For Sale - Birthplace of Skeet

[Dean Romig]

The house and kennel houses of the former Davies property and Glen Rock Kennels is for sale with an asking price of $395K
The skeet field was sold about twenty years ago and now has a cul-de-sac with a bunch of upscale homes. The remaining property consists of about 1.1 acres and the two kennel houses.

An offer has already been made on the property so if anyone seriously wants the place I can put him in touch with the owner.

But please, serious inquiries only. I have nothing to gain in this but it would be nice to see it go to a shooter and lover of Skeet.

[Bill Murphy]

Dean, it looks like you will have to pursue the "William Harnden Foster" connection to get a rise out of our members.

[Dean Romig]

I think you're right Bill - not that I expected any replys to the thread, I only tossed it out there to let people know the place is for sale. I think a great many of the people whu read the post understood the history but, briefly, for those who don't . . .

William Harnden Foster is attributed with the 'invention' of the shooting game of skeet but this is largely untrue . . . not that he didn't have a great deal to do with it, it was actually Mr. Davies and his son (who was a very good friend and shooting companion of Foster's) on who's property the original skeet field was constructed. It originally had one trap and twelve shooting positions set in a circle and was dubbed by Davies "Shooting 'Round the Clock" but soon a neighbor started up a chicken farm and asked Davies to reconfigure the shooting field so an additional trap machine was added and the positions were reduced to eight in a half-circle. Foster, being the editor in chief of both Hunting and Fishing and National Sportsman magazines published in Boston popularized the new game through his magazines and solicited the readership for a name for the game. "Skeet" was submitted and chosen as the name and the rest is history. This is how William Harnden Foster was connected with skeet and became known as "The Father of Skeet" and it all happened on this property.

How's that Bill??

[Dave Miles]

Dean,

Too bad the place isn't located in Michigan.
That's just what the wife is looking for.
Only I'd need 39 more acres. :)

[Bill Murphy]

Foster was also a Parker shooter whose son went to work for Remington and held various positions there relating to shooting promotions etc. He also wrote New England Grouse Shooting and was a prolific outdoor theme illustrator who painted the covers for many Hunting and Fishing and National Sportsman magazines. Dean is a bit modest in that he didn't mention that he is researching William Harnden Foster for the benefit of other students of him and his interests.

[Bill Murphy]

Dave, your wife is looking for a run down kennel at the intersection to two well travelled roads in Massachusetts? When is the divorce final?

[Dean Romig]

Foster was also a very accomplished artist beyond his illustrations for magazines. He loved trains and painted very realistic renditions of famous locomotives of the day. Examples of his artistic skills and realism one needs look no further than the illustrations in New England Grouse Shooting which were all done by Foster... however, you would be missing out on most of his best work if that were as far as you looked. Dogs were another favorite subject of his art. I could go on and on . . .

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Shame you didn't run across a painting or two in that estate sale.....

DLH

[Christopher Lien]

Foster was a true Hunting Man's illustrator, and it showed in his work... Top Shelf! ;)

Best, CSL
______________________________

http://www.webpak.net/%7Edslcslien/1FosterParkerA.jpg

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[Don Kaas]

If all WHF ever did was produce "New England Grouse Shooting" he would still be an immortal of the tribe of the outdoors scribe. He accomplished a good deal more then that...That he was both a spare and careful writer and an illustrator of casual and sensitive charm makes him even more remarkable as far as I am concerned. "The Little Gun" is to Parkers what Bo Whoop is to the Fox gun...relatively plain and even pedestrian guns used in the hands of extraordinary writers and sportsman. Afterall it was the writing that made the guns famous not the other way around. His prose, like The Little Gun don't weigh but nuthin' however both of them live on. Now, if Ev Harnden's house was for sale...

[Dean Romig]

A familiar theme of Foster's art - this from New England Grouse Shooting.

[Dean Romig]

Don, in August I took a tour, by invitation of the Harnden family, of historic Harnden sites in the Wilmington & Tewksbury area (next towns to Andover's west) during their Harnden Family Reunion. Many of them Didn't know of William Harnden Foster and they were delighted to learn of him. I donated a copy of New England Grouse Shooting to the Harnden Museum at the Harnden Tavern in Wilmington, Ma.

[Dean Romig]

Destry, I bought this Lynn Bogue Hunt print... it was tacked to the wall of the 'clubhouse room' of the main kennel house. The seven or eight thumbtacks were very old and rusty - I just know Foster stuck it up there . . .

[Drew Hause]

From New England Grouse Shooting
"Grouse hunting without a dog is not grouse hunting at all."
"Hunting with a good dog during the shooting season is the essence of the sport and because of the shortness of the season many grouse hunters continue to follow the grouse with their dogs, fully absorbed in watching the work and continued training, with no sense of loss because the gun is packed away at home..."
"As the grouse hunter's interest in better dogs increases he becomes more careful of the only bird on which a grouse dog can be made and thus becomes more sparing in his shooting in order to preserve a supply of game that is more important to his future sport alive than dead."

"Flushed"

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL1373/6511424/18917639/298465623.jpg

[Drew Hause]

By William Harnden Foster, and possibly depicting his son with Foster Sr's 27" barrel 20 gauge DHE SN 225905.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL1373/6511424/18779715/298465485.jpg

And BTW: the Ithaca NID Skeet Special was advertised in the July 1926 National Sportsman, only 2 months after the game was named! Was the Ithaca Gun Co. tipped off in advance of the announcement in order to accelerate production of a designated skeet gun?
And why did the skeet logo appear two years later on the L.C. Smith “Skeet Upland Special” and not on that gun?

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL1373/6511424/18779715/357598443.jpg

[Don Kaas]

Geerificus, Dean...sounds like a great tour. I guess bringing a Parker hammer gun and a fox skin to lay on Ev's grave for a photo op might cause a stir in suburban Boston...

[Dean Romig]

Indeed it would Don. It would certainly cause more than a raised eyebrow.

While I was on the Harnden tour I asked Dan Harnden, the family historian, if he could show us Everell Harnden's home and when we passed the spot on Rte 38 (the Boston to Lowell Turnpike) Dan pointed to a strip mall and said "That's where it was. . ."

[Bill Murphy]

Don said he might be interested in buying Ev's house. By gosh, he may already own it!

[Bill Murphy]

William Harnden Foster was the twelfth shooter to break a 25 straight skeet birds with the .410. He did this at the Everett, MA Gun Club on August 24, 1932 with a Parker double. We don't know if it was the .410 Parker that was mentioned earlier.

[Dean Romig]

It would be interesting to know where in Everett, Ma. the Everett Gun Club was located. Today Everett is considered to be a city, there is no open space large enough that shotgun pellets would fall within the boundaries of the property and, (drum roll please) the discharge of firearms in the city of Everett is strictly illegal.

The .410 I am researching as possibly having some connection to William Harnden Foster was made in 1939, so it's not that gun.