Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1903)
Unique Colony of Artistic Shad Fishermen IP" " - ' ' ' zti PT A -I us" ' 'T 1 ' 1 ' . w ' . , : .! $ - . j-- - i ---," k - - i i I r " - S ... I. ! : . -r - , vv . j . . - . TUB MAJOR AND ONE OF HIS SUBJECTS. A PICTURESQUE BIT OF SHAD COLONY AT THE FOOT OF THE PALISADES. . - - i ... 7 1' -.:.v' ' '.-.:-' .'. Sf - A i --fW - v ; v v ; ! - . . . , ' . , ! " : " - ... . ! O-s;?. i . . ; j COLONY'S YOUNGEST FISHERMAN. , A SHAD FISHERMAN. WHOSE AVOCATION IS ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY. MIDWAY the Hudson river the boat man spoke: "Come to Yonkere to go over iCS&jjJ to Alpine, eh? Selttah fellerg, those Alpine ihad flehennen. They don't seem to want to die. The old folks live to be nigh onto a hundred before they give their sons a chance. And they've been living there, father and son, pretty near 200 years, just catching shad 11 that time." That was all the man vouchsafed until the boat, a(few minutes later, scraped the shore at the foot of the New Jersey Pal isades. Then, as his passengers disem barked, he shifted his chew and broke silence. "I calculate you'll find 'em darned In teresting," be said briefly. True to the rlverman's prediction, the fluhermen of Alpine . were found exceed ingly interesting, for they are not only skilled In the ways of Ashing, but they hp.ve built their doll-like homes on his toric ground, and every mother's son of them has the culture that la looked for. only In a Boston drawing room. Because of their scholarly attainments and other qual ities equally unusual in the class to which they belong, they are probably the most re markable of all the thousands of men en gaged In this year's shad Industry. Ask an ordinary shad fisherman a ques tion which he falls to grasp and he will laconically query: "Hey?" Put the same question In the same way to one of the dozen men in Alpine and he will reply: "Beg pardon, but I fear you will have to ask me that qnestlon again. I didn't quite understand you." The colony's attitude on education and culture Is aptly illustrated In Wlll am Block, aa healthy and rough-and-ready a specimen of humanity as can be found. Clad in the garb of the man of the water front, he was standing Idly by the the man with the camera. Instantly he be came all attention. "May I examine It?" he asked. Then, as he looked the instrument over, he talked learnedly of photography in gen eral and of artistic photography in partic ular. It soon transpired that this rough-looking fisherman, when it Isn't profitable for him to caBt his nets, amuses himself by making art photographs; and his little houee, built by his great-grandfather at the beginning of the last century, holds many a picture that. If placed on exhibition, would attract, favorable comment. But William Block Is not the only one of the colony who has not allowed the isolated life that he leads to make blm provincial, narrow and uncouth. Thomas McLean, the head of the settle ment, believes In studying literature be tween hauls. He can converse Intelligently on almost any subject sprung on him, and when It comes to Shakespeare and the poets he can quote them until bis breath gives out and his hearers depart. The rest are like unto Block and McLean. Even the children abstemiously refrain from dropping their gs and mixing their tenses. They are as precise of speech as the far-famed younsters of Boston. Yet with all their culture the handful of men wk? have hung their homes on the side of the Palisades do not lack picturesque ness. Physically, they have imbibed the ruggedness of the cliffs that hug them about and Isolate them; despite their high standard of education, they believe that their oldest bouse, which, tradition says, was used as headquarters by Lord Corn wallis during the revolution, and which was certainly occupied by continental sol diers. Is haunted; and Incongruously they go to Brooklyn instead of Yonkers, Just across the river, for their wives. The usual qualities possessed by these fishermen are also evident in the fact that. while they believe treasure lies buried under the roof of the house that figures in Revolutionary history, they have never laid plans to dig It up. Tbey are content now and then to pick out from the rubbish a few ancient pieces of money and a Revo lutionary soldier's button, and let It go at that. Their attitude on treasure Is largely that of the head of the colony. "Perhaps treasure Is there, snd perhaps not," he said. "If we dug and found noth ing, wouldn't we be exasperated to think that we had lost so much time when we could have been making money with our netsT" The colony has a firm belief, founded on family records, that none of Its members can possibly die before he has passed his 80th year, and that from then on the chances are that death will not overtake him until the century mark has all but been reached. That Is why no funeral Is looked forward to in the shad settlement for the next thlrty-flvo years. Then Thomas McLean will be 91 years old. McLean says that he has no Intention of breaking the colony's record of longe vity. "I don't intend to die In my baby hood," he declared the other day. "I've some pride in our settlement' enviable reputation." "Why do we live so long?" he repeated, as he attached a pole ring to his net. "Be cause we're not greedy. Look across the river," and McLean nodded In the direc tion of Yonkers, whose noises of business could be faintly heard at times across the mile of water. "They're working their lives away over there, because they're too greedy for money and comfort. Many of them get money, but not many comfort, for Just about the time they discover they can take things easy, they find themselves worn out and then they die. "But over hero we catch 4,000 or 5,000 shad apiece during the season, go after eel and bass a little, and work Just enough to be happy and well fed the year around. The rest of the time we enjoy ourselves. And we sleep soundly at night, instead of lying awake and trying to scheme how we'll do the other fellow when the aun comes up. We don't chase the almighty dollar twenty-four hours In the day and wish, when the last hour is gone that the gocd Lord bad mado the day twice as long No, sir, we're content to live natural lives, and there you have the reason why every baby who has ever been born In tn!s set tlement and lived here all Its days has not been compelled to think seriously of the other life until he was well In his nineties." The last deaths In the colony occurred last year. In each case tho man's age was over 90, and one had nearly reached his hundredth year. Although not a few of the boys born In the settlement have gone out into the world, every one of the six families that formed a part of the colony 150 years ago has been unbrokenly represented since that time by one or more fishermen. Tim and John Campbell, both strapping men and finely educated, are proud of the fact that the settlement is credited with being founded by a Campbell of whom they are direct descendants. Indeed, pride of ancestry is strong with these fisher folk and the sayings of the great-great and great-graudfatbers are handed down by word of mouth from gen eration to generation. The settlement also takes not a little pride in Its full blooded collie dogs, of which It has a half dozen. The collie has been the settlement dog for nearly twenty five years, and, as no mongrel or any other kind of a dog Is allowed around by the fish ermen, the strain has been kept pure. The lover of collies would have to search long before he could find better specimens (Continued on Fourteenth Page.)
