Edmund Ware Smith has the distinction of being Outdoor Sporting Library’s all time favorite author. His reflections and stories of hunting and fishing in the Maine woods and memorable tales of the fictional One-Eyed Poacher Jeff Coongate have left a legacy. Smith wrote more than 600 short stories, some of which were combined into a total of nine books about the Maine woods and its characters. He also wrote a novel in his early years. In the golden years of hunting and fishing in the Maine woods, Edmund Ware Smith’s stories made him a household name. Today they make him a legend.
Edmund Ware Smith books:
A Tomato Can Chronicle (1937,1991)
Tall Tales and Short (1938,1991)
The One Eyed Poacher of Privilege (1941,1991)
From Fact to Fiction (1946)
For Maine Only (1959)
Upriver & Down (1965)
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The Dobsis Lakes. Grand Lake Stream. The East Branch of the Penobscot. Mattagamon Lake. If you hunt and fish in Maine, then odds are you’re somewhat familiar with most of these areas. What you might not know, however, is that several decades ago, outdoor writer Edmund Ware Smith was bringing these Maine haunts to life on the pages of national magazines. In a time when magazines and newspapers played a dominant role in American life and culture, Smith was one of the iconic writers who brought the beauty, serenity and majesty of the Maine woods, as well as the uniqueness of its inhabitants, to the minds of readers across the country.
Throughout three decades and in hundreds of short stories, Smith wrote both fact and fiction about Maine from an interesting perspective – that of an outsider who grew to love the state and became as much a Mainer as anyone ‘from away’ could be. Born in Plantsville, Connecticut in 1900, Ed Smith grew to love the outdoors from a very young age, fishing, hunting and dreaming of venturing out into the wilderness with boyhood friend Digsy Jones. Smith’s wanderlust was sustained into early adulthood, where he attended half a dozen different schools and at one point moved out West to work as a cowboy in Montana. An incredibly gifted writer, he began to publish short stories for magazines in his twenties, and published his first book, Rider in the Sun, in 1935. The book was a fictional story about a young cowboy, and was undoubtedly influenced by Smith’s experiences out West.
After moving back East and marrying, Smith began to spend much more of his time hunting and fishing in Maine. He gained popularity as a writer on the national stage in the mid 1930’s, and decided to pursue a career as a full time writer of short stories. For the next three decades, until his death in 1967, he would publish over 600 stories, many of which were gathered together and published as books. While Rider in the Sun was Smith’s only true novel, he published a total of nine books that were collections of short stories, and most were about the Maine woods.
Reading Smith’s stories, from the early years to the golden years, provides a unique insight into the people and places that make the Maine woods so great. You read about wise old woodsman Pappy Thornton, who worked as caretaker of Pop Dennison’s camps on Sysladobsis Lake. You learn of the deer hunting crew that hunted the same areas with the same companions for decades. Later, Ed takes you on fishing journeys with his son Jim, and an obvious bond between father and son is solidified on trout streams. He takes you to the cabin that he and his wife built and lived in for ten years on remote Mattagamon Lake. In the later years of Smith’s writing career, you meet Jake’s Rangers, a group of like-minded outdoorsmen who live in the coastal town of Damariscotta, Maine, but spend most of their time dreaming of being somewhere else: near a campfire, paddling a canoe on a calm lake, or taking a trip down the East Branch of the Penobscot. Finally, one would be remiss not to mention the incredible combination of what Smith refers to as his “game warden friends and outlaw companions” into the fictional characters of the One-Eyed Poacher, Thomas Jefferson Coongate, and his nemesis, the young game warden Tom Corn, who are featured in dozens of One-Eyed Poacher stories collected into three books.
The characters and settings in Edmund Ware Smith’s stories, whether fact or fiction, are a direct reflection of the places he’d been and the people he’d spent time with in his favorite state. He loved the Maine woods, and had a special gift of being able to put his feelings to words like nobody else can. It’s safe to say that Smith’s stories of the Maine woods have left a legacy that lasts on to this day. As J. Donald Adams once said, “…here is a man who writes about what he knows and loves in a manner that strikes an answering chord. He should be known better than he is.”
I have had the pleasure of knowing several people Mr. Smith worked with or wrote about and spent a summer near his cabin in Maine.
Very fond memories indeed.
I love all his books.
I was fortunate enough to camp with my parents at Dobsi dam for a few nights in the summer of ’77 when I was ten years old. I was immediately taken in by the place, it had an aura that I don’t think I can fully describe. I knew nothing about the place then, and came across my first copy of ‘Upriver and Down’ just a few years later. At the time it was still listed as ‘Dennison’s Portage’ on the map. But of course, until I got that copy of “Upriver and Dow” I had no idea of the origin of the name, no idea who Pop Dennison was. Imagine my surprise years later when I noticed on a ‘Marksalot” brand magic marker the words, “Dennison Mfg. Co., Framingham Mass”!
Reading ‘Upriver and Down’ I was excited to find it had stories about a place I had been and thought so much of! Through the stories I managed to learn a bit of the history of the place.
When we were there in ’77 the cabin was of course long gone, but the foundation posts remained to mark its outline, and the fieldstone fireplace and full chimney still stood. The field out back was overgrown with heavy weeds and raspberries, but the 3-hole outhouse remained, although leaning severely and with much of its roof missing.
I don’t know if its something unique to me or something about the place that everyone can feel, but there was definitely a sense of history, of life to the place that even a ten year old boy could pick up on.
Reading ‘Upriver and Down’ I was excited to find it had stories about a place I had been and thought so much of! Through the stories I managed to learn a bit of the history of the place.
So glad you wrote this about Ed Smith. Do you happen to know where I can find the chapter in one of his many books, about how to be a writer at home when you have summer visitors? I have been hunting for it, no luck. Thanks!
Hey, thanks for the comment. The chapter you’re looking for is titled “Summer Hazard”. It’s the last story in Smith’s book “For Maine Only”, published in 1959. There are a lot of copies floating around so the book isn’t too expensive. Take care.
Thank you! I have been looking for it everywhere!
That story is reprinted in the new CHICKENS, GIN, AND A MAINE FRIENDSHIP recounting the letters back and forth between Ed and E. B. White, published two years agi.
Hi, I’m originally from Patten, Maine, and our local library, the Patten Veteran’s Memorial Library stocked the Edmund Ware Smith books and he’s a perennial favorite among Maine readers. I’m developing a website about the murder of Maine Guide Wesley Porter of Patten and Mount Chase Maine which happened at Webster Lake in June 1943, and the 2 month manhunt for the escaped fugitive, Alphonse Morency, a Canadian draft dodger who was later captured and killed. A couple Patten residents have told me that Edmund Ware wrote about the murder and manhunt. The murder has been chronicled in several other books and magazine articles, and I want to try to develop a complete list of all the books that have stories about this murder. I currently reside in Georgia so it’s a long haul to the Patten library and no one I’m in touch with can seem to recall which Smith book in particular may hold the Wesley Porter story. I’ve done a WorldCat search and also searched his books on Amazon and Goodreads but your website has the most complete information on Edmund Ware Smith.
I’m trying to track down which Edmund Ware Smith book or story may contain either the true story of Wesley Porter, or which book may contain a fictionalized account similar to the story. I “think” from reading your accounts of Smith’s different publications that it may be the story entitled “Manhunt in Mopang” from “The Further Adventures of the One-Eyed Poacher”, but can you verify this for me, or alternatively, do you know of any true-life story or stories that Smith may have written about this incident?
Greatly appreciate your help, and also, I’d like permission to link to your website so viewers of the Wesley Porter website can develop an appreciation for Smith’s writing–your site seems to be the expert on Smith’s work. Thanks so much!
Link to website currently in development is https://wesleyporter.weebly.com/
Hi Susan,
I don’t believe Smith wrote about the true story – instead I would guess what your contacts referred to was Smith’s fictionalized adaptation of the story “Manhunt in Mopang”. Glad you are doing the project, I’m sure it will be a valuable resource. Of course, feel free to link to this site. Will let you know if I hear more about the Porter story.
Thanks,
Jeremiah
Chub Foster, Maine guide and Wesley Potter had a hand in that.
Roy Bailey was one of Ed’s real people and a hero of sorts, mentioned in For Maine Only and Up River and Down. Roy was my Uncle Early Bailey’s father. Roy built Bailey’s Camps on Big Lake in 1930 and Earl inherited the camps upon Roy’s passing in, as I recall, 1961. I vaguely remember Roy as a little boy…he was a larger then life figure. I spent the Summers of ’67, ’68, ’69, and ’71 at the camps, doing chores, helping out, etc., and fishing virtually every day. They were very formative years around Earl and his brothers. It was an age of gentleman and gentlelady sportspeople, Nori Carpenter comes to mind, her camps just up the shore were caretaken by Frank Bailey, who also guided them. The Carpenters owned the famous newspaper in Manchester, NH, and left their camps to Frank, the complex expanded and houses the heirs and assigns of Frank Bailey. Its changed a lot there, but I have many fine memories. I recorded some of this in Tagewahnahn – The Landloocked Salmon at Grand Lake Stream (sold out). Lovers of that area as chronicled by EWS will appreciate my work there as well. Best of luck finding a copy on the secondary market.
Cheers!
Does anyone know the model for the one eyed poacher? I have spent countless hours fishing the East branch area, and was told by a now passed acquaintance that Jeff Coongate was based on an old East branch hermit named Fred Walker. Walker was an old WWI vet who, due to shell shock went deep into the Maine woods and built a cabin on the East branch, just below Matagamon Dam. The cabin remains were still standing well into the early 1990’s. Wondering if anyone can shed light on this.