If one falls, all follow in this interlocked skating routine. Second from left is Gladys Brooke, who skates with friends in about 1920. Skating, like sleighing, was a major winter pastime, performed on the many ice ponds and mill ponds and, in bitter freezes, on the meandering Patuxent. Gladys Brooke and husband Dr. Charles C. Tumbleson lived at Tall Timbers, for several years a home of the Sandy Spring Museum.

Local Camp Fire girls muster in uniform in 1914. The organization fosters the development of young people based on belief in work, health, and love. Front row, from left: Mary Moore Miller, Anna Muncaster, Margaret Jones, and Mildred Janney; second row: Mary Cook, Kitty Cook, Anna Farquhar, Mary Downey, Jean Coulter, and Helen Muncaster; back: Lucy Thom and Eleanor Miller.

Thrill of the Chase

Since frontier times Sandy Springers have zestfully pursued outdoor activities, and none with more ardor than foxhunting. Quaker pioneer James Brooke brought not only a wife but a prized pack of foxhounds to his wilderness cabin Charley Forrest, and their offspring led proud owners on the chase for two and a half centuries. In an 1827 hunt, reports historian Roger Brooke Farquhar, "a fox ran an estimated eighty miles and two of Brooke's hounds led most of the way." Wrote Martha Nesbitt of the Brooke hounds: "They were large animals, fawn grey to red in color, with large and narrow, silky, well-hung ears that could be stretched to the tips of their noses. They had round compact 'cat's paws' that did not become tender in running...tails carried erect like a flagstaff, and big, beautiful voices with a bell-like break at the end. Their speed, endurance, fox-sense, and gameness were outstanding." When hunting season formally starts each November, members of the Goshen Hunt still invite a member of the clergy to bless the hounds, then joyfully and perilously plunge into their favorite sport and its associated social delights.

Boots polished, saddles waxed, horses stamping, members of the Goshen Hunt prepare to cast the hounds near Brookeville to kick off the 1988-89 season. Soon the Master of Fox Hounds will lead a chase that if successful will result in another brush, or fox tail. Whether or not there's a kill--and probably there won't be--the hunters will revel in the thrill of pell-mell pursuit and the ensuing cocktail party.

The enjoyment of fox hunters in the voices of their hounds inspired night hunts, in which men released their dogs, then listened for their distinctive baying in chase. This group gathers at the Olney farm of Josiah Hutton, front row, fourth from left. Neckties indicate the men may have gathered first for business, perhaps a political meeting. The youngster on the front row is Sam Riggs IV, and second to left is baseball star Walter Johnson. Today the Hutton farm holds much of the Olney Mill subdivision.

Members of the Patuxent Rod and Gun Club gather in 1949. Formidable trap shooters who competed widely, they met Sunday afternoons to shoot clay pigeons on the site of today's Ross Boddy Center on Brooke Road. The club was active into the 1980s. From left, front row, Archie Bellows, Tom Budd, Stanley Parrott, and Rodman W. Snowden; rear, Tommy Snowden, Glenwood Bailey, Richard Thomas, Richard E. Hopkins, Morris Pumphrey, and Jerry Bell.

Jack Bentley

He pitched, he set batting records, and he started out backwards--playing first in the majors, then in the minors, then in the majors again. He hit nine homers in a single week, in one game hit two homers, two triples and a double, held a .420 average as a big league pinch hitter, won mention in Ripley's Believe It or Not! Jack Bentley enjoyed other interests. He loved the hunt and kept a large pack of fox hounds. He played the ukulele and sang baritone in amateur quartets. He loved tall tales and spun a few about baseball and fox hunting. During World War I he waived the Quaker exemption from military service and survived 60 days in the trenches in France under fire. As pitcher he helped lead his New York Giants to the 1924 World Series with the Washington Senators. The Series became a pitching duel between Bentley and Walter "Big Train" Johnson. Bentley lost a game, won a game, and met Johnson again in the 7th. It went to eleven innings. Then an easy-out Washington grounder struck a pebble and bounced over the fielder's head. Bentley lost--but felt good, too, about seeing Big Train Johnson win a Series. Heaped with honors, he reaped one posthumously when his wife Helen donated the Sandy Spring Museum site in his memory.

Bentley swings for the International League Orioles, then the winningest minor league team and with whom he rolled up dazzling batting and pitching records. Despite his successes, throughout his career he believed he was wrongly positioned--that his natural skills were as a first baseman.