within a few yards of them, while every creek, stream and run that poured its waters into the river was alive with waterfowl of a dozen different species scurrying to and fro, circling high into the air, or striking into their native element with an explosive splash. On a windy day the river was so black with them that the bosom of the deep seemed to have been changed into an undulating, many-hued meadow.
Across the river from Mount Vernon was one of the most famous ducking blinds on the Potomac. The steamboat passengers notice with curiosity what appears to be a small island directly in the centre of the river, which at this point is about two miles wide. It is a miniature Lock Leven
Castle, and the ruins of a small stone edifice makes it a romantic picture in the varied panorama that unfolds as one passes down the "River of Swans." Right across on the Maryland side is one of those old colonial brick houses that tell of days when his Majesty was "prayed for" by fox-hunting parsons, and where the King's health was drunk before each toast by the cocked-hat gentry. The house, which stands on a high hill, and faces Mount Vernon across the river, is the manor-seat of the Chapmans, a family whose name is connected with every public enterprise or "high emprise" from the conversion of the colony of Maryland into a commonwealth.
General John Chapman was a great lover of both rod and gun, and some thirty years ago he conceived the idea of making comfort and sport go hand in hand. Having made his soundings, he kept his slaves steadily at work, during odd days and off hours, hauling rocks in flat-boats, and dumping them into the rolling river. He kept his own counsel, and his neighbors began to fear he was going crazy. At last his island was completed. Like the Old Point "Rip-Raps," it arose sheer from the water, and was composed entirely of loose rock. Chapman Island, as it was called, had an area of about a quarter of an acre, and was shaped like a cigar -- the smaller end gradually decreasing in height and breadth until the narrowing ledge disappeared in the water. At this point the decoys -- rarely under a hundred, often double that number -- were placed. At the large end of the island was the hunting-lodge, at a distance of about seventy-five yards. It was built low, but the walls were thick, and a coal stove kept it comfortable in the stormiest, coldest days. It is doubtful whether there ever was a blind in all America that surpassed in attractions this artificial island.
Ducks, as a general thing, when moving in great numbers, choose the middle of a river, and seeing a large flock (the decoys) floating near the point, they would invariably swirl aside and join them. At a time when the river was full of waterfowl, some idea may be had of the royal sport, without any terrible exposure and endurance: a warm fire, refreshments of all kinds within a minute's walk, and the ducks raining down in a ceaseless stream from the sky -- that was the very poetry of sporting.
In the fall and winter months General Chapman had his house filled with the men whose names are household words in America, and his oyster roasts, canvas-back and terrapin stews were as widely known then as were the dinners of the great lobbyist and gourmand, Sam Ward, a quarter of a century afterwards.
From the traditions handed down, it is known that General Washington was an enthusiastic rider after hounds, and it was at one of the meets that he first met Mistress Betty Custis; but he never was a devotee of the gun. There are several
letters written by him to his patron, Lord Fairfax, of Greenway Court, which are, or were a few years ago, in the possession of Mrs. Custis, of Williamsburg, Virginia. In them the young surveyor tells in glowing language of the fine runs he has had and the brushes he has taken.
Opportunity makes the right man; but for the Revolution, George Washington, of Mount Vernon, Virginia, would have been a hard-riding fox-hunter, a shrewd bargainer at a horse-trade, and a vestryman of the Pohick church.
Washington's nearest neighbor was famous George Mason, whose statue adorns Capitol Square in Richmond, Va. He lived a few miles down the river at Gunston Hall, which, next to Greenway Court, was in its day the most celebrated hunting resort in Virginia, and was the scene of many a glorious meet long after girder, rafter and roof of Greenway Court had mouldered in the dust.
Gunston Hall of to-day is the same building as that of over a century ago. It was built for comfort and not for show, for the walls are very thick, making the rooms warm in winter and cool in summer. It was erected in 1739, and every brick was brought from England as ballast. The plantation originally comprised 5,000 acres, and was, without exception, the finest game preserve in the country. Colonel Mason was an ardent sportsman, and cherished and protected the game on his land. At his river front the wild celery grew in the greatest profusion. If those old walls of Gunston Hall could talk, what entrancing tales they could tell of men of iron mould and giant minds, and maidens "passing fare"! There is a porch around the ancient mansion, religiously preserved, though it is in the last stages of dilapidation, where on the south side of the hall Washington and Mason were wont to sit during long summer evenings, their senses lulled by the fairy-like scene, their eyes ranging over the grand, circling sweep of the river, and their conversation freshened by many a decoction of pounded ice, fresh mint, and Jamaica Brandy. By the way, there are comparatively few people who ever tasted a real Virginia mint julep. The decoction, hastily mixed and as hastily drunk, is called a julep. Bacchus, save the mark! It is as different from the royal mint julep as corn whisky from the imperial cognac. It does not take five minutes, an hour, or a day to properly brew this wonderful drink, but a year at the very least. Here is the way Colonel Bob Allen, of Curl's Neck, on the James River, used to prepare the julep. In the early spring, gather the young and tender mint, have your demijohn three-quarters full of the best whisky, and into its mouth drop the mint, rolled into little balls, and well bruised -- about a quarter of a peck, loosely heaped up, to each gallon of liquor. Next, enough loaf sugar is saturated in water to melt it, and sweeten the whisky ad lib. This fills the demijohn, which is then sealed tight, and kept for the future, being rarely opened for at least two years.
The preparation of the drink is simple, and yet artistic. First, a julep ought never to be mixed but in a silver flagon -- there is such a thing as a "perfect accord." The demijohn being opened, the fragrant liquor is poured into the mug, with a double handful of crushed ice -- not pounded, but crushed until it is like hail or snow ice -- (a stout towel and a few blows against a brick wall will accomplish this result); add a few sprigs of fresh mint, a few strawberries, a tablespoonful of Jamaica rum, and you will have an elixir worthy of Jove to drink and Ganymede to bear.
But the swans from whom the Potomac takes its name, what of them?
In my boyhood I have often heard the
septuagenarians and octogenarians of the lowlands speak of the vast migratory flocks of swans and geese that would whiten the river for miles. So many were they that in the spring-time, when the imprisoned frost was released from the ground and the surface of the earth became soft, vast numbers would swoop upon the fields of winter-wheat, and ruin the crop in a single day. It was a common thing for the farmers to employ every supernumerary on the place to guard the young and tender wheat.
But when the steamboat appeared on the scene, both swan and wild geese vanished, never to return.
Memory carries me back to my old ancestral home on the Virginia side of the Potomac, directly opposite the Washington Navy Yard.
In those days, a planter was an epicure by blood, a gourmand by breeding, and as long as his digestion remained unimpaired he could revel in the best of living on the choicest viands; and were he a devotee of the gun, he could amuse himself by killing a variety of game in such quantities that satiety would be apt to ensue.
Yes, the noble river furnished an unfailing supply of succulent food to the dwellers on its banks. The number of fish that swam in the clear waters of the Potomac would seem incredible in these times of purse-ponds and gill-nets. Our overseer used to devote one week in the spring to hauling a small seine, and would catch an abundance of fish to last the plantation the ensuing year, and there were enough herrings salted in barrels, and smoked shad in kits, to half fill our huge cellar that ran underground the whole length of the house. Fresh fish was on every table of the plantation nine months out of the year as a matter of course. The troll lines, set a short distance from the shore, yielded a steady supply of catfish, eels, perch, tobacco-boxes and fresh-water terrapin, or "tarrapin," as they were called -- a luxury only second to their cousin the "diamond-back." As for the ducks and geese that made their home during winter on the flats between Washington and Alexandria, their number was simply astounding. I have hunted in the last decade from Havre de Grace to Tampa Bay, but never have seen such apparently limitless numbers of ducks as
circled in the very sight of the Capitol's dome some thirty years ago.
The channel was on the Maryland side. It varied from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards across. For a mile and a half the water was rarely over two feet on the flats at low tide, and not over a fathom at the high-water mark. On these shallow bottoms there grew in the greatest luxuriance a peculiar quality of indigenous plant, called celery-grass, which wild fowl preferred to any other food. About the middle of November the birds began to congregate in such huge flocks that on a clear morning, when suddenly disturbed they took to wing, they made a noise like rolling thunder.
There were sportsmen, of course, at that time in the two cities of Washington and Alexandria, but they confined themselves to the laziest mode of shooting, and followed the creeks and streams that bordered or led into the river. Here wild fowl afforded fine sport, with but little hardship.
As a general rule, the family on the plantation soon became tired of eating wild ducks; even the incomparable canvas-back palls at length upon the palate, as much as the partridges that are devoured on a wager, one each day for a month. The products of the poultry yard in the end were always preferred to the spoils of the river. Frequently, when company were coming to dinner, it was desirable to have a plentiful supply of game on the table; so my aunt, a famous housewife, would call up Sandy, who, being lame in one leg, was the general utility man of the plantation, one who could turn his hand to anything except regular labor, which he hated as a galley slave his oar, or as much as Rip Van Winkle did to earn an honest living. Sandy resembled Rip in more ways than one, though, fortunately for him, he had no sable Gretchen.
"Take Brother Bush's gun, Sandy," my aunt would say, "and go down and bring me some ducks."
"How many does you want, Miss Jane?"
A mental calculation, and the number was given; then Sandy hobbled off with a matter-of-fact air, as if he were merely bound to the barnyard to slaughter half a dozen chickens. It was just as easy an undertaking, and one infinitely more to his taste. Calling one of the house-boys, he would go with him to the shore, a couple of hundred yards or so distant. Then the couple would walk in single file for some large tree bordering the river. The ducks feeding on the wild celery close the shore would on their approach swim lazily from the banks out of gun-shot. Sandy would take his position behind the trunk of the tree and lie close. His companion would leisurely walk back to the house. The wild fowl, seeing the cause of their alarm disappear, would slowly circle back, and Sandy, waiting till they were well bunched, would let go both barrels; then, denuding himself of his breeches, he would wade in and bring out his game. The ducks never seemed to "catch on" to this dodge, and Sandy rarely failed to fill his orders, as the drummers say, "with promptness and dispatch."
There was only one pot-hunter in the neighborhood of Washington thirty years ago -- an old, grizzled, weather-beaten man, named Jerry, who anchored his little schooner in a snug cove on our shore every winter, and such was the unfailing supply of wild ducks that Jerry was rarely forced to up-anchor, set his sails and speed farther down the river. Old Jerry was assisted by his son, young Jerry, a chip off the old block. Every Saturday these two would put their game in canvas bags and carry them to their regular customers in Washington.
I became a fast friend of these two
pot-hunters, as much, indeed, as a boy of twelve years could with matured men. I suppose I imbibed from them that over-mastering love of sport that has made me a wanderer for a score of years. I was of practical use to them; the sentiment and the benefits were all on my side, for I made the gardener give them regular rations of turnips and cabbages. In return, I was allowed the run of their cabin, a little cuddy at which the meanest, poorest slave on the plantation would have turned up his nose.
Jerry was one of the few pot-hunters who possessed a swivel -- a monster ducking gun, with a solid, uncouth stock, fastened to a barrel some ten of twelve feet long, with a bore as large as an old twelve-pounder Napoleon. This "thunderer" was loaded with twenty or twenty-five drachms of powder, and between thirty and forty ounces of shot.
Old Jerry would be in his skiff at the earliest dawn of day, and would cruise from Washington to Alexandria, closely followed by his son and heir, some hundred yards in the rear.
As soon as old Jerry saw a closely bunched flock of ducks, he would lie flat in the bottom of the skiff, and take his creeping paddles, which were about two feet long, two inches wide by a quarter of an inch thick, made of the best hickory, and painted a neutral color. With his arms hanging over the sides of his skiff, and a paddle in each hand, he could make his way evenly along, hardly raising a ripple. As he would approach closer the ducks would get more and more restless, swimming backward and forward, and gazing with alarm at what seemed a log with a queer, indescribable motion on each side. At last, when the woolen cap of a man could be seen, and underneath it the glittering eyes could be detected, then it was that the flock would rise from the water and take wing. That was the moment old Jerry was waiting for, with the stock resting against his shoulder, which was protected by a bag or pillow stuffed tight with feathers to break the recoil, and his eye ranging along the black barrel just as an artilleryman sights his piece before giving the word. A quick jerk of the trigger, the click of the flint striking the pan, the flash of the priming powder, then the deafening roar of the swivel, followed by a flash of flame, an encircling volume of smoke, the swirl of the water as the skiff was rocked by the kicking gun, and the deed was done. Old Jerry would rise up, grasp his double paddle, and make for the shore to reload, while younger Jerry would come up in hot haste to pick up the dead, and dispatch with his double-barrel the crippled ducks.
Many a day have I played truant, and half the darkies on the plantation would be seacrhing for me, while I, in the seventh heaven of delight, was with Jerry in his skiff following up the diving ducks whose wings were broken. I had a little single barrel that would make the water splash, and that was about all.
It was my one thought by day and dream by night to possess a gun big enough to kill the ducks at a fair distance -- not a swivel by any manner of means -- I had not the slightest desire to be behind that huge piece of ordnance when it went off. I wanted one that could strike a flock at eighty and a hundred yards. I never divulged my thoughts at home. I was that unfortunate "ne'er do weel," known as the only son, and such an intimation would have raised hysterics at the female end of the house, and something worse at the male end of the mansion, for my paternal ancestor was a retired officer of the navy, and when he was excited his speech savored of the forecastle more than the cabin, and his actions became alarming.
A kind fate threw into my hands just such a weapon as my soul longed for, and I look back to it now with the same affection that a man of many affaires de coeur recalls the memory of his first love.
To make a long, rambling story short, my father bought, as a curiosity, a long Dutch ducking gun, that was intended to be fired from the shoulder by a man of
stalwart build. Loading it carefully, the captain told the overseer, named Robinson, to fire it. This individual was a tall, ungainly lopsided man, who got sideways over the ground like a crab. He had a slatternly wife, with the most vivid, burning red hair I ever saw, and a large, callow brood of vividly headed children.
I suppose Robinson fired the gun, for it was brought back by his eldest hope, who said something about "Dad's laid up; somethin' or nuther kicked him;" but no attention was paid to what he said.
My father, accompanied by his youthful likeness, set out to try the gun himself. He made me fasten a piece of paper to the side of the ice-house, and then raised the long weapon slowly until he caught sight, then pulled. I saw him spin around from the force of the blow, and utter the most blood-curdling curses against the gun, and next seizing the harmless piece and striking it against a tree, he broke the stock short off, then throwing the barrel down he walked wrathfully away. I picked up the pieces tenderly, and carried them to Uncle Peter, the plantation carpenter, and told him I would give him a quart of that liquor he most loved in the world if he would patch it up. Uncle Peter agreed, if I would pledge myself to keep his share in the affair secret. Of course I promised.
What with braces, screws, clamps, rivets, the old piece was reconstructed, and I was as proud of it as a girl of her first long dress, or a spinster with a beau. It was about eight feet long, with a bore about the size of a Queen Anne musketoon. The barrel was slightly curved outside. The trigger was hard to pull, but the springs were good, and every time the flint fell a handful of sparks would be generated.
But, shades of Vulcan, how that ancient gun did kick! No vicious army mule, no bucking broncho, no Five Points billy-goat ever were productive of more sudden shocks. While the recoil was not so great as that of the famous gun that left the load stationary while it lodged the man who fired it in the fork of the tree two hundred yards in the rear, yet, like champion pugilist, it sent every one to grass who tackled it. Uncle Peter was laid out. Sandy, steadying himself with his crutch planted firmly in the ground -- a human tripod -- was spun around and hurled to mother earth, as Hercules threw Antaeus. Jack, the giant of the plantation, who led the cradlers in the harvest field, and pulled one end of the seine against six on the other side, tackled the weapon, and he, too, for the first time in his life, was vanquished. Though this piece could not quite rival the matchlock that belonged to Artemus Ward's grandfather, which would not only knock the shootist over, but club him when he was down, still it put every man who fired it on the invalid list for the balance of the day.
I would not have put that gun against
my shoulder and pulled the trigger for a month's holiday. Uncle Peter, however, did the trick, and fixed the gun so that it was as harmless as a copperhead with its fangs drawn. He got the blacksmith to rivet a couple of iron rings close to the muzzle and another on the breech just above the pan. Next, he put a massive staple in the prow of the skiff, and another and a smaller one on the front seat; a chain with a catch passed through staple and ring, and held everything tight. When the gun was fired the staples received the shock, and no kicking could loosen them.
Uncle Peter finished the job Saturday night, and Sunday morning a mysterious message came from the overseer's son, Sam, that he was waiting to see me in the shuck-house. I no sooner laid my eyes on him than I knew his mind was full of something.
"Well, Sam, what is it?"
"Mister" -- Sam called every white man and boy mister -- "I done hearn pop say as you were a-goin' to use that air big gun."
"Yes, I am; but you keep your mouth shut about it. You hear, Sam?"
"I ain't a-goin' to tell, but you'd better leave her alone."
"Why?"
"Cause it'll kick yer liver lights out, that's why."
"How do you know?"
Ef you cross yer heart, an' say, 'I hope I may die,' I tell yer."
This mystic process having been complied with, Sam commenced:
"One evenin' I slipped home from the brickyard, an' thar warn't anybody at home 'cept the child'en. Pop was gone to market, an' tuk mam wid him. I seed the big gun sittin' in the corner, but pop had tole me that ef I ever tortched it he'd knock thunder outen me. So I dassent handle it. Jest then a big hawk lighted on the barn, an' I jest grabbed the gun, meanin' to shoot that bird, thrashin'or no thrashin'. I crept behind the corn-house, an' run the muzzle through the logs, an' I tuck aim at the hawk that was watchin' fer a chicken. I tried to draw back the hammer to a full cock, when the hammer slipped, and it went off. At first I thought that something had busted, then that Mose, the brindled bull, had butt me, or that Toby, the old blind mule, had kicked me, an' I commenced a hollerin', an' jus' then, by gum! pop an' mam druv up, an' mam thought as how I was killed, an'--" Here Sam stopped to take a breath.
"Well, Sam, what did your father do? Did he scream, too?"
"Scream!" answered Sam; "pop ain't that kind. No, he picked up the big gun with one hand, an' tuk hole on me with the other, an' dragged me home, me a-kickin' an' a-tryin' to break away all the time, an' then he got that cowhide that hangs over the chimbly, an' almost tanned the hide offen me. But you jus' see where that big gun kicked me," and Sam opened his shirt and showed me his narrow pigeon-chest that was bruised black and blue.
"Now I mus' be goin', mister. You mine me, don't you tortch that air big gun; as sure as yer do she'll knock yer cold."
Sam's tale frightened me, and I pulled the trigger, with my heart in my mouth, the first time; but Uncle Peter had done his work well, and if it kicked I never felt it.
I remember through this long vista of years the ecstatic pleasure of creeping up to a huge flock early one morning, and the thumping of my heart that beat like a trip-hammer against the bottom of the skiff -- for I was lying close, and using the creeping paddles. At last, at last! and as the flock cleared the water I let drive, and was rather astonished to find myself safe and afloat.
So in the Old Dominion the fox-hunter followed his hounds, and took timber as it came. The partridge-hunter discharged his right and left shots in the stubble. One fine morning in April, 1861, they awoke from their easy-going, rollicking existence, and dropping the shotgun and sporting rifle, grasped instead the sabre, the lanyard, the sword, or the musket.