Origin of Skeet

[Dean Romig]

Yesterday while searching through my many issues of “Hunting and Fishing” and “National Sportsman” magazines from the late 1920’s and 30's I came across this nice informative article by author Hy Gunn (which may have been the pen name of WHF) describing the origin of a shotgun game invented by two young men in Ballardvale, a village in Andover, MA.

I thought I would share it here for everyone’s enjoyment.

Notice the ad at the bottom for Glen Rock Kennels, 73 Dascomb Road where the Davies family lived and where Skeet was invented. I wrote an article in Parker Pages in 2012, Issue 2, titled “Davies’ and Foster’s Original Andover Skeet Field at Glen Rock Kennels” with pictures of the property I had taken just before the property had sold.
This ad was the biggest ad in the entire classified section, probably owing to the fact that William Harnden Foster was the editor and publisher of these two magazines and co-inventor of Skeet and a great friend of the Davies family.


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[John Bastiani]

Nice article! Wonder what gun Mr. George Knowles is shooting in the picture? I doubt is the Parker 410 skeet I'm looking for but who knows.

[Dean Romig]

Definitely a Parker (or a Fox pin gun) and likely a 16 or a 20.





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[Dean Romig]

Oops... I messed up. I neglected to include the beginning of the article in the first column - So here's how the story began.


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[Drew Hause]

Gertrude Hurlbutt

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-QXP7JFX/0/0796abc5/M/Gertrude%20Hurlbutt-M.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-QXP7JFX/A)

The May 1926 issue of National Sportsman announced the winner of the competition for naming the new shotgun game; Mrs. Gertrude Hurbutt of Dayton, Montana, and the new name, "Skeet," from an old Scandinavian word for shoot.

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?

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-FGcr8dN/0/573775f3/L/July%201926%2C%20National%20Sportsman-L.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-FGcr8dN/A)

The L.C. Smith “Skeet Upland Special” was not introduced until 1928, and a Parker advertising brochure showing a "Special Skeet Gun" with “skeet-in/skeet-out” chokes not until 1932.

[Drew Hause]

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

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-HB7dDND/0/5669df6b/XL/Figure%203%20-%20Resized-XL.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-HB7dDND/A)

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.
Foster introduced Skeet Shooting News in January 1931 and related the story of the development of the sport in Volume 1, No. 1.

[Drew Hause]

Another Foster National Sportsman skeet related cover. Would the background be the Remington Gun Club in Lordship, Connecticut?

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/0/ad1840e6/XL/Untitled-Scanned-Resized-XL.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/A)

[John Bastiani]

Another Foster National Sportsman skeet related cover. Would the background be the Remington Gun Club in Lordship, Connecticut?

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/0/ad1840e6/XL/Untitled-Scanned-Resized-XL.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/A)

Those gentlemen in the early 1900's must have had alot of respect for hunting, fishing and shooting events(skeet and trap) as they are always pictured wearing a tie and dress clothes. Most people today don't even wear a suit and tie to church anymore-blue jeans and T-shirts have become acceptable.

[Dean Romig]

It’s about respect for one’s self and others. Times and mores change, unfortunately.




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[Dean Romig]

Another Foster National Sportsman skeet related cover. Would the background be the Remington Gun Club in Lordship, Connecticut?

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/0/ad1840e6/XL/Untitled-Scanned-Resized-XL.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/A)


What’s the date by Foster’s signature? Looks like 1943...?





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[Dean Romig]

Another Foster National Sportsman skeet related cover. Would the background be the Remington Gun Club in Lordship, Connecticut?

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/0/ad1840e6/XL/Untitled-Scanned-Resized-XL.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-BN9pknQ/A)



I think it is Lordship Drew. The estuary of the mouth of the Housatonic River in the background and the smokestacks of industrial Stratford CT on the horizon.




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[Mills Morrison]

That is excellent! Dean, you ought to write a piece on skeet and W H Foster for the DGJ. It would be great

[Drew Hause]

33'

And yep regarding the attire

https://photos.smugmug.com/Trap-Skeet/Skeet/i-7mKp6t8/0/73c209a5/M/IMG_1867-M.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Trap-Skeet/Skeet/i-7mKp6t8/A)

[Dean Romig]

Thanks Mills. I think Brother Drew covered that both in his Damascus Knowledge web page as well as contributions to DGJ. I could be wrong about DGJ though. I'll have to check back in my DGJ Readers to see.
I'd love to go to that property with my metal detector and look for that old rusty Expert trap machine. Now that would be a fine display piece for my gun room.

There's a lot to know about the history of Skeet and I think I've only scratched the surface as far as that history goes here in Andover but I've always got my eyes and ears open.





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[Drew Hause]

A Parker specific update would be great.
"William Harnden Foster and the L.C. Smith Skeet Special" was in Volume 21, 2010, Issue 4, Page 121.

I'd be happy to forward the full size scanned covers to Dean or anyone else; here's another
revdoc2@cox.net

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-mMVsnZm/0/ebac683a/XL/Figure%202b-XL.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Vintage-Sporting-Art/Foster-Frost-Fuller/i-mMVsnZm/A)

[Dean Romig]

Drew, I find no "Skeet" topic heading on your web page... perhaps I'm missing something. Can you direct us to a link for Skeet there?





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[Dean Romig]

And Yes, I would be grateful if you would forward them to me at dsromig@aol.com

Thank You.





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[Drew Hause]

Just trap stuff Dean, at the bottom here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y52UbLaVsDAYd3BJLNTzTnqa7CzuhnbgonQzuYRuLvs/edit

I'll get the images to you.

[Dean Romig]

Yes, I looked all through the Trap section.

Thanks





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[Dave Noreen]

By the mid-1930s the California boys were unbuttoning their collars --

96413

96414

[Louis Rotelli]

The original version was called around the clock. 2 shots were fiored at every station each station being like the position of the hour on a clock face. the last shot was fire similar to station 8 coming, directly overhead while standing in the middle. it was changed to the layout we know today to save the space required to shoot it and also for the safety of the growing number of spectators. The name skeet was given by a Scandinavian woman who won the contest for coming up with a name for the new sport It translates to shoot

[Drew Hause]

The original 'clock'

https://photos.smugmug.com/Trap-Skeet/Skeet/i-5tVdvJZ/0/1d31b09a/S/Clock_Shooting_Layout-S.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Trap-Skeet/Skeet/i-5tVdvJZ/A)

Which was cut in half to avoid the chicken houses in the background on right. I think Dean has a pic of what is left of the houses.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Trap-Skeet/Skeet/i-KP6xB8v/0/d80a273c/M/H_W_Davies-M.jpg (https://drewhause.smugmug.com/Trap-Skeet/Skeet/i-KP6xB8v/A)

As skeet fields were built in a line, the targets were changed to be thrown at a 15 degree angle to protect shooters in the adjacent fields, and spectators - see Dean's first post skeet field diagram.

[Dean Romig]

About 200 yards east of the former Davies’ property at 73 Dascomb Road is an old two-story house and a couple of repurposed out buildings that look distinctly like they were originally chicken houses. There is a sign out front that says Watson Farm Estates. There is a company in New England by the name of Watson Egg Farm. I wonder if that egg business got its start on Dascomb Road in Andover and if that egg farmer’s complaint of shot falling in his chicken yard was the situation that initiated the change in the Skeet field layout?


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[Harold Lee Pickens]

Great stuff Dean, and regards to attire mentioned earlier, I would never attend church, funeral, or wedding without at least a tie and sportscoat. I dont, however dress for the Uplands so formally

[Dean Romig]

The "pic I have of what is left of the houses" is actually the kennel houses of Glen Rock Kennels operated by Marjorie Davies at 73 Dascomb Road. I published those pictures in that 2012 issue of Parker Pages.





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[Tim Wheeler]

A previous post to this Thread stated, "I came across this nice informative article by author Hy Gunn (which may have been the pen name of WHF) describing the origin of a shotgun game invented by two young men in Ballardvale, a village in Andover, MA."

In his book "Sportsman's Legacy" William G. Tapply wrote the following regarding his father H. (Horace) G. (Gardner) Tapply and his early work for National Sportsman and its sister magazine Hunting and Fishing: "Dad wrote dozens of stories during those years, mostly under pseudonyms such as H.T. Gardner, H.G. Traill, and Gardner Grant. Hy Gunn was the name he used for the 'scores and scores' of articles he wrote about skeet, the new sport that Bill Foster, his first boss, co-invented."

[Dean Romig]

I live in Ballardvale and have followed everything I could find concerning factual information about the origin of Skeet and it’s early years.

I had also read about “Hy Gun” among the things I’ve found.
Back in 2009 I believe, I visited to the former Davies property at 73 Dascomb Road where the original Skeet field was located.






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[Tim Wheeler]

Incidentally, I recently created a memorial, including a brief biography, for Mr. Tapply on the findagrave.com Website. On their home page simply enter H for the first name, G for the middle, and Tapply for the last. No need to enter Cemetery Location.

I hope that you find this information to be helpful.

[Phil Yearout]

I had an enjoyable ongoing email correspondence with Bill Tapply, H.G.'s son, and still stay in touch occasionally with Vicki Stiefel, Bill's wife. I'm not a skeet shooter, but I do live in Andover! (Kansas) :)

[Dean Romig]

I also had a running email correspondence with Bill for several yours abd went to the auction of Burt’s Gun.

And after Bill passed I kept communication with Vicki too, until she moved to California to be closer with her family.





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[allen newell]

My dad always wore a tie when he bird hunted

[John Dallas]

Not the origin, but during the good old days. 1967