Courtney and Cornell Rowing CHAPTER I early days Charles E. courtney was born on November 13, 1849 at Union Springs, New York, a quaint village near the northern end of Cayuga Lake. His father, James Thomas Courtney, was a landscape gardener, a hard-working, frugal man, with a large family of seven children; not so large for those days, however, as it would be today. He had brought his family from Salem, Massachusetts, nine years before, traveling in a packet, a mode of travel then much in vogue. Charles was the next to the youngest child, and was but six years of age when his father died, so that his only recollection of hisfather was that of a big, burly, good-natured man of deep voice and rough exterior, who would carry him down the road on his back or romp with him and his older brothers after the evening meal had been eaten and the dishes put away in the large, old-fashioned cupboard, the most prominent piece of furniture in the house. Near the house, but farther back from the road, stood an old Quaker meeting-house, which was of perennial interest to the children, who never grewtired of watching, and at times imitating, the solemn-faced Quakers stalking in through the open door. At times they even ventured, in the growing dusk of evening, to tiptoe up to the door and peek in, or even climb upon the window ledge. If rebuked for this, the boys would hie them down to the lake shore, less than a stone's throw distant, and amuse themselvesuntil, after a patient but vain waiting for the stirring of the spirit, the silent throng rose and dispersed as silently as they had come. Strange to relate, Union Springs was at that time the most noted place inthe State for pleasure and racing yachts, and from his earliest boyhood,Charles was about the water, climb­ing into skiffs that might be lyingby the dock, falling overboard and being fished out by some chance on-looker, and even, as he grew older, rowing one of the rich "sports" out to his anchored craft. There was a great strife on between the Springs and Aurora as to which could build or impress into service the fleeter yacht. The old residents will even to this day talk about the race be­tween the Cayuga Chief and the Flying Cloud, in which the Cayuga Chief fouled a buoy and was declaredloser. No one in Union Springs, however, would ever yield supremacy to the Aurora craft. Later when the Island Queen followed the Cayuga Chief, and defeated in turn the Ashland of New York, and the Mohawk Belle of Geneva and the Algonquin of Seneca, the whole countryside went wild. Althoughthe struggle was kept up for thirty years or more, interest never flagged, so that love for boating was bred into every boy's bones. "Why, I can well remember now at sixty-five years," Court-ney said in speaking of those days, "how we used to run away from school to help the boys put black lead on the bottoms of the boats and polish 'em up. Even at an earlier date, when I was about six years of age, I was the proudest boyin the Springs. One of the boats had just been completed but would not slide off the ways. Finally one of the workmen caught me up and tossed me aboard, and with the additional weight she slid gracefully into the waterand I was the hero of the hour. When I was seven I could row a boat and go anywhere on the water, and we had races between boys about every evening after school. "When I was about twelve years old, I decided that it was about time to build a boat of my own. I got hold of a twelve-foot plank for the bottom, which I cut all around with an axe, canoe-shape, and then I took two hemlock boards for the sides, which I endeavored to nail to the plank and fasten at the ends, at the same time plastering up all the chinks with yellow clay. It was wonderful to look at, but the water would force off the clay in no time, in spite of all I could do, and then down she would go. Wehad great fun racing in her, however," he added reflectively, "the conditions of the race being to see who could go around a stick about fifty feet out in the lake and back again before the craft would sink. That was one race that no one ever won. "When I was about the age of fourteen, I had my first chance at sailing aboat. Captain John Carr was my tutor, and there wasn't anything about sailing a boat that he didn't know. He was born and raised on the lake shore and had been a fisherman and sailor all his life. In a short time I gotso I could handle the boat to his satisfaction, and then he would take me out into the lake a considerable distance, crawl into a floating battery, or sink-box, he had devised, and after carefully placing a hundred or a hundred and fifty decoys in a strategic position, he would send me off with the sail-boat to scare up the ducks. That sink-box, by the way, was quite a unique affair, having the usual platform with a box-like depression large enough to conceal the hunter, but also with canvas wings extending out on all sides to break the swell of the waves. "I remember one day in particular, as we were returning from one of thesetrips in which John had bagged as many ducks as the two of us could comfortably carry, I espied some ducks not far out from what we called the cribbing. John was an excellent shot, in spite of the fact that he wore thelarge, old-fashioned spectacles common in those days. Well, I played a little joke on him. In the excitement of the moment, and while getting hisgun ready for action, his spectacles were knocked off. I picked them up,slyly removed the lenses, and held them until he was ready for them. 'Wait until I put on my spy-glasses,'- he always called them 'spy-glasses'-and after fumbling with them for a moment, always intently watching the ducks, he gravely adjusted the rims. 'Yes,' he said, 'They're canvas backs,and no mistake.' I said, 'Are you sure those glasses are a great help toyou?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'I couldn't hit that house yonder without them,' and just then, as the ducks started off, he ! blazed away and dropped three of them. Without saying a word, I stooped over and pretended to pick something up from the ground, and then I asked, holding up the lenses, 'Why, where did these come from?' His face was a study for a moment, and then he turned a half-quizzical, half-angry look at me and muttered, 'You durned little fool-you never did know any­thing!' The joke was too good to keep, and it wasn't long before the whole village was laughing at old John." About this time Charley and a chum, Billy Cozzens, by name, decided to have a boat of their own. Billy had got hold of a magazine article describing McGregor's trip through Eng­land, Scotland, and various parts of Europe in a craft which was only twenty-four inches wide, nine inches deep, and sixteen feet long, which was called the Rob Roy. That was the kind ofboat they started out to build with no other tools than a buck-saw, a hammer, and a smooth plane, with no lumber, or money wherewith to buy it, and not a great deal of experience. The lumber was soon acquired in one way or another,-just how need not be told here, although no one was ever the wiser-and they set to work. The boat was finally built, and if their words are to be be­lieved, shewas a beauty. Both of the boys were natural me­chanics, and while following the dimensions of the other boat, added some features of their own,the most noticeable one being a red and white cedar deck. They decided not to take her on the lake at first, but to show her off down at Rowland's mill-pond, which was a common rendezvous for the boys of the vicinity. When some of the older men saw the boat which the boys were carrying, they shook their heads and said the boys had built themselves a coffin. No one had ever seen such a narrow craft, but soon every one was taking a turn in her, each trying to make the circuit of the pond with a double-bladed paddle in the shortest possible time. This second Rob Roy did a yeoman's service on that pond, until finally she was called upon to play a more worthy part. In spite of the fact that when his father died he left a large family in poor circumstances, Charley and the rest of the children were kept at school. Although it meant hard work for the mother, they all managed to get more than the average education, finishing in the high school if not graduating. Charley was large and strong for his age, so that is it not to bewondered at that, with his interest in boating and his assisting his oldfriends Carr and others in their boat-building operations, it was decided that he should be a carpenter. He left school to start out to learn thetrade with Jerry Jaquith, and later worked with Emmet Anthony, a buddingarchitect, with whom he planned and built several houses and a small church, until Anthony went to Denver to live. Then Charley went into the carpentry business with the only brother still at home, under the name of the Courtney Brothers. His oldest brother had gone to California in the spring of 1861, and the next brother entered th! e Civil War and starved to death in Libby Prison. The Courtney Brothers did a substantial, if not a highly remunerative business and were known throughout the country­side as splendid fellows to deal with. Apparently Charley was to be a carpenter all his life, but one never knows what apparently insignificant events or inci­dents may affect the whole course of a life.