Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks, and Grayling Fishing in Northern ...

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Preface

The incidents recorded in the following pages have been neither invented nor exaggerated to any appreciable degree. I have written in the belief that the actual doings of real personages, always and everywhere, have an interest of theniselves quite independent of the nianner of the telling, if the telling be truthful. So much I meant to be sure of at all hazards. What we said, also, is perhaps as veraciously set forth as the average interviewer reports his imwilling victim. I have endeavored, indeed to give to the reader truthful pictures of the actual summer vacation life in the Adirondacks, to refresh the recollection of those who have camped and tramped where we did, and to bring back somewhat of their enjoyment of the lakes and mountains and streams ; and also to give to others who may read these records a reasonable, vivid and fair impression of the wilderness and the experiences of summer life there.

The chapters on Grayling Fishing have been added, as having at least a cousinly relationship to the general subject of the book.

The wisest of men, off in the woods, on a summer vacation, are /'boys out of school;" and they seldom carry much of the "shop" with them from office, store or desk. The personages who appear in the following pages are no exception to the rule. Doubtless they could have talked any amount of philosophy, law, poetry, and wisdom of all sorts; but, indisputably, they did not. Indeed, I do not think the reader who has selected this book, from its title, for a leisure hour by the fireside or under the trees, is look-

IV PREFACE.

ing between these covers for that kmd of thing. I hope rather to meet his expectation that here is something of the woods woodsy, of the camp merry, of the streams trout-y. And I hope, also, that if he accompanies ns *' campers" through our varied experiences in camp and tramp, he will sometime follow our example and our trail and get great good thereby.

— My companions on these excursions were as follows: — To ** Jock's Lake," H. H. Thompson, then of the United States Treasury, now in the Treasurer's office of the N. Y. & E. R. R. Co. ; Mr. Johnson, merchant, of Washington, D. C. ; Professor Loomis, then of Manlius Academy, Manlius, N. Y. ; and E. J. Benson, merchant, then of Sjrracuse, now of Binghamton, N. Y.

To **The St. Regis and Saranacs," D. H. Bruce, one of the editors of the Sjracuse Daily Journal.

To **The Beaver River Waters," Hon. W, J. Wallace, U. S. District Judge of the Northern District of New York; D. H. Bruce of the Syracuse Daily Journal \ and C. H. Lyman, of the Syracuse Daily Standard, all of Syracuse, N. Y.

On the trip, "Booneville to Saratoga," my son Edwin F. Northrup, then eleven years of age.

To "Cranberry Lake and the Oswegatchie Waters," Reuben Wood, the '* Captain; " Hon. George N. Kennedy, lawyer and Ex-Senator; Hon. L^ing G. Vann, lawyer and late Mayor of Syracuse; John J. Meldram, then Sheriff of Onondaga County; and William B. Kirk, Jr., all^of Syracuse, N. Y. ; and E. B. White, Justice of the Peace, of Hermon, N. Y.

On the excursion, ** Grayling Fishing in Michigan," Hon. S. M. Cutcheon, U. S. District Attorney, of Detroit, Mich.

A. J. N.

Syracuse, N. Y., March 24, 1880.

Contents

JOCK'S LAKE.

Page.

Chapter I. — Benson discourses of the woods — The start — On the way — Utica — Early morning — Old clothes — Who we were — Breakfast, pipes, coffeepots, art, and music — Wilkinson's — The "smudge" — Punky I — Tar-oil — A cheerful ' 'good night. " 11

Chapter I

"It's settled that you are to go!" said Benson as he removed his pipe from his lips, and blew a mighty gust of smoke, which dimmed the gas-light of his bachelor apartments like a fog.

"Who settled all that, I beg to know ?"

** Well, I've settled it. Here you are, as thin as a shad; you would be pale, only you're beginning to turn yellow, like the covers of your confounded law books ; your blood hasn't the vitality of skimmed milk ; as to eating, why! our landlady makes a silk dress off from your board every three months ; and nothing will set you right like a good time in the North Woods. There, now ! That's enough to convince any man what he ou^ht to do ; but since you haven't enough strength left to form a good resolution, I've made one for you."

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend! even if he goes at you with a tomahawk," replied I; " but you see, my dear old boy, I can't take tlie medicine you prescribe, — tlie treatment is too heroic. If I am the dilapidated individual you picture me, with your rather free-hand style of drawing, how am I ever to endure the hardships of a fortnight in the AdirondacksV"

"Yes, but you see — "

"Yes, I think T do see, indeed; first, the mosquitoes, then the thunder-storms, the long hard tramps, the sleeping out of doors on the ground — what you call camping out — and living on your indigestible flap jacks and salt pork — and not a drug store or a doctor within fifty miles! Do you think lam a fit subject for such barbarities?"

— ' 'but you see, " said he, as soon as I gave him opportunity, "vou are not to be the miserable effigy of a man that vou now are ; you'll begin to mend as soon as you begin to pack up your clo'thes and fishing tackle; a few miles of corduroy roads will fill you with new desires," — and he smiled furtively behind a fresh smoke cloud; — "the pure breath of the forest, the sturdy tramp, the free life, the — "

" IIow about the mosquitoes? "

— "the numberless allurements and employments of camp life" —

"And what do you say about the tremendous storms you've told about?"

" — the fascination of trout fishing, the — "

" Do you deny that camping out will give a man rheumatism ?"

" — the glories of mountain and lake and river" —

BEKSON DISCOURSES OF THE WOODS. 13

" Stop! stop! my dear fellow, I suppose you mean by all this to tell me I'll enjoy the trip, and so I doubtless shall if I go, and if I should survive all its hardships."

**I mean to say," said Benson, earnestly, 'Hhat to a man whose life is chiefly within four brick walls, and whose every brehth takes up some part of the street and its filth, whose daily work is such that his body and health are a daily sacrifice to the necessities of sedentary life, — to such a man there is nothino; in the whole ran^e of remedial agents to make him so soiuul and strong and well and in so short a time, like the two or three w^ks he can spare for a trip in the woods. And I want you to go with me! I've set my heart on it. There's a good party of us and I'll take care that the hardships shan't hurt you. You'll have to fight your own mosquitoes, and bear the pett}' annoyances of camp life; but as for a man's dying in the woods of dyspepsia or biliousness for want of a drug store or a doctor," — and he threw his head back with an explosion of laughter — "that's the very latest objection to the woods I ever heard! "

I felt that I was answered, and uttered not a word in reply, except to say, *' Well, so be it, — I'll go! "

Thus it came to pass that I, somewhat below the av^erage

in health and strength at the time, and really needing the remedy my friend proposed, without any forethought or

planning of my own, was booked for my first excursion to

the Northern Wilderness of New York. When a boy, a

fowling piece and a rod were my chief delight, and mj^

choicest recreations were in the * ' wood lots " and along the

streams of my father's and adjoining farms; and a gun in 'my closet at college had given me many a Saturday ramble over the hills. But I had almost forgotten all the experiences of my l)oyhood in that regard, and had wholly lost the enthusiasm of those sports, while I was entirely ignorant of the special delights of forest camp life. I therefore anticipated my vacation trip to the woods and the hunting and fishing with no special pleasure, content that it should give me fresh air and vigor.

Many an evening during the interval between the conversation already detailed and the anticipated day of our departure for the woods, Bqpson regaled me, in his bachelor quarters, with tales of his adventures on former excursions, and instructed me in forest lore and wood-craft, as, with boyish delight, he drew forth his stores of fishing tackle, his gun and amunition, woodsman's attire and the manifold "little conveniences" an old camper accumulates. His tenderest touch and tones were when he opened his magical fly-book, and fondled the flies that he loved. They were his pets and had l>een his companions, by many a lake and stream, and associated in his mind with the pleasantest days of his life. Even a half emptied bottle of "tar-oil "evoked an expression of his delight, as he uncorked it and insisted that I should snuif its odors. " You don't like it?" said he in response to my shudder of disgust, — " but you'll see the day when its smell will be sweeter than roses." I did not quite comprehend the remark or the facts it rested upon for its significance.

I had but little care or labor for my own preparation, fishing tackle et cetera being thrust upon me by the old

THE START. — ON THK WAY.— ITTTCA. 15

woodsman, who, like all enthusiasts of his kind, was already over-supplied, and who bought every new thing useful, useless and ornamental that caught his fancy in the stores where fisliermen are furnished. An old, worn-out woolen suit, designed in my benevolent moods for some poor but honest man of my dimensions, and a pair of strong boots, with the avails of a moderate check, were all I was obliged to think about for myself.

It was somewhere among the midnight hours of July 19th that Benson gave the orders, — "All ready! Shoulder pack! Forward, March ! " There was nothing to be gained by demurring or pleading that the human spinal column was not adapted to the ponderous load I was directed to take up. So, wriggling into the straps of the pack-basket as best I could, in imitation of the ludicrous contortions of my captain, and seizing a handful of rods and various articles that refused to be packed, I followed him down the stairways of our boarding house; and we bravely wended om* way through the silent streets to the near-at-hand railroad depot. Night watchmen looked warily and suspiciously at us, but the fish rod is dver a passport — except on forbidden streams — and the tramp had not yet developed into a recognized constituent of the advanced civilized community. We escaped arrest and tlic confiscation of our luggage, and were soon on board our train and hurrying through the darkness to the Utica that refuses to be " pent up,"

Arriving at that point, we hastened to bed for the fractional night remaining, leaving orders with the sleepy and taciturn hotel clerk to be aroused at all liazzards at the first indications of morning. The other members of our party had already arrived and were snugly ensconced for the night.

It is surprising how early a July morning can dawn. The edge of the night crumbles away so noiselessly and permits the first gray streaks to steal in so gently and unawares, that he whose custom is to hurriedly rise and prepare for an eight o'clock breakfast, is fain to believe that the break of day comes with the opening of his eyelids. But if good fortune or necessity compels him to witness for himself the phenomenon of an emerging day, he learns to his dismay that a very long and beautiful part of that day has been accustomed to diffuse its glories over the earth long before he has shaken off the thraldom of death-like sleep.

On this particular morning the sleepy clerk passed the word to a faithful porter who battered our doors until we were thoroughly aroused, although in our room it was yet quite dark.

"Here! Now, what are you doing?" shouted Benson, as I sk^epily and clumsily essayed to put on the clothing I had laid off on retiring. ** That won't do, — out with the old clothes! We dress here for the woods, and white shirts and the toggery of the town go into a bag and stay here until we are back to the city again." I protested that we were yet among civilized people, and I should be greatly anno3^ed to be seen on the streets with the shabby attire I had deemed good enough for the woods.

OLD CLOTHES. — WHO WE WERE. 17

"Be kind enough to look at your watch, my honest, civilized friend, and then make a note of it that in an hour we shall be out of this place for good;" and as he spoke, Benson tumbled his bundle of old clothes and boots out upon the floor and began his hunt for the gray woolen shirt he had brought for me. Looking at my watch I found it was 4iot quite half-past four o'clock, and even two hours later I knew no stray acquaintance of mine would be likely to stroll down the street.

I had forgotten how disheartening an abandoned suit of old, worn out, dusty, creased and shrunken clothes can be, until I surveyed myself and saw how wholly unpresentable I had become. My personality seemed changed. I was not entirely certain that I was honest. I I didn't know but the next moment I should break out in profanity, xis for the serene Ifelf-respect of an American citizen who had helped elect a member of Congress, I had next to none of it; for did I not bear all semblance to a moderately abased beggar? and did not my very appearance consign me to social oblivion r and would any respectable church in the land permit me to sit in its pews ?

However, it was early in the morning, I was in the privacy which the early riser in the city enjoys, and I was wholly reassured by the nondescript appearance of the rest of the party to whom I was speedily presented. Besides, as a psychological fact, I observed that my individuality gradually reasserted itself, and in an hour I was quite as honest, as carefid of my morals, and just as much a gentleman, despite appearances, as if I had worn linen and broadcloth and had not been surmounted by a shocking bad felt hat that sloped every way like a wie^wam.

(^ailing the roll, there was Ed. Benson, an old w^oodsman, and myself, a neophyte, from the same city; Loomis, the Professor, from a neighboring academy, a lusty man of learning, a very Kit North for fish and frolic; Johnson, a hardware merchant from Washington, a good smoker and story-teller, who liad won renown and ducats, sailing the seas, and now sought the forest for the first time; and Thomps(m, our chief, of the Treasury Department at Washington, a bachelor who loved the woods better than most men love their children. Horace, one of our guides, was already in the office of the hotel, a little wiry fellow, silent, shy and tatterdemalion, but destined to blossom and unfold as we approached the familiar woods and streams, and to prove himself indeed "guide, philosopher and friend."

Two strong wagons were speedily loaded with ourselves and luggage, and we drove off in the gray morning in high glee over the hills Northward. If the "Sage of Deerfield," in uneasy morning slumbers, fancied he heard "the rebel yell," so soon after destined to play the dickens with many a soldier lad's dreams of home, doubtless it Avas the matutinal patriotism breaking out in song and shout of those wagon loads of early travellers in old clothes, as yet imfed and therefore unmindful of the strict code of decorousness and gentlemanly quietude. But he would have forgiven us, — for he too is a loyal lover of the woods and streams.

A few miles out of town, at tl^e foot of a hill among the trees, in a wild sequestered spot we stopped at a little rustic inn, and breakfasted. The ham and eggs and piles of white bread and bowls of creamy-hued coffee disappeared amid the crackle of wit and boisterous laughter and jest, like prairie grass before the leaping flame. There was immense faith, not misplaced, that gentlemanly and civilized dyspepsia had been slain and left behind and that its avenging ghost had lost our trail. The fun had actually begun, and not the least element of it was the reckless and childlike way in which we ate and drank what and when and as much as the appetite moved and the opportunity (not always complaisant) permitted.

Lighting pipes and cigars, each according to his fancy, we resumed our journey over sandy roads, up hill and down, next stopping at Prospect, a town on the Utica and Black River Rail-Road. The wise, care-taking men of our party went about making purchases, of which a frying-pan and coffee-pot were not the least important. Indeed, on these two fundamental facts of camp life hang all the joy or sorrow of the culinary department of tent and cabin. A dozen big, blood-thirsty hunting knives with spick-and-span new leather belts, the latest improvements in air pillows, the most complicated cork-screw-lancet-nutpick-gimlet-and-carpenter-shop-jack-knife, in the possession of a party, nay, even a mirror and razor, will not bring happiness to that luckless camp where the frying-pan is not, or where the snub-nosed, blackened coffee-pot sings not its morning, noon and evening hymn of comfort and

cheer.

20 JOCK*S LAKliJ.

Straying into the one humble liotel of the town I explored its domain. In the bar-room were pictures on the wall — faithful represent4itions of battles of the Revolution, the Rebellion and the next war, — masses of men stabbing and "jabbing" each other with bayonets, falling over from the impietured fire of invisible gims, and posing in death as naturally as if they received on the spot the services of the most accomplished luidertaker with i(!e-chest, embalming process and chaplets of victory kept in stock for battle subjects. There were also horse pictures — race-horses, with legs thrust forth before and behind at angles suggesting the circus gymnast, leaving the brave steed suspended in mid air like Mahomet's coffin, but performing, by suggestion, prodigies of motion which made one ache to wager something on the result of the race, — until the wonder grew, the longer one stared, that they didn't all disappear from the picture, amid the huFrahs of the winners of the contest.

The parlor (for so the tin sign on the door declared it to be) contained a melodeon. I sat down to it, tenderly touched the keys and gently pressed the pedals. It was a consumptive, asthmatic affair, and its vocal chords were in a state of chronic inflammation or else of partial paral3'sis. It resi>onded, however, in no far-gone invalid tones, and, reassured, I proceeded to question the possibilities of the thing — extorting patriotic sounds more terrible than an army with breech-loaders, light-fantastic-toe sounds which would have made "the Devil on two sticks" dance, (whether with dismay, or with delight that a new tempta-

MUSIC— OHIO.— Wilkinson's. 21

tion had been given to man, how can I say ?) sounds that refused to be classified, (such were the possibilities of the instrument, to say nauglit of the player,) — all to the great delectation of several Village lads and one of our drivers who asserted that '*he could sit all day and listen to that music! " — a statement I should have implicitly believed had he added — *'if my pay goes on all the same." Loomis also, dear kind soul! who had listened through a crack of the door, thereafter seemed to regard me as unfit for treason, stratagems and spoils, and had a tender, warm place for me in his heart.

** All aboard!" shouted the chief, and we were speedily on our way. We drove on to Ohio, — a mere bit of a town made up principally of its ambitious name and a post office, the last we were to see for a fortnight. The horses were fed, while we waited an unconscionably long time for ''Greorge," our other guide, who had to be sent for in the neighborhood. Our attention was engaged by a very novel cemetery with unique epitaphs, — a little country church which we respectfully explored, — diagnosing the meteorological conditions from certain ominous clouds assembling for a carnival in the west, — letter- writing at the one little country store, — sleeping on the ** stoop" amid difficulties contrived and executed by the wakeful members of the party, — various feats of strength and agility, — and several quarts of milk which we drank and called dinner.

George having appeared, we proceeded on our way to Wilkinson's, well in the woods, the 'Mast house" of civilization, thirty-six miles from Utica, arriving at 7 o'clock, twelve hours after breakfast. Here we stopped for the pight and to begin our serious work. The little low, framehouse, a sort of exaggerated bird's nest, browned by age and weather, looked picturesque at that hour. It was situated on a gentle bluff in the midst of a small clearing hewn out of the forest right on the banks of West (Canada Creek, which there assumes quite the proportions of a river. The tawny-brown water courses down through the gorge of the mountains on either side, plimging, roaring and foaming among the large boulders which line its banks and are scattered thi(!kly along the bed of the stream, and passes off to the south-east on its way to the Mohawk. Unbroken forests crown the rocky hearted mountains and press down to the water's edge. The darkening, evening-hued sky mingled with the forest green, and the rushing waters sounded their evening anthem amid the stillness of the secluded place.

But what, in the midst of this grandeur and beauty, at this poetical hour, meant that smoke on the grassy plot in front of the house, where the eight or ten Wilkinsons, great and small, from the aged grandfather down to the dirty, toddling baby, were assembled? I ventured to ask Benson as much. "That? why, that's a smudge — the greatest institution of the woods!" And he gave me a pitting look for my ignorance, and laughed much more heartily than I thought the ijubject demanded.

We gladly leaped to the ground from the seats which we had faithfully held down for thirty-six miles, over the last nine of which the road was hilly and rocky. The warm,

THE SMUDGE. — PUNKY! 33

murky air environed us, languor subdued us, and we were content to throw ourselves down upon the grass. Forthwith a hazy cloud gathered around my head, I experienced burning sensations on my hands, wrists, face and neck. My ears seemed aflame. Was I sick? Had "prickly heat " attacked me? Did I need a doctor? I endeavored to solve the mystery of the haze. I looked earnestly at my hands, and discovered winged atoms of noiseless flight, countless in numbers — dull sparks with wings, that settled quietly down upon me by the hundred and then burned. I had not been told of the phenomenon, and it was a revelation. Burn! burn! burn! How they burned! I was almost frantic. I appealed to Benson again; "What is this, — this — these confounded things that I can't see but which bite so horribly y"

" Punky ! my boy, — the no-see ems — the 'cutest little wretches in their line that this country u]) here produces. They don't sound any horn when they go to business. Oh, you'll get used to 'em. They're not bad. Tar-oil will fix 'em all right. And there's where the beauty of the smudge comes in."

" But I can't endure it," said I, slapping my face, rubbing my ears and hopping about in a transport of nervous irritability.

"Well, you just rush into that smudge, and the pimkies will leave you fast enough."

So I rushed. The fierce little gnats left me. The low smouldering fire in the kettle sent up clouds of half fragrant and pungent smoke, which seemed for an instant as luxu-

24 JOCK*8 LAKE.

rious as the . first balmy breath of spring. But the next moment I was nearly suffocated and strangling. I rushed out. The punkies returned in stinging clouds, searching every nook and crevice and seam in my clothing and swarming about my head. Back to the smudge I went, — then out, — then in, — the horrors alternating. At length, utterly overcome in the contest, I murmured to my friend, as he slapped and rubbed himself and shared the smudge with me, "Benson, I've come a great ways to be very miserable! Must a man up here murder himself to save his life?"

The humor had pretty nearly gone out of him, but he showed his white teeth in an effort at a laugh, and replied, ''There's one hope left, — tar-oil! Let's go for it." And away he went to the pile of luggage near by and hunted ilp a big black bottle. From this he poured out into his hand a brownish, greasy liquid and rubbed it vigorously over his face and hands, on his neck and well up into the roots of his hair, doing which he gave forth odors which in town would have brought down upon him the censures of the board of health as a nuisance.

"Try it!" said he.

"Can't, — it smells so infernally. "

"You'll like it, when you get used to it. Children cry for it, up here. "

The stings were driving me mad. I seized the big bottle, and followed his example. Two sighs escaped me, — one at the sickening smell, — one of great relief as the cloud of winged sparks fell back from me in disgust, and I stood

A CHEERFUL "GOOD NIGIIT. " 25

once more a free man, but as greasy and brown as an Italian beggar. The battle was ended. I learned afterwards to tolerate tar-oil, then to like its odor, and now I always keep a bottle of it among my fishing traps at home, imcorking it now and then, wiien the snows are heavy on the earth, to remind me of the summer camp-fire in the wilderness! There is no disputing educated tastes !

Seven of us slept that night in the loft, in feather beds, the rain pouring down ujion the roof just above our heads. Wilkinson, as he took the household candle down stairs, bestowed his cheerful good-night, — " Bojs, if the punkies get very bad, ' fore morning, call me and I '11 bring up a smudge! " But we slept.

Chapter II

Tlie rain came down in torrents all night, to the very best of its midsummer ability under the specially favoring influences of a forest and mountain recrion. Boisterous West Canada Creek was swollen to a mad river. We sat and conversed imder the wood shed, all the forenoon ; and while the rain still poured we smoked our piiies, told fishing and hunting stories, whittled, and took our turns around, the smudge kettle.

At noon the rain dwindled to a drizzle, and I, the neophyte of the party, born and reared in a land of minnows, bullheads, dace and suckers, went up a little stream near by, and with an extemporized rod and baited hook caught my first brook-trout ! It flashed upon m}^ recollect ion , (or might appropriately have done so) at the instant of my first "strike, " that there were several quick things, — lightning, for instance, — the kick of an ugly cow at a milk pail, — the descending blow of a school-teacher's ferule upon the juvenile palm,— the young skater's first somersault, — the bashful boy's blush when the pretty girl of the school smiles on him, and all that sort of thing, — but this trout was a little ahead of them all. In an instant I had him fast upon the barbed hook. The little spirit of activity at the end of the line fairly effervesced ; the small pool boiled like a teapot, for there was a tempest in it of one frightened, crazy

^ MY BrnST TROtlT! RAIN AND ROADS. 37

trout. Three times came the flash, the thrill and the exultation, and three little trout I proudly bore to my companions under the wood-shed ; and lightly did I heed the laughter and derisive comments which my fingerlings excited, — for, in the flush of my new experience I was in a state to see visions and dream dreams. In many an experience since that hour, by forest stream and pool, I have seen the full vision and realized the dream, then infantile and wingless, but never again did the felicity quite repeat itself of catching my flrst trout.