Books and Manuscripts

From The Sporting Library Of American Adventurer, Naturalist, and Sportsman, Brooke Dolan II

A group of five items related to the Schuylkill Fishing Company, including the scarce 1860 printing of the club's Charter. 

1. (Milnor, William) 
An Authentic Historical Memoir Of The Schuylkill Fishing Company of the State in Schuylkill…
Philadelphia: Judah Dobson, 1830. Two parts in one volume, bound with Memoirs of the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club, Near Philadelphia, as issued. First edition. 8vo. Illustrated with frontispiece and two plates. Publisher's quarter cloth over maroon cloth-covered boards, all edges trimmed; contemporary newspaper article mounted on final two leaves; in custom maroon box, stamped in gilt “Brooke Dolan 1940.”  Sage, p. 181; Westwood and Satchell, p. 190

2. Charter, By-Laws, Rules and Regulations, of The Schuylkill Fishing Company…
Philadelphia: State in Schuylkill, 1860. First edition. 8vo. Printed limp brown wrappers, lightly creased and worn, with slight losses. From the library of Robert Adams, governor and one of the original incorporators, and with his ownership inscription on front blank. Sabin 62232

3. (The Schuylkill Fishing Company)
A History of the Schuylkill Fishing Company of the State in Schuylkill, 1732-1888
Philadelphia: Published by the Members, 1889. Second edition. 4to. Sometime rebound in blue buckram, spine stamped in gilt; all edges trimmed. 

Lot also includes two Joseph Pennell prints: The Castle State In Schuylkill (ca. 1919, Wuerth 736), and The State in Schuylkill (ca,. 1919, Wuerth 737), as well as a copy of Report of the State Commissioners of Fisheries, For the Year 1896, (Clarence M. Busch, 1897.)

Originally founded in 1732 as the “Colony in Schuylkill”, it was the first angling club in the American colonies, and is the oldest continuously operated social club in the English-speaking world. Over its long history the club has changed names and relocated multiple times. Its membership has featured prominent Philadelphians such as James Logan, Joseph Wharton, William Bradford, Thomas Mifflin, Clement Biddle, and with national heroes such as George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette being honorarily elected. The club is known for their signature alcoholic drink, “Fish House Punch”, reportedly a favorite of General Washington's when he visited in 1787.

Westwood and Satchell describe the Schuylkill Fishing Company as, “the most ancient fishing club that exists, and its founders are said to have passed a treaty with the chiefs of the Leni-Lenape, or Delaware Indians, who granted to them and their descendants for ever, the right and privilege to hunt the woods and fish the waters of the Schuylkill.”

Brooke Dolan II (1908-45) was an American adventurer, naturalist, sportsman, and book collector. Educated at Harvard University and Princeton University, he later became a trustee of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. During the 1930s he led two notable expeditions to China and Tibet, collecting numerous specimens that he sent back for the Academy's collection. In 1942, during World War II, he was recruited to serve in the OSS (precursor of the CIA) and traveled to Lhasa with Ilya Tolstoy (grandson of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy), searching for supply routes to China for the Allied Forces. During this time they established contact with the Tibetan government and met the seven-year-old 14th Dalai Lama--the first Americans to ever do so. He then joined the Army Air Forces, and the United States Military Observer Group in Western China, behind Japanese lines near Mao’s headquarters. He died in 1945.