INTRODUCTION Like the aroma of Time, [these] pages are redolent with tradition… I admire Edmund Davis immensely… ..[he] wrote only two books, but they will keep him living for… us." -George Bird Evans Old Hemlock 19 January 1987 Salmon Fishing on the Grand Cascapedia by the American angler Edmund W. Davis was originally produced for private distribution in two fine printings of 100 copies by the celebrated De Vinne1 Press of New York in 1904. The result is one of the chief rarities of American angling literature, as well as a highly collectable specimen of the art of book making. A presentation copy with special binding sold at auction in April of 1990 in Massachusetts, bringing a price of $3190,2 while ordinary copies have typically sold for lesser four-figure prices for many years. Until now it has never been reprinted, and it seems fitting that Davis's book should be given a wider circulation in time for the ninetieth anniversary of its original publication and the centenary of the Cascapedia Club. The Grand Cascapedia3 River in the Gaspé region of Quebec is one of the world's finest Atlantic salmon rivers. Rising from sources deep in the heart of the Shickshock4 Mountains, some of the highest and most formidable peaks east of the Rockies, the Salmon Branch flows southward to meet the La5ke Branch,6 issuing from Lacau-Saumon and running eastward some eighteen miles to the Forks. From the Forks pool, the main stem of the Cascapedia River flows another forty-five miles south through spectacular scenery to the Bay of Chaleur. Although a highway now parallels most of the river's main stem, its environs remain wild and beautiful, and the visitor will often catch sight of lynx or moose and, more rarely, bear. By present count, there are some seventynine named pools on the river's main stem, and another nine on the Lake Branch (formerly left as a sanctuary by the Club, but opened to angling in recent years as a concession to Demos). It is a river steeped in history and tradition. Starting in the 1870s, the government leased the entire upper river, along with both branches (excluding only the lower section of Loyalist water7) to a syndicate of wealthy 1 2 De Vinne is pronounced to rhyme with "Winnie." Oinonen Book Auctions, Sale Number 151, The Angling Library of Col. Henry A. Siegel, Pt. 1, A - K, Tuesday, April 24, 1990, Lot 110. 3 The name is believed to come from the Micmac Indian Gascapegiag, meaning "Wide River." The Gaspé region of Québec also numbers among its legendary salmon rivers, a Matapedia and a Patapedia. Inspired by these names, the American humorist Arthur Train set a number of fishing stories featuring the shrewd Yankee lawyer, Mr. Ephraim Tutt, on the storied "Centipedia," not far away from the equally famous "Millipedia." The Grand Cascapedia is the larger neighbor of the the Little Cascapedia. 4 Chic-Choc, en francais. 5 6 7 Called in the early days the Indian Branch. The lower portion of the River was already owned freehold by Crown grants made to American Loyalists, who settled the town of New Richmond at the mouth of the river in 1784, following the defeat of their cause in the American Revolution. Virtually all the lower river is now owned by Horse Island Camp, which counts sixteen pools in its six miles of water. The presence of the American Loyalists has provided congenial associations on the river for generations of visiting Americans with the descendants of their exiled neighbors, and the names of 2 Americans headed by Chester Arthur, whose increasing activity in politics (which-compensated him for giving up the Grand Cascapedia by leading him to the White House8) left an opening in 1878 for the Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada, to step in and acquire the lease. Lords Lansdowne and Stanley, his successors, retained possession of the river, and salmon fishing on the Grand Cascapedia was in their day looked upon as a Viceregal privilege.9 Lord Lansdowne certainly believed things would stay that way, and to prove it erected New Dereen, a handsome Victorian-styled fishing lodge affectionately named for his estate in the West of Ireland. In 1893, however, a newly organised American syndicate won the auction to acquire the lease, undoubtedly paying a formidable price.10 These anglers founded the famous Cascapedia Club, which still fishes the river today. Edmund W. Davis was one of the eight original members. The magnificence of the catches the river has produced is legendary. Virtually every North American salmon weighing more than fifty pounds11 has been taken from the Cascapedia's pools: from the long- standing North American record, R. G. Dun's 54 pound fish taken June 20, 1886, to the still unsurpassed 57 pound fish killed by Mr. Kirby, July 11, 1928.12 Edmund Davis himself may possibly have just missed holding the record. In 1900 and again in 1901, Davis killed salmon heavier than his fishing camp's fifty pound scale could weigh. By the time these fish were brought into town to be accurately measured the following day, the crucial pounds, making a new record — or equaling the old — , had most probably been lost. His fish were logged in at 51 and 52 pounds. The first of these, which Davis called "the river goddess," appears in the photograph on page 78. It seems likely that it was his extraordinary angling success in the seasons of 1900 and 1901, and the associated celebrity in salmon fishing circles, that led Davis to undertake the task of preparing and publishing his salmon fishing book. Davis set upon his self-imposed task in the precise and methodical manner of the perfectionist. After a short description of the river, he proceeds to describe the art of salmon fishing in careful detail, one chapter after another in turn devoted to each element of tackle and technique. His advice is that of a cosmopolitan and skeptical angler. He imported salmon flies from Forrest of Kelso,13 but used provincial rods made locally by Harrison, Campbell, Gilker, and Dimock have been associated with the Grand Cascapedia fishing for more than a century, as camp managers, guides, and guardians (called locally "guardeens"). 8 Chester Alan Arthur (1829-1886) was elected Vice President in 1880. He succeeded to the Presidency as a result of the assassination of James A. Garfield by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker. Arthur served as President from 1881 to 1885, but was defeated when he sought the Republican nomination to run for re-election by James G. Blaine, who went on to his own defeat at the hands of the Democrat Grover Cleveland. 9 In those distant and more amiable times, the Quèbecois took pride in the sporting prowess of their British Governors. Auguste Béchard, in La Gaspésie en 1888, hailed their lordships as: "grand pêcheurs devant Dieu et devant les hommes!" 10 The actual figure is not known, but seventeen years later, in 1910, the Cascapedia Club was paying the Province of Quebec an annual fee of twelve thousand five hundred dollars. 11 Mr. J. A. Campbell researched the matter and found records of eleven Cascapedia salmon weighing fifty pounds or more (Atlantic Salmon Journal, Summer, 1983.). 12 In 1990, reports were spread near and far of a 72 pound fish caught on the Restigouche. Unfortunately, the policies of the Province of New Brunswick which permit only grilse to be taken, and require the release of all salmon, are enforced on that river. Consequently, the "72 pound" fish's weight was only calculated, using one of the formulas available for estimating a fish's weight from his length and girth. It is interesting , to say the least, that in the last few years several reports of fish larger than 60 pounds (considerably larger than the authentic North America record), have come from the Restigouche. Particularly, since in the earlier era when fish were kept and weighed on scales, the Restigouche seems to have produced, since 1880, only a single 50 pound fish, along with a fair number of 40 pounders. 13 John Forrest founded his famous tackle house in 1837 at Kelso on the River Tweed. According to Graham Turner, in his well researched reference Fishing Tackle, Ward Lock Limited, London, 1989, Forrest of Kelso, later Forrest and Sons, survived up to 1967. The salmon flies reproduced by photogravure in three colour plates were dressed by Forrest and Sons. 3 Dalzell in St. John, New Brunswick. Davis was familiar with split-cane rods, but, like many anglers of the old school, preferred greenheart's14 greater power and its peculiarly sympathetic and vibrant action. He recommends a rod of fifteen feet, which struck me as a little longer than needed for Canadian waters, until I reflected that anglers of his day fished larger flies much more often than we do today. It takes a big rod to turn over those 3/0s and 4/0s at the end of a long cast. It is not surprising that Davis endorses the superb reels made by Edward Vom Hofe, many of which manufactured in 1904 or even twenty years earlier,15 remain in active service today.16 Vom Hofe's reels were produced as luxury items, and finished like jewelry, but the care taken in their production was not merely for show. To stand up to the runs of a gamefish as powerful as the Atlantic salmon, a reel's mechanism must be made with the precision of a fine watch. No other reel of that era could be wholly relied upon. In rivers like the Grand Cascapedia, where there is always the possibility of hooking a fish of forty, or even fifty pounds, only a reel of the quality of the Vom Hofe stands between the angler and disaster. I cannot help but smile when I come to Davis's chapter on the line. He carries over from trout fishing to salmon fishing, as I do myself, the prejudice against light-coloured lines and the phobia about scaring fish with them. He admits he has seen people kill salmon with line "almost white and large enough to kill a codfish." But he implores his readers "not to try it; it is not clean fishing, it is not correct fishing." I know just what he means; I feel that way myself. I take considerable interest in salmon fly patterns, and run to strong opinions on their relative effectiveness. Few anglers in Britain or North America still fish the classic feather winged patterns these days, but I do, and I find that Davis's experience of ninety years ago largely agrees with my own. I find Jock Scott and Silver Grey are still as effective today in all the rivers of Gaspé as they were then. Like Davis, I have little success with the Durham Ranger and the Silver Doctor. Davis's choice of an evening pattern, the Steuart (named for one of his in-laws), was improved upon after his time by his guide James Harrison (pictured holding the river goddess), who some years later invented the superb Lady Amherst. Davis registers his agreement with just about every Gaspé guide I ever met (if not Lee Wulff) in preferring double-hooks. He does seem old-fashioned in thinking Number 8 hooks too small for Cascapedia fish. We fish in low water conditions more today, I suppose, and every year the fish seem shyer. 14 Greenheart is a wood principally imported from British Guyana. Heavy and dense in grain, it is very strong and elastic, resists moisture, and can be finished to a very attractive color and texture. Greenheart rods were hand-planed to a taper from billets of solid wood. This laborious method was necessary because greenheart fractures when turned on a lathe. The best rods were made with spliced joints. Ferruled rods were not considered trustworthy by most anglers, because it was widely believed that they tended to break at the joint. Greenheart rods usually cost a good deal less than split bamboo (Grant Vibration rods were the exception), and though heavier had a considerably more powerful action. The greenheart rod reached its epitome in the Vibration rods, designed by the Scottish musician and violin-maker, Alexander Grant. Even today, a few highly reactionary anglers, including H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and myself, persist in a loyalty to their Grant Vibrations. 15 Edward Vom Hofe's salmon reels were manufactured from the 1870s until 1940. After the demise of the Vom Hofe company, a former employee, Otto Zwarg, produced near duplicates until 1958. The modern successor to the Vom Hofe reel is made by Mr. Stanley Bogdan. Bogdan's reels are a fine design, and take advantage of space-age materials. They are actually a trifle smoother in their action, but the old Vom Hofes are still the most handsome reels ever made. 16 My salmon fishing tackle includes four Edward Vom Hofe reels, in sizes from 2/0 to 6/0, with patent dates from 1883 to 1902. The 3/0 model, bearing the 1883 patent date, matches perfectly a 12' Payne rod, which I use every season. 4 Davis's strictures on two-handed casting17 are a bit peculiar. He objects to the natural practice of reversing one's hands to cast over the other shoulder, regarding it as somehow ungraceful. Although I expect that Davis is right in maintaining that it is possible to cast in the manner he advocates, it does not seem very practical, and I can't see why he considers it more æstheticly pleasing. Salmon fishing in Quebec, in the era Davis describes, was done from canoes. Canoes were necessary, in the first place, as transportation up-and down-river, in the absence of roads Moreover, Canadian rivers were often too wide, their currents too swift, and their banks too thickly forested (American anglers lacking knowledge of the Spey-cast) for wading to be a practicable alternative. On a number of the rivers of the Gaspé peninsula, including the Grand Cascapedia, the practise of fishing from canoes described by Davis still survives today. The canoe is usually shared by two anglers (see the photograph, captioned "Red Camp Pool," opposite p. [SUPPLY PAGE NUMBER]. This is not only expected, but advisable, so that the angler can take a break from casting, search through his boxes for the next fly, chat with the guides, or simply take in the scenery.18 Each canoe has an assigned beat, normally consisting of several pools. On some rivers, a canoe will be assigned the exclusive right to fish literally miles of river, and dozens of pools. On most of today's rivers, the canoe is managed by single guide, using an outboard motor, but a few rivers, like the Cascapedia, maintain the old standards.19 On these, outboard motors are banned, and the motive power for each canoe is still supplied by two guides using paddles and iron-shod spruce poles. In the photograph facing page 8, we see a couple of the classic Gaspé canoes, built of cedar and canvas, with narrow, angled ribs, and lap-straked side-boards.20 Not many years earlier, anglers would have fished from birchbark canoes made by Micmac Indians. Today's preferred canoe is the twenty-six foot model built by Mr. Sharpe on the banks of the Restigouche. Sharpe canoes have tremendous stability, and the angler may stand up to cast or play a fish very safely. The canoes of Davis's day were less stable, but adequate to their purpose. Then, as now, each pool was fished in a series of "drops." The guides maneuver the canoe into a suitable position for casting at the head, or just a little above the head of the pool. An anchor made of cast lead (in the old days, simply a suitable rock), called the killick is lowered. The angler then proceeds to cast, starting with a short line, and usually fishing both sides of the canoe. After casts to both sides have been fished out, the line is lengthened a couple of feet, and the process is repeated. When the angler has cast and fished the greatest length of line he can manage, he informs the guides, and it is resolved to "take a drop." The killick is raised, and the canoe is allowed to drift downstream to the point where new water will be covered in the next succession of casts. Davis advocates a stealthy approach to each pool, and urges anchoring the canoe to one side of the river to make it less conspicuous to the fish. He even goes so far as to suggest waiting for a few minutes after 17 The angling authors who dominated the American sporting journals after WWII persuaded their readers that (1) it was possible to thrown a long enough line to kill salmon by double-hauling on a one hand rod, and that (2) the shorter the rod the "more sporting" its use. As a result of their theories, a generation of North American salmon fishermen entirely abandoned the pleasure and convenience of using twohanded rods. Only very recently, as the result of more Americans traveling to Scotland and Norway, where observation of Spey-casting has tended to broaden their horizons, has the two-handed rod begun a come back in this hemisphere. 18 The fishing on these exclusive rivers is normally priced with the assumption that two anglers will be sharing each canoe. The tariff would be doubled otherwise. 19 20 Also the Gaspé St. John and the St. Anne. The name of the builder of the old Gaspé canoes seems to have been universally forgotten, though I have often inquired. Some specimens of these survive in the Museum made from the old Matamajaw Club on the Matapedia at Causapscal. The same design is still being made today in the nearby town of Bonaventure, by M. Arsenault. They are called "Bonaventure canoes" today, and can be recognized by their grey paint with orange-red trim. Bonaventure canoes are built only to a maximum size of twenty feet. They are not as roomy and stable as the Sharpe canoe, but they draw less water. 5 anchoring before commencing to fish, which seems to me to be an idea deserving a trial today. From Davis's account, turn-of-the-century Cascapedia anglers seem to have varied their fishing hours at different points in the season, finding "nine 'oclock… early enough" in June, but getting up earlier in July, and in August, fishing only early morning and late evening. On today's Gaspé rivers, the same routine is followed throughout the season: fishing starts after breakfast, around 7:30 or 8 o'clock, and continues until lunch-time, noon or one o'clock. The guides and sports return to the lodge for luncheon, after which everyone has a siesta until 5:30, when fishing is resumed until dusk. It is part of Nature's perversity that, often, the more expensive the fishing and the more exclusive the Club, the more rigid is the guides' view of their hourly schedule. Visiting anglers will find that some Cascapedia guides are clock-watchers, and have every intention of packing it in after eight hours of fishing, unless additional financial incentives are forthcoming. This can be rather frustrating on long summer evenings. Although much remains the same from Davis's era to today, the reader who is familar with the Grand Cascapedia today will discover in Davis's account considerable evidence of the passage of time. In the first place, obviously, salmon have grown a great deal scarcer, and the daily limit in Gaspé is now one fish, salmon or grilse. The veritable hecatomb illustrated in "Two Days' Fishing (p. [Page Number]) would be an embarrassment, rather than an achievement to today's angler. The fishery now must accomodate hundreds of anglers in the course of a season, where once only eight Club members fished, accompanied by a few guests. We can console ourselves, though, that at least we don't have to try to fish for, and land, salmon in the middle of a log drive. Although his book was produced as a personal memento intended only for family and friends, a wider audience today will treasure this account of fishing the Grand Cascapedia during a great era, and find useful, even 90 years later, the admonitions and advice of a very knowledgeable angler. George Bird Evans looks upon Davis's books as "a prototype of Eugene Connett's Derrydales, with similar proportions, generous margins, and clear letterpress typeface."21 The superb quality of these editions results from Davis's choice of the legendary Theodore Low De Vinne (1828-1914) as his printer. De Vinne, the son of a minister, was born on Christmas Day, 1828, in Stamford, Connecticut. After an apprenticeship in which he "made a show of ability" in Newburgh, New York, he moved to New York City to work for Francis Hart Co., the best New York printer of the day. Upon his employer's retirement in the 1850s, De Vinne was made head of the company, and given an opportunity to buy into the business. By 1883, De Vinne had completed its purchase. He was a remarkable businessman as well as a printer, and retired a millionaire in 1910. Soon after going into business for himself, De Vinne became one of the founding members of the Grolier Club,22 a leading society of bibliophiles, connoisseurs, and collectors. The Grolier Club gave practical expression to its admiration for the arts of the book by issuing a famous series of fine printings. Forty-five of fifty-five books bearing that prestigious imprint were produced by the De Vinne Press. The press also did substantial work for the Scribner and Century Companies: for Scribner, producing luxury editions of Edith Wharton's The Decoration of Houses (1897), Rudyard Kipling's Plain Tales From the Hills (1899), Ernest Thompson Seton's The Trail of the Sandhill Stag (1900), as well as Theodore Roosevelt's African Game Trails (1910); and, for the Century Company, printing Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887) the Century Magazine, the Century Dictionary (1883), and the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia in ten volumes (1880-1906). De Vinne's work for the Century Company is considered to have set the standard for American typography in his time. De Vinne's prestige in his field was so great, one of his former employee's recalled that "it was the ambition of many men 21 22 George Bird Evans, Introduction to Woodcock Shooting, Premier Press, 1987, p. xiv. Named for the great collector and patron of the French Renaissance, Jean Grolier (1479-1565). 6 in the printing industry to be employed there, not that they were paid better wages than in the other houses, but because it was an indication of competency to be known as a De Vinne Man."23 Davis could easily afford De Vinne's services for the production of fine editions, being the only grandson of Perry Davis, inventor of PAIN KILLER, probably the most successful proprietary medicine of the Victorian age. Perry Davis was born in 1791 in rural poverty, and for most of his life seemed to be the victim of an enduring run of hard luck. At 14, he had a bad fall which left him permanently lamed. He received only the briefest education, and was forced to resign himself to being apprenticed as a shoe-maker. He married in 1813, but life was a constant struggle for his young family, and he and his wife lost seven of nine children. In 1840, he fell ill with a cold that settled on his lungs, accompanied by a variety of digestive disorders. Perry Davis was at the point of resigning himself to death, despite his reluctance to leave his family without support, when he found himself, by his own account, directed by the hand of Providence, in "compounding and proportioning" a medicine for himself, made from "the choicest gums and plants… the world afforded," in which the stimulating effect of one would be counteracted by the soothing effect of the other. The end result was "a balm to heal," which worked for its inventor, and Perry Davis unexpectedly recovered. His troubles were not over, however. He had recently taken up inventing, and had borrowed $4500 to fund the marketing of a grain grinding mill of his own design. Sales efforts were unsuccessful, and in 1843, he lost his home and everything he possessed in the world to a fire which destroyed most of Fall River, Massachusetts. The Davis family moved to Providence, Rhode Island using funds provided for the victims of the fire by charitable citizens of Providence and Boston. After obtaining the barest necessities, Perry Davis found himself possessed of three cents and the recipe for his marvelous medicine, and $4500 in debt. In his desperate circumstances, he made one more heroic effort. He recalled that in a town ten miles away there lived a man who owed him four dollars and fifty cents, and made the jouney to collect the debt, though he had to persuade the tollgate keepers on his route to trust him to pay on the return trip. With these few dollars in hand, he procured bottles, and labels, and made up a batch of his medicinal preparation. Carrying his bottles in a wicker basket, he began to sell his PAIN KILLER outside the grounds of the Rhode Island State Fair in Pawtuxet. From this humble beginning, he was on the road to success at last. Having started out selling his medicine at the state fairs of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and door-to-door in Providence, by 1844 he was able to purchase a building where he began large scale production. Wars and epidemics fueled PAIN KILLER's sales, and before long it was marketed around the world. Directions for its use were ultimately printed in thirty languages. The remarkable compound was advertised as a treatment for "cholera and summer complaint,24 fever and ague, rheumatism and neuralgia, cut and bruises," and as a liniment. It was effective on men and horses, and could be applied both internally and externally. In India, natives were reportedly found worshipping empty PAIN KILLER bottles. The British government purchased it by the barrel for the use of its troops. During the American Civil War, the Federal Government went so far as to take over the Davis factory in order to increase production. From its "stimulating" character, and topical effectiveness, it seems likely that Davis's remedy contained an ample dose of the extract of the coca leaf. Its effectiveness at curing dysentery and "soothing" properties were probably derived from laudanum. Perry Davis's PAIN KILLER was among many products which vanished from the marketplace after the Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906 as the result of decades of agitation by the Temperance and Anti-Drug Movements. By this time, however, the Davis family was no longer active in 23 Frank Easton Hopkins, The De Vinne & Marion Presses: a chapter from the autobiography of Frank E. Hopkins, The Columbiad Club, Meriden, Connecticut, 1936, p. 6. 24 An old New Endland term for dysentery, these days applied as an epithet to urban vacationers and tourists by year-round residents of rural Maine. 7 managing the business, which had in any event diversified its product line, and the family fortune was long since more than comfortably established. Edmund Walstein Davis was born December 27, 1853 at Providence, Rhode Island. He attended the University Grammar School in Providence, and prepared for college at Zurich, Heidelberg, and Cambridge (Massachusetts), entering Harvard College with the Class of 1876. He left Harvard at the end of his Sophomore year25 to enter the family business. According to the Providence Daily Journal,26 his business career did not last long. He soon moved to Washington, where he married Maria Hunter Steuart, a member of a prominent Virginia family. When he returned to Rhode Island, he became a member of the young and fast "high roller" set associated with the Narragansett Pier, which often scandalised members of more staid Newport society. He built both a mansion in Providence on Westminster Street, surpassing even his grandfather's — a major Providence landmark — in grandeur, and a villa on the Point Judith Road south of the Pier settlement. His hospitality was famous, and he spent money "on a princely scale."27 In Providence, he became acquainted with R. G. Dun, a prominent businessman and founder of Dun's Commercial Agency, who introduced him to Canadian salmon fishing. Davis traveled widely in pursuit of shooting and fishing. In his later book Woodcck Shooting (1908), he mentions shooting sharp-tailed grouse in Northern Montana, quail on the Kansas prairie, wildfowl in Southern California, and jack-snipe at Louisiana's Bayou-Teche.28 He was particularly devoted to the classic New England sport of gunning woodcock, and was among the first American sportsmen to pursue the woodcock to their breeding grounds in maritime Canada. George Bird Evans notes that Davis was the first man to hunt woodcock in New Brunswick with an English setter. By the early years of this century, the October pilgrimage to the coverts of New Brunswick after 'cock had become for the shooting aristocracy of New England an annual tradition, resembling the Englishman's departure for the Scottish grouse moors for "the Glorious Twelfth." In Woodcock Shooting, Edmund Davis grappled, as sportsmen often do, with the question of the cruelty of sport. "Shooting, in my opinion, is the least cruel and the quickest way of ending a life,"29 he wrote. It seems bitterly ironic that Davis was himself killed in a shooting accident at his camp on the Grand Cascapedia, June 20, 1908, not long after that book's publication. The event was reported two days later in the Providence paper. The account is short and confusing: "Word was received today that Edward (sic) W. Davis… died of a gunshot wound, accidentally received, while hunting in the Canadian woods… Little is known of the details of the tragedy, save that the weapon which Davis was handling was prematurely exploded and that death soon followed."30 The reader wonders what he would be hunting in June in the Canadian woods, and finds it difficult to visualise the accident in which the victim is injured because of the premature explosion of the gun he is holding. I asked some of the guides on the Grand Cascapedia if any of them remembered anything about Edmund Davis's death. To my surprise, they had a definite account of the event supposedly handed down from relatives who were present eighty-five years ago. Oral tradition on the river depicts Davis's death as a premeditated crime. The story has it that after a late night argument the previous evening, heard throughout the camp, Davis went crow shooting with another person, who returned alone explaining that his gun had 25 26 Americans attend college for four years; the second of which is called Sophomore Year. "E.W. Davis Killed in Canadian Woods," Monday, June 22, 1908, p. 1. 27 J. Earl Clauson, These Plantations, Roger Williams Press, Providence, 1937, p. 49. 28 Woodcock Shooting, 1908, p. 11. 29 Woodcock Shooting, 1908, p.83. 30 Providence Daily Journal, "E.W. Davis Killed in Canadian Woods," Monday, June 22, 1908, p. 1. 8 accidentally fired while Davis was walking in front of him. Davis was found shot at point blank range in the back of the head. The legend identifies the murderer, and assigns a motive. I found the story interesting and plausible enough in detail. Just those kinds of Agatha Christie-ish thoughts had passed through my mind, when I read the Providence newspaper's uninformative account of the accident. On the other hand, there are few things in this world as unreliable as gossip about the rich and famous, except perhaps for local legends found in rural communities. At this late date, of course, we can never hope to know the truth, but it does not really matter, the guilty party, if there was a guilty party, is certainly by now beyond the reach of human justice, and Davis's untimely death remains a tragedy regardless of the circumstances. J.David Zincavage 9 A Bibliographic Note The two original printings of Salmon Fishing on the Grand Cascapedia are easy to distinguish since the text of the first edition runs one hundred forty-three pages, and that of the second one hundred fifty-two pages. The first is printed on paper water-marked: P. M. FABRIANO. When the second printing was ordered, evidently a sufficient supply of the original paper was not available, so equally luxurious Imperial Japanese paper was substituted. The change in paper resulted in each edition differing slightly in size. The first edition was 9 and 5/8" by 6 and 3/4". The second edition was slightly taller, but narrower: 10" by 6 and 1/2". Both printings were bound in tan paper-covered boards with tiny vellum-tipped corners matching a vellum spine bearing a label printed on paper.31 This binding was characteristic of De Vinne 's workshop, and was also used for Davis's later Woodcock Shooting (1908). The limitation notice, and its location, are different in each edition . In the earlier printing, it is placed on the upper portion of the back of the title page, above the copyright. Enclosed in a small rectangle, this limitation notice appears in both upper and lower case: Of this edition there have been printed one hundred copies, of which this is No. The number is hand-written in ink. My own copy is number 19 of the first edition, which previously belonged to former Governor Walter Rutherford Peterson of New Hampshire, and before him to William Butts Mershon of Saginaw, Michigan, noted Cascapedia angler, and author of The Passenger Pigeon (1907) and Recollections of My Fifty Years Hunting and Fishing (1923). In the second edition, the limitation notice appears on a separate page between the front fly-leaf and the halftitle. It is printed, uppercase only, in an inverted triangle: THIS COPY OF "SALMON FISHING ON THE GRAND CASCAPEDIA" IS ONE OF AN EDITION OF ONE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED ON IMPERIAL JAPAN PAPER , DURING MAY NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR, AND IS NO. Mr. Davis had a very small number of copies bound up more elaborately in full crushed dark green levant morocco, with gold ornaments at the corners, silk doublures and end papers, gilt top, and green levant morocco slip-case by the firm of W. Roach. I have seen a copy so bound numbered No. 1, with a presentation inscription to Mrs. Davis, and it was this copy which sold at auction for $3190 in April of 1990. The 1909 Catalogue of the Collection of the late John Gerard Heckscher for the Merwin-Clayton Auction Sale lists as lot 589, a copy in this binding numbered No. 2. The Heckscher catalogue has been a perennial source of confusion to dealers and collectors because it provides a contradictory description of that lot, listing 143 pages (characteristic of the first edition), and Imperial Japanese paper (characteristic of the second). It seems more likely to me that a careless auction cataloguer would err on the page count (cribbing it from 31 DeVinne thoughtfully included an extra label in the back of the book to be used as a replacement when the original eventually began to chip. 10 another listing, rather than actually looking at the book), instead of the type of paper, so I would suppose these special bindings were produced from copies of the second edition. Mr. Davis took advantage of the second printing to add new material. The original type from the first printing had been kept intact, and since most of the additions fell at the very end of chapters, new type-setting was kept to a minimum. The added material is principally made up of personal anecdotes and experiences illustrating the author's points, and often nicely rounds out the earlier text. These additions caused the second printing to have nine more pages than the first. As it is not possible to mark out the new material in the body of the text for this reprint, the following chart will assist the reader in identifying the additions. Textual additions in Davis's second printing of May, 1904 Chapter Number 3 Title The Rod Original Page Number New Page Number(s) -- 12 [an entirely new page] 32 New Text Inserted After: New Text Inserted Before: Number of New Paragraphs32 … nothing pleases this lady but the split bamboo. The new text ends the chapter. 2 4 The Line 15 16 … let them alone, and they will. The new text ends the chapter. 1 9 The Casting 40 41 … but the above appeals to me more than any other. The new text ends the chapter. (1) 10 The Fishing 45 46 … but drawing the fly is the most interesting to me, and the most successful as well. In clear water it is a good plan to drift past a pool… 1 11 Hooking the Salmon 55 57, 58, 59 "I never fish for trout any more." The new text ends the chapter. 2 12 Changing Flies 60 64, 65, 66 … I do not believe it is worth while changing, except for the amusement it affords. The new text ends the chapter. 3 Numbers in parentheses signify partial new paragraphs. 11 13 The Weather 64 70 They will often do this when there is a sudden change from a warm to a cold wind. The new text ends the chapter. 15 The Salmon 74 80, 81 As most of my large salmon have given me some thrilling experiences, I prefer the killing of large fish. During the number of years I have been on the river I have seen only four grilse. 16 The Runs and Varieties 77 85 Whether it denotes a different variety or malformation, I am unable to say. The new text ends the chapter. 1 18 Do Salmon Hear? 85 93, 94 … and then, with a fly well thrown, if you fail the fault lies not with the angler. The new text ends the chapter. 1 19 The Kelts 87 96 The kelts usually say "au revoir" for the season from June fifteenth to the twentieth, to the pleasure of all. The new text ends the chapter. 1 1 1 – (2) 12 Bibliography 1. Edmund Walstein Davis Edmund W. Davis, Salmon Fishing on the Grand Cascapedia, privately printed by the De Vinne Press, 100 copies, x, 143 pages, New York, 1904; privately reprinted by the De Vinne Press, 100 copies with additional material, [2], x,152 pages, New York, May, 1904. Edmund W. Davis, Woodcock Shooting, privately printed by the De Vinne Press, xii, 124 pages, New York, 1908; reprinted with introduction by George Bird Evans by the Premier Press, xxviii, 124 pages, Camden, South Carolina, 3000 copies, 1987. [The George Bird Evans introduction was reprinted in George Bird Evans Introduces men who have enriched our gunning through their bird dogs and paintings and experiences; published by the author, 1150 copies, Old Hemlock, West Virginia, 1990.] 2. Theodore Low De Vinne and the De Vinne Press The Grolier Club, Catalogue of the De Vinne Press exhibited at the Grolier Club on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Theodore Low De Vinne, December 25, 1828, The Grolier Club, New York, 1929. Frank Easton Hopkins, The De Vinne & Marion Presses: a chapter from the autobiography of Frank E. Hopkins, The Columbiad Club, Meriden, Connecticut, 1936. Carl Purington Rollins, Theodore Low De Vinne by Carl Purington Rollins; together with a list of De Vinne's writings, his reflections on the Century typeface and an interview with Mr. De Vinne at seventy-five, Typophiles, New York, 1968. 3. The Grand Cascapedia River — Historical Accounts Richard Lewes Dashwood, XV Regiment, Chiploquorgan; or Life by the Camp Fire in Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland, Robert T. White, Dublin, 1871; another edition, Simpkin, Marshall & Co., London, 1872, another edition, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 1979. [Dashwood, with two brother officers, visited the Grand Cascapedia for more than a week in early July of 1862, ascending the river as far as the Forks. His party only killed two salmon, and saw very few in the river. As a result, Dashwood concluded — somewhat prematurely — that the Cascapedia's salmon fishing was "a myth."] George Dawson, Pleasures of Angling with Rod and Reel for Trout and Salmon, Sheldon & Company, New York, 1876. [Chapters 7 through 25 recount two trips to the Grand Cascapedia in the summers of 1874 and 1875 in the company of future President Chester Arthur, then Collector of the Port of New York.] The Marquess of Lansdowne, K.G. [Sir Henry Charles Keith Petty FitzMaurice], "A Canadian River" in Blackwood's Magazine, Volume 208, Number, 1261, November, 1920, pp. 610-627. [The former Governor-General remembers the fishing during the mid-1880s.] William B. Mershon, Recollections of My Fifty Years Hunting and Fishing, The Stratford Company, Boston, 1923. [One chapter on the author's salmon fishing career on the Cascapedia, starting in 1886.] 13 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, When All the Woods are Green — A Novel, The Century Co., New York, 1894. [Edmund W. Davis warmly recommended this novel set on the Grand Cascapedia by a friend and fellow club-member. The contemporary reader will find it tough going. Dr. Mitchell's characters are constantly using obscure nicknames, variations of nicknames, and even abbreviations of nicknames for each other. Mr. Archibald Lyndsay ["Pardy," or "Marcus Aurelius," or "M.A."] arrives for his summer fishing on the Grand Cascapedia, accompanied by an extensive family, including his wife, Margaret, his invalid unmarried sister, Miss Anne Lyndsay, his daughter, Rose, his twin sons, Jack and Dick, and his youngest child, Ned. The family faces danger from the schemes of the poor white Susan Colkett, who forces her simple-minded husband Joe into attempting the robbery and murder of these rich visiting Americans, despite — or perhaps, because of — Mrs. Lyndsay's conspicuous charity. The Gaspésienne Lady MacBeth is, of course, foiled. Rose finds romance with Mr. Carrington, a very suitable young angler who is fishing the river with another party. Jack learns a lesson when he foolishly places his siblings in danger by provoking a mother bear. Miss Anne Lyndsay regains a desire to struggle against her chronic and fatal illness.] [Frank Gray Griswold titles are typically rather expensive. Many of the Plimpton Press editions were bound in a false leather which aged badly, and most copies are in shabby condition today. Griswold constantly reissued and recycled the same material, and he represents a real morass for the collector, offering endless opportunities inadvertently to acquire duplicated material at high prices in poor condition. The only really necessary Griswold title is: ] Frank Gray Griswold, A Salmon River, Dutton's, New York, 1928. [Enlarged edition of Observations on a Salmon River, 1921 and 1922. Frank Gray Griswold became a member of the Cascapedia Club in 1921.] [Other Griswold titles of modest interest include:] Frank Gray Griswold, Sport on Land and Water — Recollections of Frank Gray Griswold, Volume VI, privately printed by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts,1923. [Chapter 5 on Salmon Fishing, pp. 90-91 on the Grand Cascapedia.] Frank Gray Griswold, Fish Facts and Fancies, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and London, 1926. [Several full chapters, and significant portions of others, on the Grand Cascapedia. One volume edition. Previously issued, 1923 and 1925, in two volumes, privately printed by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts.] Frank Gray Griswold, Salmon Score of F. Gray Griswold for Ten Seasons 1920–1929, privately printed, Grand Cascapedia River, Canada, 1929. Frank Gray Griswold, Sport on Land and Water — Recollections of Frank Gray Griswold, Volume VII, privately printed by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts, 1931. [Chapters 5 and 6 contain significant material on the Grand Cascapedia; chapter 7 reprints Griswold's Ten Year Salmon Score.] Frank Gray Griswold, After Thoughts — Recollections of Frank Gray Griswold, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1936. [A few pages, 82–85, on the author's Cascapedia career. Another edition privately printed by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachsetts was also published in 1936.]] 4. The Grand Cascapedia River — Contemporary Information J.A."Buddy" Campbell, article in The Atlantic Salmon Journal, Volume 32, No. 2, Summer, 1983 [The title is not supplied because I have been unable to locate a copy. Tells the story of the formation of la Société de Gestion du Saumon de la Rivière Grand Cascapedia which preserved the river and its fishing from the threat of "declubbage."] 14 Gary Anderson, Atlantic Salmon & the Fly Fisherman, Salar Publishing, Montreal, 1985, [Anderson provides a good contemporary tour d'horizon of North American salmon rivers, in chapter 12, "The Aristocratic Rivers of Gaspésie," he discusses the Cascapedia.] George Gruenefeld, Gruenefeld's Atlantic Salmon River Log — Gaspé Region, printed by the author, Montreal, Quebec, 1988; second edition with additional material, 1990, [Best information on booking publicly available fishing for all Gaspé rivers, including the Grand Cascapedia.] 15 Acknowledgements Thanks to Chip Gatter for locating a copy of These Plantations; to Judith Bowman for lending her second edition Salmon Fishing on the Grand Cascapedia; to Michael Raines of the Harvard University Archives for tracking down Edmund W. Davis's class affiliation; to Carl Nordblom, Antiques Auctioneer, of Cambridge, Massachusetts for supplying the photograph of the Pain Killer advertising sign; and to Warren Gilker, and other informants, for information on the history of the river and its Club.