For Sale - Birthplace of Skeet
 

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.

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

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??

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. :)

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.

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?

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 . . .

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

DLH

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

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

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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...