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Louise Brewster Miller 1900-1992 Bright Hours WOULD LIKE TO again dedicate this It was therefore one of life's precious neth Shewmaker., a Lvremier Webster page to a member of our fly-fishing and unpredictable serendipities when I scholar and history professor at Dart- Icommunity who recently passed married a fly fisherman and (at thirty- mouth College. Read this lively piece away, this time in a personal farewell to two) discovered a new dimension to this and see if you don't agree that Daniel my own angling role model. woman (aged eighty-five) as we stood Webster would have made a grand fish- My grandmother, Louise Brewster shoulder to shoulder in the soft dusk on ing buddy. Miller, died on June 30, 1992 at the age the Battenkill over the course of what I also introduce Gordon Wickstrom of ninety-two in Noroton Heights, Con- was to be the last few summers left to of Boulder, Colorado, who writes en- necticut. Widow of Sparse Grey Hackle us. She was adept, graceful, and above thusiastically about fishing's postwar era (Alfred Waterbury Miller, 1892-i983), all a determined handler of the gleam- and the multitalented Lou Feierabend Aamie, as we called her, learned to fly ing Garrison rod "Garry" had made for and his technically innovative five-strip fish early on in her marriage, figuring it her so many years ago. I was awed and rods. Finallv.i I welcome Maxine Ather- was the only way she was going to see humbled by her skill. ton of Dorset, Vermont, to the pages of anything of her fishing-nuts husband. I will miss bringing word pictures of this journal with her First Person article, He arranged for the best of instruction Tom's and my fishing to Aamie (when "Old Friends from the Golden Age,'' for this game Bostonian woman: Ed- she could no longer go to the water) and which gives us a lyrical look at some ward R. Hewitt, John Alden Knight, hearing her voice turn girlish with well-known figures of that time. Jack Atherton, and Ray Bergman. shared and remembered excitement. In a little aside about Max, nearly five Turns out she was just as passionate Fishing to long-ago wild trout on a decades ago my grandparents used to at heart about the sport as Sparse. With now-drowned Catskill stream alongside visit Jack and Max Atherton at their four children to raise (including my a "pinkster" bush into which flashed home on the Battenkill in Arlington. Af- mother, Mikie), she found time over the hummingbirds were rich and vivid ex- ter the men went off fishing, the women next fifty years in a busy mother's1 periences to the last for her, which she would yank an elegantly prepared, but wife'sIcommunity volunteer's schedule described in a 1988 Trout magazine arti- prefrozen, casserole out of the freezer to for fishing, primarily on her beloved cle. I am ever grateful for her long and throw in the oven, and then hurry down Catskill streams and rivers. When the healthy life, and for the luck to be the the hill to the Battenkill to fish until fishing day was over she brought her granddaughter of a woman who so dinner. Sparse and Jack made lots of ap- knitting to the wide front steps of the loved the beauties of this world. preciative noises about the savory meal DeBruce Club on which she would that seemed hours in the making while perch (women weren't allowed in the going on about the fishing the women clubhouse) in stocking feet, listening to IN THIS FALL ISSUE of The American Fly had missed. My grandmother still gig- the men's tall tales of the day. In memo- Fisher I am proud to feature a landmark gled about that one. ry of their "bright hours," Sparse dedi- profile: a comprehensive examination of MARGOTPAGE cated his book Fishless Days Angling America's famous statesman and angler, EDITOR Nights (1971) to her and chivalrously Daniel Webster, and the role angling christened her "Lady Beaverkill." played in his life, written by Dr. Ken- Preserving a Rich Heritage for Future Generations - - TRUSTEES Journal of d' he ~mericanMuseum of Fly Fishing E. M. Bakwin Me1 Kreiger Foster Barn Richard F. Kress FALL 1992 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 4 William M. Barrett David B. Ledlie Bruce H. Begin Ian D. Mackay Paul Bofinger Malcoln~MacKenzie Lewis M. Borden I11 Bob Mitchell Daniel Webster, Angler ......................2 Robert R. Buckmaster Wallace J. Murray 111 Donn H. Byrne, Sr. Wayne Nordberg Kenneth E. Shewmaker Roy D. Chapin, Jr. Leigh H. Perkins Calvin P. Cole Romi Perkins Peter Corbin Allan R. Phipps Lou Feierabend: From Five to Z ................ 14 Thomas N. Davidson 0. Miles Pollard Charles R. Eichel Susan A. Popkin G. Dick Finlay Dr. Ivan Schloff Gordon M. Wickstrom Audun Fredrikson Stephen Sloan Arthur T. Frey Wallace Stenhouse, Jr. Larry Gilsdorf Arthur Stern First Person: Gardner L. Grant John Swan Curtis Hill James Taylor Old Friends from the Golden Age .............18 lames Hunter Richard G. Tisch Dr. Arthur Kaemmer James W. VanLoan Maxine Atherton Robert F. Kahn San Van Ness Woods King I11 Dickson L. Whitney Martin D. Kline Earl S. Worsham Gallery: Preston Jennings ....................23 Edward G. Zern TRUSTEES EMERITUS Museum News. .......................... 24 W. Michael Fitzgerald Leon Martuch Robert N. Johnson Keith C. Russell Hermann Kessler Paul Schullery Letters ................................ 27 OFFICERS Chairman of the Board Foster Barn Contributors. ...........................28 President Wallace J. Murray 111 Vice President ON THE COVER: Statesman and angler Daniel Webster is a historical Arthur Stern figure of mythicproportions, both in regard to his political and his angling Treasurer William M. Barrett accomplishments. When Webster walked in the woods with his fly rod, Secretar nicknamed "Kill-all," the writer Stephen Vincent Bene't recorded "the trout Charles R. dchel would jump out of the streams right into his pockets, for they knew it was STAFF no use putting up a fight." In this Fall 1992 issue, Dartmouth professor and Executive Director history scholar Kenneth E. Shewmaker offers us a complete profile of a Donald S. Johnson great American. Engraving by J. A. J. Wilcox (no date). Executive Assistant Virginia Hulett Curator/Development Assistant Alanna D. Fisher Research/Publicity Joe A. Pisarro Registrar T71eAmerican Fly Fisher is published Jon C. Mathewson four times a year by the Museuni at P.O. Box 42, Manchester, Verlnonl 0j254. Publication dates are winter, spring, summer, and fall. Membership dues include the cost of a onc-year THEAMERICAN FLY FISHER subscription ($20) and are lax deductible as providcd for by la%,. Membership rates are listed in the back of each Editor issue. All letters, manuqcripts, photographs, and materials intended for publication in the journal should be sent Margot Page to Ihe Museum. The Museum and journal are not responsible Tor unsolicited manuscripts, drawings, photographic Art Director material, or memorabilia. The Museum cannot accepl respons~bdlty for statements and interpretations that arc Randall R. Perkins wholly the author's. Unsolicited n~snuscriptscannot be returned unless postage is provided. Contributions to The American Fly Fislier are to be considered gratuitous and the property of the Museum unless otherwise requested Consulting Editor by the contributor. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: Donald S. Johnson History and L* Copyright 0 1992, the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Manchester, Vermont 05254. Original Copy Editor material appearing may not be reprinted without prior permission. Second Class Permit postage paid at Manchester Sarah May Clarkson Vermont 05254 and additional offices (USPS 057410). The American Fly Fisher (ISSN oXR4-3562) Contributing Writer P o s T MA s T E R : Send address changes to TheAmerican Fly Fisher, P.O. Box 42, Joe A. Pisarro Manchester, Vermont 05254. Daniel Webster, Angler by Kenneth E. Shewmaker ONEOF THE PREEMINENT Webster schol- interest and one might assume he has also gained a reputation as one of ars in the country, Dr. Kenneth E. Shew- been researching and writing this compre- America's greatest anglers. According to maker, professor of history at Dartmouth hensive., livelv, article ever since. Here is a one often recounted story, he allegedly College, has previously contributed brief most exhaustively researched personal caught a world-record breaking 14%- articles about aspects of Daniel Webster's look at one of America's greatest states- pound brook trout on a fly in the Car- role in angling history to The American men, Daniel Webster, and the role that man's River on Long Island in 1827.l In Fly Fisher (see "Daniel Webster and the anglingplayed in his life. EDITOR his celebrated journal, Ralph Waldo Great Brook Trout," vol. 8, no. I, Winter Emerson characterized the versatile and 1981; "Three Daniel Webster Letters on Y ALMOST ANY STANDARD, many talented Webster as America's Fishing," vol. lo, no. I, Winter 1983). He Daniel Webster (1782-1852) ranks "completest man." "Nature had not in was asked by former executive director as one of the most prominent our days, or not since Napoleon," Emer- Paul Schullery and former journal editor Americans of the nineteenth century. son wrote, "cut out such a master- David Ledlie years ago to write a thor- Generally regarded as one of the greatest pie~e."~ ough account of Daniel Webster's angling lawyers, orators, politicians, and secre- Clearlv. Daniel Webster had the stuff lqe. Evidently, their request sparked his taries of state in American history, he of whichlegends are made and he even 2 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER Opposite: