doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Archibald Rutledge

There are those of us who grew up in and appreciate the South, and the Southern ways of life and hunting. And, for all those who would like to know what it is like there are wonderful writings about it all that have been handed down from the precious Carolina low country to the rest of the world. Those are the writings of Archibald Rutledge, first poet-laureate of South Carolina. He wrote many stories about life and hunting in his part of the world, and I have enjoyed them for almost as many years.


For those of you who subscribe to, or purchase on a newsstand, the magazine Sporting Classics, there is a reprint of an article about a grand hunt that Rutledge and his companion made many, many years ago for a great buck that lived on an island near the coast of SC. Please do not overlook the reading of "The Kings of Curlew Island". It is long, as short stories go, but is a perfect example of Rutledge's masterful prose and unpredictable outcomes.

In honor of a great son of the South, SRH

He is an excellent writer, I have several of his volumes!

Archibald Rutledge spent part of his life teaching at a prep school in Pennsylvania. In addition to his South Carolina adventures, Rutledge chronicled his hunts in the Keystone State. He is a national treasure. His ancestral plantation, Hampton, is a state park in South Carolina. I have made the pilgrimage and it is well worth the journey.

J.K.B. von Falkenhorst

von, did not know rutledge had a pa grouse hunting connection...

thank you for that tip...

would you be so kind, as to provide references to his work that includes pa hunting lore?

meantime, will see what google reveals...

Ed, there are chapters in several of his books about hunting in PA, I read one last night and will go look it up again. I'm not sure if there is a compiled grouse hunting book, I know there is a deer hunting and a Turkey hunting one.

clay, google supports your conclusion...

but google did reveal two non hunting themed books that rutledge wrote that interested me...they are:

"my colonel and his lady" and "god's children"...

looking forward to reading them both...

I don't have those volumes, yet. I have half a dozen others, and will be buying those at some point soon as well. I think he mostly small game hunted in PA, and some turkey. Not sure if wrote about whitetail hunting there or not

There is an interesting article, rather a book review, written by Mills Morrison on Rutledge's "America's Greatest Game Bird" (edited by Jim Casada) in the Winter Issue of Parker Pages.

For those of us who have "almost" no unfilled book space, I recommend "Hunting & Home in the Southern Heartland - the Best of Archibald Rutledge", by "Edited by Jim Casada".
My penned in "eBay 2013" on my postal address sticker on the inside front hard cover reminds me where and when I got that particular book.
Don't know why, but I've adopted the habit of annotating the title page of many of my books with the "born & died" info about the author. In this book of selected Rutledge yarns, I've penned in -
"BORN - 23 Oct 1883, "Summer Place", McClellanville, South Carolina.
DIED - 15 Sept 1973, "Summer Place, McClellanville, South Carolina"
I suspect there are not many folks who were born and then died a lifetime later in the same "place".
There's a very good reason the man's writings are so admired.
I'm personally much more familiar with the region north of Spartanburg, but AR's writings made me feel right comfortable down in his "lowlands".