SPFDOGS
02-10-2008, 11:28 PM
This along with the previous short bio (Jack Burke)were taken from "Memiors of the Pit" by Jack Meeks..
Most fanciers have read about the likes of Carver,Boudreaux,Tudor,etc but I'd bet not many have read about some of the more prominent dogmen of the late 1800's - early 1900's..
"..No book on this subject can do justice without at least a brief mention of the grand old man who died a few years ago,Jim Corcoran..For many years Corcoran lived in Joliet,Ill..
Uncle Jim as he is refered to by his friends,had been breeding gamedogs for more than three score years prior to his death..During that period he possibly owned,bred,or supervised the breeding of as many good dogs as any man living..He was one of the most scientific breeders this country has ever seen..He had the faulculty for producing a fair percentage of game,fast,hard biting dogs..Corcoran contributed his success to his careful breeding,or to use his own words "keeping the family together"..In other words he attempted to keep the old Gashouse and Fool lines as close and clean with a occassional outcross to an important irish dog..He had several relatives in the land of the shamrock,who knew a game dog and who saw that he received some very fine dogs from across the ocean..
Like many of the oldtimers "Uncle Jim" was relunctant to talk about himself or his expiriences..About the nearest thing he came to bragging on one of his dogs,except to a close friend like Bill Shipley,was to state that he or she was a "fair cur",or that the "pups should be worth raising"..
A biographical sketch of Mr.Corcoran could be summed up briefly in a slang phraseology,"A square shooting Irishman that knew his dogs"..
Most fanciers have read about the likes of Carver,Boudreaux,Tudor,etc but I'd bet not many have read about some of the more prominent dogmen of the late 1800's - early 1900's..
"..No book on this subject can do justice without at least a brief mention of the grand old man who died a few years ago,Jim Corcoran..For many years Corcoran lived in Joliet,Ill..
Uncle Jim as he is refered to by his friends,had been breeding gamedogs for more than three score years prior to his death..During that period he possibly owned,bred,or supervised the breeding of as many good dogs as any man living..He was one of the most scientific breeders this country has ever seen..He had the faulculty for producing a fair percentage of game,fast,hard biting dogs..Corcoran contributed his success to his careful breeding,or to use his own words "keeping the family together"..In other words he attempted to keep the old Gashouse and Fool lines as close and clean with a occassional outcross to an important irish dog..He had several relatives in the land of the shamrock,who knew a game dog and who saw that he received some very fine dogs from across the ocean..
Like many of the oldtimers "Uncle Jim" was relunctant to talk about himself or his expiriences..About the nearest thing he came to bragging on one of his dogs,except to a close friend like Bill Shipley,was to state that he or she was a "fair cur",or that the "pups should be worth raising"..
A biographical sketch of Mr.Corcoran could be summed up briefly in a slang phraseology,"A square shooting Irishman that knew his dogs"..