Fly rod crosby biography of albert
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The railroad paid Fly Rod to promote Maine’s outdoor industry. This story was updated in 2025.
Maine’s First Lady of Fly Fishing
One of the country’s first fly fishing writers, and an influential figure in fly fishing history, was a woman born in 1854 in Phillips, Maine. She caught 2,500 trout in the summer of 1893, the ‘happiest and best’ year of her life.
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With thanks to More Than Petticoats, Remarkable Maine Women by Kate Kennedy. Cornelia Thurza Crosby eventually became known as “Fly Rod Crosby,” a nickname I reckon a few anglers today would love to go by.
Crosby had a tough childhood, like most did in the 19th century. Fly Rod’s Notebook became a syndicated column appearing in newspapers in New York, Boston and Chicago.
She caught the attention of the Maine Central Railroad, which was looking to replace its lost freight business with tourists.
In appreciation of her efforts, and despite the fact that Crosby was never a guide, the state of Maine ceremonially awarded Fly Rod Crosby license number 1 in 1898.
The following year, Crosby suffered a tremendous injury to her knee. For a woman in the 19th century, this was a monumental achievement. Born before the Civil War, she conquered poor health with her vigorous outdoor life and lived past World War II.
She befriended Annie Oakley, shot the first caribou legally in Maine and became an advocate for catch-and-release fishing as well as less-restrictive clothing for women.
She described herself more modestly:
I am a plain woman of uncertain age, standing six feet in my stockings…I scribble a bit for various sporting journals, and I would rather fish any day than go to heaven.
Phllips, Maine
She was born Nov.
10, 1854, to Lemuel Crosby and Thurza Cottle Porter Crosby in Phillips, Maine, home of the Rangeley Lakes. Maine registered 1,316 hunting guides that year and gave Fly Rod the first license.
Postcard ca. It was a chatty account of fishing adventures and misadventures with information about where to stay and what the sporting camps were like.
She and two Rangeley guides manned a Maine booth displaying taxidermy and a log cabin. Besides ushering in the licensing of guides, Crosby promoted catch and release, supported the need to license hunters and the use of red hats to make hunters safe, advanced the idea of catch limits for all fish and game, coined Maine’s promotional phrase “the Playground of the Nation,” proposed a game park for moose, and helped establish the Maine State Museum.
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It not only worked, but she caught her first trout.In 1886, a friend gave her a 5 oz.
She was carried to the foot of Mount Blue to try the healing power of nature. I scribble a bit for various sporting journals, and I would rather fish any day than go to heaven.”
Crosby also spent considerable time marketing her home state of Maine. The editor of the newspaper soon approached her about writing a regular column, and in July 1889 Crosby submitted features under the name of Fly Rod to the Phonograph.
Her nickname, Fly Rod, was in common use by 1886. She inherited $600 in her teens and spent it on two years at St. Catherine’s Hall, an Episcopal girls’ finishing school in Augusta.
During the 1870s she worked as a bank teller near Phillips. Crosby believed it took an extra level of character to be a Maine guide, and she wanted that recognized in some formal capacity.
As a thank-you for her efforts to help that legislation pass, Crosby was awarded the first guide license in Maine, in 1898.
She passed away in 1946 at the age of 92.
To learn more about other notable women in fly fishing, check out the articles below:
Women on the Water: Mia Sheppard
5 Women’s Fly Fishing Organizations to Support on National Women’s Fly Fishing Day
During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, one of New England’s most celebrated names in fly fishing was Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby.
The column was titled “Fly Rod’s Note Book” and were written under the name Fly Rod. That column became nationally syndicated and appeared in newspapers in New York, Boston, and Chicago. She wrote about the fishing, the people, the places, and the happenings that she saw; her coverage of these topics continued throughout her entire writing career, including in her column, “Fly Rod’s Note Book.”
In 1895 Crosby convinced the Maine Central Railroad to sponsor an exhibition at the first annual Sportsmen’s Exposition in New York City.
For the last twenty years of her life, Fly Rod Crosby devoted her time to her church and community causes.
Cornelia Crosby will be remembered as someone who devoted her adult life to the improvement and preservation of Maine’s fish and game. On March 19, 1897, the Legislature passed the bill requiring guides to buy a $1 license every year and file a one-page annual report.