A Unique Double With a Parker

[Dave Noreen]

I guess back in 1926, everything about Skeet was new. This from the November 1926 issue of Hunting and Fishing --

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[Daryl Corona]

They would be amazed how many times it's happened since 1926.

[Drew Hause]

Since Dave started this, here goes:

William Harnden Foster and brothers H.W. and C.D. Davies set up a course in the “chicken yard” on the grounds of the Glen Rock Kennels as practice for grouse hunting. One trap was secured to a crotched elm post and raised about four feet off the ground. It was placed at 12:00, throwing targets toward 6:00, with the shooters standing at 12 stations around a full circle with a 25-yard radius.

Courtesy of Dean

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About 1923, Foster conceived "Shooting Around The Clock," and used his position as editor and chief illustrator of both National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing magazines to promote the new shooting game. Two traps (one elevated at ten feet) were positioned at 12:00 and 6:00. The shooters walked around a semi-circle with a 20 yard radius and shot from eight stations, the last position being in the center of the 'clock.' In 1936, the National Skeet Shooters Association (NSSA) altered the layout to throw targets at a 15- degree angle to allow multiple fields to be positioned in a straight line.

A two-page spread appeared in the February 1926 issues of National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing, announcing “A New Sport for Shotgun Shooters” and a $100 prize for the best name for the new shooting game. The May 1926 issue announced the winner, Mrs. Gertrude Hurbutt of Dayton, Montana, and the new name, "Skeet," from an old Scandinavian word for shoot.

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Early scores averaged 15 broken targets out of 25, but by July the first 25x25 was recorded by H.M. Jackson of North Carolina.
Remarkably, the Ithaca NID Skeet Special was advertised in the July 1926 National Sportsman, only two 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?

The cover of the August 1926 National Sportsman by Foster was “the first painting ever published of a scene in the new sport of Skeet” and possibly depicted his son using Foster Sr.’s 20 gauge Parker DHE with 27-inch barrels

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Foster also designed a logo featuring a flying quail with superimposed clay target and shot pattern

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The NSSA was formed March 20, 1928 and announced in the May issues of National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing magazines. William Harnden Foster was selected as the first president, and the name of the association and presumably the logo were proprietary to National Sportsman, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts.

Anyone have one of the Trojan Skeet guns?

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[Dean Romig]

One of the Trojan Skeet guns, quite possibly the only known example, is in the custody of the Remington Arms museum. Brian Dudley wrote a Parker Pages article about it and I think it was also in DGJ.

The original Skeet field was on Davies' Glen Rock Kennels property at 73 Dascomb Road in Andover, MA about a mile from my house. To the best of my knowledge, the chicken yard and chicken coops were on the property of Davies' next-door neighbor and the buildings can be seen dimly in the background of Drew's first picture. Reportedly, the shot pellets raining down on the neighbor's chicken yard at 53 Dascomb Rd. at the corner of Durham is what prompted the change from a clock-face layout to the semi-circle currently in use.

The club in Wilmington, next town to the west of Andover, like so many other old shooting clubs in Massachusetts, is no longer in existence.





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[Dave Noreen]

That same page as the Unique Double also had the report on the first 25 straight --

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[todd allen]

The "unique double" in the OP is known as a clubhouse double, and is not that uncommon to those who do a lot of clays shooting.
I witnessed a much more unique double at a pigeon match. A shooter called for a bird, shot twice, missed twice, and the bird landed, unharmed about 5 yards behind the center box.
The shooter calls for the next bird. Both get up at the same time, and both are dispatched with the first bbl. The shooter, wisely, fired the second barrel at the correct bird.
The call: Both Xs.

[Dave Noreen]

Remarkably, the Ithaca NID Skeet Special was advertised in the July 1926 National Sportsman, only two 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?


Interesting that they did such an ad. An actual Ithaca Skeet Gun doesn't appear in any Ithaca Gun Co. catalog or price list that I have until Catalogue No. 54, 1935.

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Ithaca price lists don't begin separately pricing the Skeet Guns until 1937 --

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For 1935 and 6 I guess you just had to add up the price of the options.

Similarly in 1935, they added a Skeet Gun to their Lefever line --

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[Dave Noreen]

Here is the Ithaca ad from the July 1926, National Sportsman --

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I'm guessing that a modified and full choked 20-gauge didn't prove to be a very satisfactory skeet gun!!

Savage cataloged the Fox Skeeter in 1931 --

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For 1932 and 1933 they offered a skeet version of the Trap Grade. For 1934 they offered Fox Special Skeet Grade --

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Then for 1935, they introduced the Skeet & Upland Game Guns in an SP-/SPE-Grade version --

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and a Fox-Sterlingworth version --

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The Olin brothers must have gotten Winchester going on a Model 21 Skeet Gun in 1932 --

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as this magazine ad from the January 1933 attests. The Model 21 Skeet Gun is the only one in the 1933 Winchester catalog. During 1933 the Model 12 Skeet Gun and the Model 42 Skeet Gun are introduced, and first appear in the 1934 Winchester catalog.

[Dave Noreen]

The first Skeet Gun to appear in a Remington Arms Co., Inc. catalog is the Model 32 Skeet Gun in the March 1, 1934, catalog --

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By the February 15, 1935, catalog the Model 31 Skeet Gun --

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and the "Sportsman" Skeet Gun --

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were added to the offerings. And the conventional wisdom seems to be that they introduced their Parker Skeet Gun in 1934 as well.

So, it seems that our U.S. manufacturers were actually getting on the Skeet bandwagon in the 1931 to 35 time frame.

[Dave Noreen]

Rummaging through my files last night I discovered that Parker Bros. were actually advertising a .410-bore Skeet Gun by October 1933 --

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and Capt. Paul A. Curtis reviewed it in Field & Stream.

The Winchester Model 42 and the 3-inch .410-bore shell had been introduced and reviewed in the July 1933 issues of a number of sporting magazines.

[Michael Murphy]

The mention of the first William Harnden Foster Skeet Field, off of Dascomb Road in Andover Massachusetts, reminded me that I drove by that spot on that road, going to work for about three years early in my career!

[Dean Romig]

...and never even suspected, right?






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[Michael Murphy]

Dean, No I knew exactly what it represented. I was an active Skeet shooter at the time. i always wanted to stop the car and check out the property, but never did!

[Dean Romig]

Mike, where did you shoot Skeet... Minuteman?

I shot Skeet regularly at Danvers.




.

[Dean Romig]

Dean, No I knew exactly what it represented.


Very odd that you knew where Skeet was developed. Even the folks at NSSA never heard of the address or, or Glen Rock Kennels, or even Charles Davies.
Where and when did you learn of the address?... just curious.





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[Kevin McCormack]

Does anyone know what the interior angle of the crotched elm post used to mount the trap on the original skeet field was, or how much had to be trimmed off each limb to level the trap? - Very important in setting up a proper field for competition!

[Rick Losey]

and where will you find an elm these days