The Spirit of the Times was the magazine catering to American sportsmen. It’s where the stories got told and debated among the cognoscenti.

So it’s no surprise that, after the publication of Frank Forester’s account of Long Island deer hunts in his 1849 Field Sports of the United States and British Provinces of North America, a swift rebuke appeared in the Spirit.

An unsigned letter in the May 19, 1849 issue sought to set the record straight. The author, after some faint praise for Forester, got straight to the point: his description was a lie.

To be more precise, Forester (William Henry Herbert), missed the point. The real excitement and skill in the hunt lay in the riders who, along with their noble hounds, tried to head off and kill the deer before they entered the river to become sitting ducks (to switch sports for a minute) for the hunters waiting on their river-side stands.

To prove his point, the letter write relates an account told him by L. of deer hunting to the east of Snedecors (probably at Carman’s River). He does make it sound good, with a double-barrel kill shot taking down two deer after a long chase. He also gets to immortalize two of the hardworking dogs in Snedecor’s kennel: Harkaway and Shot.

The “high play at night” that Forester disparaged is dismissed as the fault of the “designing stranger hunter” who brings his bad habits with him from the city. In addition, our defender of the deer hunt comes up with a great line that could have served as the Island’s first motto (and a warning to stranger-hunters everywhere): “…he who plays a regular built Long Island party is bound to lose.”

Full text of Deer Hunting on Long Island

American Deer. From Frank Forester’s Field Sports p 239

Frank Forester was the pen name of the prickly yet prolific writer/sportsman Henry William Herbert (1807-1858). Born in England, Herbert either fled or escaped trouble by coming to America in 1831. Accounts vary as to why, but he never did return home or become an American citizen. During his twenty-seven years here he did become a well-known author on sports and a fixture among the crowd around the Spirit of the Times newspaper (about which much more later).

He also was hard to take, alienating people with his haughty manner and condescension. One poignant example: in 1858 he sent out invitations to friends to attend what he described as the last night of his life, promising to shoot himself after dinner. Only one person showed up (and unfortunately yes, Herbert did commit suicide that night).

A section on deer hunting in Herbert’s 1849 book Frank Forester’s Field Sports of the United States and British Provinces of North America takes serious issue with the type of Long Island deer hunting described by I.V.W. in 1837. He finds it boring and unbecoming and he doesn’t like the Broadway types who supposedly flocked out to Long Island to do it.  Herbert briefly describes his own trip to Snedecor’s and it’s almost eerie how closely the description matches that of  I.V. W..  I don’t think Herbert was I.V. W. but I wonder if they crossed paths – either on Broadway or in the woods.

Either way, you start to see a distinction drawn (at least in Herbert’s mind) between the true sportsman and the city slicker out for a good time. And again note the elements of the Good Fellow style: “high play at night” as Herbert mocks it, along with the penchant for cigars and punishments assessed in champagne bottles. This high living, however, did not preclude the sportsmen on Long Island from hunting and treating wildlife with respect. This is particularly seen in the sportsmen who went on to buy Snedecor’s tavern in 1866 and, among other things, push for stricter gaming laws to protect deer and trout.

So Herbert’s attitude may derive from some bad weekends in the brush or his own prejudices. He does, however, commend Long Island for it’s excellent trout fishing.