Here, when too young to be allowed to go alone, I would be taken by my mother, who kept an eye on me when I fished to see that I did not fall into the water. Very soon, however, I was allowed to go in company with a schoolmate or so, and sometimes our lady teacher would organize a party, making attendance the prize for diligence in our studies. Our fishing outfit consisted of a white birch sapling rod, string line but a real barbed hook–no ben pin for us! The fish we caught were rather undersize, but what of it? They were fish, to be taken home and cooked, much to the disgust of the cook. Later I learned to clear the catch myself. I will remember with what delight I received one Christmas a real jointed fly rod, and on the following May caught a fine trout at the Sheep Barn Bridge, over Tibbetts Brook, a feeder of the lake. This brook had trout in it, but was very difficult to fish on account of thick underbrush. Occasionally a trout would be caught in the stream that ran past the old stone farm house, now covered by the Parade Ground [This is a different house than the Van Cortlandt Mansion and was located on today’s Parade Ground close to Vault Hill]. A few were also taken in the mill race, which emptied into Mosholu Creek, now filled in. But the favorite fishing place was at the lower end of Van Cortlandt Lake, particularly on a warm day in late spring, where one could appreciate the picturesque surroundings, then much more appealing than at present, the air filled with the songs of birds and the fascinating creak of the wooden machinery of the old mill grinding the farmer’s grist, and the splash of water tumbling over the huge overstock water wheel. Alas! The old grist and saw mills were struck and destroyed by lightning many years since, only a few stones of their foundation remaining to mark where they stood, and only those persons familiar with the site can locate it.