As March winds down, thoughts turn to Spring fishing and the expected return of the many appreciative anglers who make their annual trek to Rangeley to pursue the mighty Square Tail and Landlocked Salmon. March is also prime time for sportsman shows to help whet the appetite of nimrods and anglers alike. In the late 19th century these promotional events were far more popular than today and were important promotional efforts for sporting destinations and the railroads that conveyed customers seeking outdoor recreation. Rangeley was THE premiere attraction for many and was the “star of the show”. Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby truly earned her fame as Maine’s best-ever direct sales promoter at these widely attended extravaganzas. What follows was found in the March 26,1896 edition of the RANGELEY LAKES newspaper and it shares the triumphs and popularity of FRC and her famous Rangeley Guides who were the Cause de la Celeb at the 1896 New York Sporting Exposition held in original Madison Square Garden. This show attracted an amazing 350,000 paid patrons over a five-day span and featured the likes of Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull, Buffalo Bill Cody, and others in special appearances. Enjoy what follows about FRC and her Boys and their visit to the Big City and be sure to get outside and make some outdoor history of your own!

(Pierce’s commentary shared in italics, otherwise the copy although redacted due to space constraints, has been reprinted here just as it was in 1896).

MAINE TO THE FORE!

Great Success of the Sportsmen ’s Exposition In New York

It is now over, the great sportsmen’s show in New York; but the end is not yet, for another season you will see lots of new faces at the Rangeleys, brought here by the impressions received at the Exposition. And they won’t be disappointed—not a bit of it! No matter how high your anticipations may be, Rangeley always satisfies them—and adds compound interest. Taken as the whole the show was far ahead of last year and “The Maine Camp” was as much a center of interest… All the papers of the metropolis vied with each other in complimentary notices of the exhibit.

…Mr. Charles Stewart, (a Rangeley regular visited the Maine Cabin at the show and shared) on one cast last summer, hooked and landed two trout, one weighing pounds and the other 8 pounds. He used a five-ounce rod and the feat made him the champion of the season… Miss Crosby was the hostess in the Maine camp. Near by the Indians, Bear Chief, the squaw, Two Bears, and a papoose, sat before their skin tepee in stolid silence. The Indians, adult, and juvenile were wrapped in blankets, and used the pine floor for a couch, resting their backs against two ordinary travelling trunks, a modern accessory that somewhat detracted from the realistic appearance of the camp. R. E. Peary, U. S. N. (the famous arctic explorer), sent two walrus heads and a narwhal skull and tooth trophies of sport in Whale Sound, Greenland… Some clever feats of shooting were shown at each session …All used light sporting rifles, which make neither noise nor smoke, as nitro powder is used in the cartridges. The exhibition was held on a high stage on the Twenty-seventh street side of the main hall, and the shooting was away from the crowd, which was a consolation to the nervous. They performed a series of fancy shots with unerring accuracy. As a final act, targets formed of strips of steel, of varying thickness, so that each sounded a note on the musical scale, were placed in position. The notes sounded by rapid shots Horn a magazine rifle, the “pinging” of the bullets playing an air, which was fully as melodious as the efforts of the Swiss bell ringers heard in the music hails. The women shot in turn at their target, the duet resulting in a rendition of “Home, Sweet Home.”

In its write-up the New York Times said: “Invitations to go out to dinner are showered on the Maine guides in a fashion that would give them a fine case of indigestion if they accepted one-quarter of them.” Miss Crosby is truly the guardian angel of these men, for she limits the number of entertainments they can take part in, and the hours that may be allotted to each. A few pf the visitors have managed to secure from Miss Crosby permission to capture a guide or two for an hour or two, say from 6 to 8, and last evening T. Freeman Tibbetts and Ed Grant were the pair that were toted away from the camp by a Mr. Smith, who has visited the Rangeley district for eight consecutive years. The woodsmen were taken over to Delmonico’s, and there treated to the best there was in the larder. Tibbetts is a native of Rangeley village and knew the lakes when they were unknown to any but the lumbermen and the Indians and trappers who were out after skins. His mother was the first white child born in the district, and it was considered quite an honor to have him as a guide in that country.

(Guide Freeman Tibbetts had a vast repertoire of fish stories, like his contemporary descendant and accomplished painter of Rangeley scenes, Dave Tibbetts, and he held forth as he entertained folks in)

…” I know a few pools that I found when a boy, and that I do not let people know about as a rule, for if I did, they would do just as well go up there without me as they would with me. I’ve been there all my life and am so certain of my fishing grounds that I can always guarantee a man a six-pound trout before he leaves the lakes, or no charge for my services. Great Scott! but they are sporty fellows in the spring when the ice first gets off the lake. There is one gentleman from New York who has been coming up to Maine every spring for about ten years, and as soon as the ice breaks up, I telegraph him. He drops everything and comes up and puts in a few weeks of sport at the lake. That is the time for fishing, I tell you! It just makes your blood jump when you get a strike then. The fish are hungry, and they are spry, too. When one hits your hook, you know it. Your reel sings a lively song when a big fellow gets hold of it and starts off to try to get it away. It whizzes like the noise a partridge makes when you flush him, and he pulls like a yoke of oxen! I’ve been fishing all my life, and I sometimes get a little tired of it, but in the spring, when the trout are full of life and fight, I get the fever as bad as any one has it, and I can’t help taking a shy at the big ones myself.”