Nickudu,

I kept that issue. Mellon was at SCI in Jan. 2004 as a guest of Safari Press. This was for the release of AFRICAN HUNTER II. He came by the booth and visted for about an hour. Said he enjoyed Ethiopia as much as any country he had ever hunted in. I had to agree with him
Rich Elliott

Nick

Great find. An interesting fellow.
Shows what money and passion can get you.

Rich, save those old mags for ME, will you?

Mickey - I think you might throw in brains and organizational ability too. No doubt, I would have screwed things up big-time at his age. Indeed, a most interesting fellow!

Nic, Once again simply the best. As a boy I attended Nichols Junior High on North High Street in Mt Vernon. The school was about 2 blocks from Steve Horn's Jonas Bros. I recall a class trip there, as well as many solo visits. The building was set back more than most for the area, and it was painted white with a dark green trim. It was during this time when I got a hand me down Red Ryder and began to stalk the banks of the Bronx River as far north as the dreaded Bronxville border and beyond. Also at this time I began to read O'Connor and clearly remember thinking that one day I would hunt the white rams of the north. It ws twenty-five years before that dream became a reality, and the memory of the Bronx River stalks helped me up the mountain. Thanks again for this opportunity to enjoy the written word.

Great interview. Thanks for posting it.

I think it is intersting that one of the world's greatest hunters used a lever action and also a .458 winchester. Well, scratch all of those hundreds of posts on how the .458 Win doesn't work well due to a lack of penetration.

Guess it really is mostly about the one pulling the trigger!

Mellon also gives a hell of a testimonial to the .300 Win Mag.

Here's another great observation he makes:

"SA: Let's talk about the future. In your view, what is the most serious threat to hunting today?

"JM: Too many people. That's the main threat. However, there has been a switch in population trends in some parts of the world. In Europe, there are now fewer people, so European hunting is probably going to remain. The population in North America is beginning to level off. But in the Third World, in Kenya-when I got there in 1960 it had 5.9 million people. They don't even know how many there are now-they think it's somewhere around 40 million. In the Kikuyu Reserve, they're growing crops on the roofs of their houses."

If I had but one rifle to choose from, it would be my .300 Winchester Magnum. And as for the .458 Winchester, it is an old story - placement, placement, placement.

An interesting insight.

Does anyone know where Mellon's family found the money to do back-to-back hunts for a couple decades?

I find it a bit strange that someone so passionate about hunting could 'have enough' and stop completely! Perhaps things are different for a 'collector' who has, quite literally done it all. I will be drooling and incontinent before I stop hunting!!

Andrew W Mellon 1855-1937

Andrew William Mellon was born in Pittsburgh where his father was a lawyer, banker and associate of Henry C. Frick in the coke industry. Young Mellon graduated from Western University of Pennsylvania, later the University of Pittsburgh, in 1873 and joined his brother Richard in the timber business.

In 1874, the Mellon brothers merged their interests with their father’s, creating Thomas Mellon and Sons. Andrew Mellon emerged as the sole owner in 1882 and his father retired from the business four years later. A long line of diversified interests began in 1889 with the founding of the Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh and a later subsidiary, the Union Savings Bank.


In succeeding years, Mellon used his talent for grasping new technologies to exploit interests not only in banking, but also in coal, shipbuilding, oil, locomotives, bridge construction, utilities, steel, insurance and aluminum. By 1902, he was president of what had become the Mellon National Bank.

During World War I, Mellon was active in his support of the American Red Cross and other patriotic causes.

The return of the Republicans to power in the postwar period brought Mellon an appointment as secretary of the treasury under Harding, a position he continued to hold under Coolidge and Hoover. He was a staunch advocate of such traditional conservative principles as tax reduction and the reduction of the national debt. Wartime expenses had swollen the debt to more than $25 billion at the start of the Harding administration in 1921, but Mellon managed to pare it down to about $16 billion by the end of the decade. As secretary, Mellon was also an advocate of tariff reform and the creation of a federal budget system.

Mellon supported such popular causes as payment of war debts owed to the United States by its former wartime allies. However, public attitudes toward the secretary changed rapidly after the stock market crash in the fall of 1929. Mellon became increasingly unhappy in office and in 1932 resigned to accept the ambassadorship to the Court of St. James in London.

In 1935, Mellon was subjected to a lengthy Internal Revenue Service investigation, but was eventually exonerated.

Mellon devoted much time and considerable sums of money to philanthropic causes. In 1913, he and his brother honored their father through the creation of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, an organization designed to forge a partnership between American scientific research and industry. In 1937, Mellon left a combined gift of $25 million to the people of the United States, part through the donation of his extensive art collection and the remainder in cash for the construction of what became the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Boghossian,

The Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh if I recall correctly. Also, adn this is reaching way back, wasn't Jame s Mellon an adopted child?
Rich Elliott

quote:

ScottW: I think it is intersting that one of the world's greatest hunters used a lever action and also a .458 winchester. Well, scratch all of those hundreds of posts on how the .458 Win doesn't work well due to a lack of penetration. Guess it really is mostly about the one pulling the trigger!

Also interesting is the M70 300WM pictured throughout his book: a much maligned push feed post-64 M70.

It kind of ruined the interview for me when I read that he "quit" hunting. Maybe he was just a rich kid needing something to do, and not the passionate hunter that I thought he was.
By the way....there is nothing wrong with being rich!!

quote:

Originally posted by Wolfgar:
It kind of ruined the interview for me when I read that he "quit" hunting. Maybe he was just a rich kid needing something to do, and not the passionate hunter that I thought he was.
By the way....there is nothing wrong with being rich!!

Nothing wrong with being rich, but I find those who have built their own fortunes to be more interesting people and ones that I admire more. A few years ago, I spent some time in a Tanz camp with Hank Mills of Mills Fleet Farm fame (those of you from Wisconsin know this chain). The guy built a great business and hunted the world. Nice guy to boot. He impressed me greatly. Guys born with money don't, unless they do something truly egalatarian, such as enlisting in the army during time of national crisis. JMO.

quote:

Shows what money and passion can get you.

----------------------------

Ain't it so? Gotta admire him though and heavy on the passion part.

Mickey, if you'd quit cutting timber and shooting spotted owls in the great NW AND stop rustling cattle in Canada and crossing the border at night with them,,,heck, write a book like Will did and watch the money roll in.

As Billy duh Kid said, "We'll make ya famous".
____________

Edited; Gents and Ladies, Page 4 of this. What, collectively, is your opine on Elgin Gates? To me, Elgin opened doors Internationally, that were previously closed to hunters. His writings are sparse but to the core. Personally, I relish them. IIRC, Elgin did most all on his own nickel (money and passion). So sad his animal collection burned.

DB

quote:

Originally posted by Wolfgar:
It kind of ruined the interview for me when I read that he "quit" hunting. Maybe he was just a rich kid needing something to do, and not the passionate hunter that I thought he was.

I don't think that was the case at all. I suspect Mellon felt the same as Roy Chapman Andrews and James Clark after their numerous hunts to collect specimens for various museums and universities. The Roosevelt kids mention the same of passion for killing after collecting for museums as well.

All wrote early on how hunting was indeed a passion of theirs, but as time went on and killing became their "job", most lost interest in trigger time on animals. None ever became anti-hunting, but lost interest in doing the killing themselves.

Jay is a very interesting guy. Tons of great stories. Was lucky enough to be ata a dinner party with him, Peter Beard and Cal Cottar. Lots of great Kenya stories from the last days of hunting there.

From Page 585 "The Mellon Family, a Fortune In History" by Burton Hersh, published by William Morrow & Co. 1978.

"Bored now with trophy hunting, his cousin Billy relates, Jay recently contacted a number of prominent taxidermists and informed them that he had now rounded out his private collection through the addition of a Pygmy. What might he be expected to pay to have the specimen completely stuffed and mounted? 'Some were obviously horrified,' Hitchcock observes, 'and several wouldn't answer. But quite a number quoted Jay a price.'"

Whoaaaaaah!!
Say it ain't so. I this a case of 'behind every "great man" is a great crime'?

DB

I heard about that over a campfire in the Northern Transvaal in 1980. My PH mentioned that a recent visitor (from Montana) had been offered $10,000 to take on the task. That the chap had the skin of a guy he found dead in the Congo. Sounded like, 'The Most Dangerous Game' sort of short story stuff ...

I first heard rumors of it when I started publishing Safari Magazine in 1983 ... only it wasn't a Pygmy or in the Congo. The rumor spreaders were saying a dead black man was found in a river in Uganda and the hunter had the guy skinned, salted, and shipped home. No one ever put a name on the hunter or at least not that I heard at the time. I came across the quote above while doing research for my book on Prince Abdorreza. It may or may not be true. Who knows? I would hope not.

Bill Quimby

quote:

Originally posted by Dungbeetle:

quote:

Shows what money and passion can get you.

----------------------------

Ain't it so? Gotta admire him though and heavy on the passion part.

Mickey, if you'd quit cutting timber and shooting spotted owls in the great NW AND stop rustling cattle in Canada and crossing the border at night with them,,,heck, write a book like Will did and watch the money roll in.

DB

I have to wait for 7 years after I since I stopped.

How did you find out about the cows?