On May 23, 1953, about 350 boys and probably just as many adults gathered on the banks of Hunting Creek where the Thurmont (Md.) Town Office now sits. The boys were at the end of a three-day campout where they were taught how to fly fish.
The adults included men like U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Douglas; U.S. Senators J. Glenn Beall, John M. Butler and A. Willis Roberterson; Congressman DeWitt S. Hyde and former Maryland Governor Preston Lane. They were there to dedicate a memorial to deceased members of the Brotherhood of the Jungle Cock.
While the name of the group sounds like the title to a bad porn movie, Ken Crawford, president of the Jungle Cocks at the time said in the Frederick Post, “Our only aim is to teach youngsters the art of fishing. … We just want to teach them to have more fun while fishing, to observe the rule of the sport, and to take a hand in the conservation of our fish, game and natural resources.”
Though the group had been founded in Thurmont in 1939, it had spread to other states.
“The concept of teaching youngsters about fishing and conservation of our natural resources was the ground work for the formation of the Brotherhood,” Thomas W. Cooney wrote in his article, “A History of the Brotherhood of the Jungle Cock.”
The group’s earliest roots can be traced to when Joseph W. Brooks, Jr., J. Hammond Brown and Frank Burt Smoot launched The Junior Outdoorsman. The Maryland State Game and Fish Protective Association published the magazine directed specifically at young boys.
Brooks was the chairman of the Fresh Water Committee of the Maryland State Game and Fish Protective Association and Brown was president of the association. Another founding member, Frank L. Bentz, Sr., was the public relations director of the Maryland Game and Inland Fish Commission.
Brooks and Brown encouraged Bentz to arrange a weekend outing on Big Hunting Creek. Invitations were mailed on the letterhead of The Maryland State Game and Fish Protective Association to association members and to the Outdoor Writers Association of America, as well as other guests, according to Cooney.
Twenty-five men attended that first outing on the opening day of trout season in 1939. They were so pleased with the event that they decided to continue it annually as “The Anglers Campfire.”
However, the next year, a late snow froze the anglers’ fishing lines and so they stayed in their cabins.
“As the men sat in the warmth of the lodge there was talk of fishing and the perpetuation of the sport, the environment, and the conservation of our natural heritage. It was decided that an organization be formed that would address the concerns of the group, and that the focus must be on tomorrow’s inheritors,” Cooney wrote.
On May 21, 1940, the anglers met again and voted to call their group, “The Brotherhood of the Jungle Cock”. The name refers to the male Asiatic Jungle Fowl, whose feather is highly sought after for fishing flies.
The monument, which was sculpted by William Carter Wescott, showed a man and boy in their fishing gear. The boy is grinning as he displays his trout that he caught on his fly rod. The man is stooping to release the fish from the boy’s line. The figures were cast in bronze and set on a 64-inch high base made of stones from Hunting Creek.
Douglas gave the dedicatory address at the ceremony and then presented the memorial to Crawford. Crawford, in turn, then presented the monument to Thurmont Mayor C. Ray Weddle, who accepted it on behalf of the town. The town had also donated the land where the monument was place.
The monument still greets visitors who park at the town office.