So far as can be judged, at this distance, Bellars’s chief notion of the teacher’s function was to receive the dollar, or whatever the lesson cost. Thus we can readily comprehend what the result must have been when such a teacher and such a pupil got together. The gentleman was a ventriloquist, or said he was, and he would cause little birds to sing up the chimney or under the piano, and sometimes a cat would meow or a dog bark in the far corner of the room. All this served to pass the hour devoted to the weekly lesson.
The last time I saw Bellars was some years after his departure from Woodside, on an occasion when he was gawking down Broadway with a carpet bag that must have long lain dormant in some neglected corner, a picture that would have done a Puck artist a world of good, with his lean figure and excruciatingly thin visage. What was his latter end I know not, but I verily believe that he dried up and blew away.
BOATING DAYS ON THE PASSAIC.
During the eighties and early nineties the Passaic river, where it skirted Woodside, was one of the most celebrated rowing courses in the country, and here assembled well-known oarsmen from far and near, including such men as Courtney, Hanlon, Oomes, Ten Eyck, Edward Phillips and George Lee.
So far as known, the Rev. Mr. Sherman, rector of Christ Church, Belleville, was the first to use a racing shell on the river. Closely following Mr. Sherman came Mr. James S. Taylor, whose earliest recollections are of the river and its ways. Mr. Taylor grew up on the water and was one of its first boatmen.
Probably the first boat club was the Woodside Rowing Club; but this was more of a social organization with rowing as a side issue. John Eastwood, a leading member, later joined the Tritons and became Commodore of the Passaic River Rowing Association. The Passaic Boat Club is considered the first. Its original house was situated about opposite Centre street, but it was not long before the Club moved to Woodside and established itself just below the Point House.
The Triton Boat Club, the third to be organized, soon out-distanced the others, and became the social as well as the boating centre of the Passaic. It was really born in 1868, in Phil. Bower’s boathouse, where certain oarsmen stored their boats, but was not officially organized until 1873, when the members met in the office of the Newark Lime & Cement Company. Twelve men attended this meeting, but only six names are given as organizers of the club: Frederick Townley, Henry C. Rommel, Truman Miller, Samuel A. Smith, Frederick Earl and Sidney Ogden. The other six seceded and organized the Eureka Boat Club.
About 1875 the club built its first house at the foot of the Gully road, and the following year the first regatta was held. The Passaic offered a beautiful course to oarsmen, but it did not come prominently before the country until the Eurekas rowed in the races held at Philadelphia during the Centennial. This called attention to the Passaic and resulted in the first National Regatta on its waters, 1878. A moonlight race between the Tritons and the Viking Boat Club of Elizabeth, which was pulled off in October, 1879, is remembered as one of the notable events.
Both Edward and Frank Phillips were prominent as oarsmen of the club, the former so much so that he, with Henry Rommel, was sent to the National Regatta held at Saratoga in 1881 or 1882. Henry Rommel, by the way, is probably the most “be-medaled” member of the club. George Small was another well-known Triton, as was George Lee who was brought out by the club and sent by it to England.