Robert H. Jackson, raised in rural western Pennsylvania and rural western New York State, learned to fish when he was a boy. He continued to fish throughout his life. He loved it, as outdoor recreation, as thinking and sometimes writing time, and as a relaxing activity to share with friends.
Beginning in 1934, when Robert Jackson was appointed to his first federal office, he lived in the Washington, D.C., area. He did some fishing there, including on the Chesapeake Bay. He also fished on summertime trips “home” to upstate New York, and sometimes in Canada.
In New York State, one of Robert Jackson’s friends for decades was Donald A. Dailey, of Rochester. Bob Jackson and Don Dailey were active Democrats. They worked together in New York and national Democratic Party politics, including on conventions, campaigns, federal and state patronage appointments (including Dailey’s own, as Postmaster of Rochester), public issues, possible political candidacies, and other political matters.
Jackson and Dailey were close. They got to know each other’s wives and children. They became acquainted with some of each other’s other friends.
Through Dailey, Jackson met another Rochester resident, Louis A. Wehle. He was the president of the Genesee Brewing Company.
Like Jackson and Dailey, Wehle loved to fish. And he owned some special fishing locations. In the 1930s, Jackson, Dailey, Wehle, and others became summer fishing trip buddies. That continued in the 1940s.
In late April 1945, Don Dailey in Rochester sent a letter to Robert Jackson at the Supreme Court. Dailey enclosed, belatedly, photographs (including the one above) from their July 1944 fishing trip in the wilds of Ontario, Canada.
On that 1944 occasion, Bob Jackson had taken an overnight train from Washington to Canandaigua, New York. Don Dailey, with his car and driver, met Jackson there. They were driven to Rochester. They met up with Louis Wehle, Rochester judge James O’Connor, and others. The group took a ferry from Rochester across Lake Ontario to Coburg, Ontario, Canada. A driver met and transported them seventy miles north. They traveled ten more miles by boat to Wehle’s island in Lake Weslenkoon (now called Weslemkoon). They stayed in his log cabin there. For a week, they fished, talked, ate (mostly their catches, predominately black bass), and relaxed.
Now, in April 1945, Dailey was writing his hope that Jackson would join in making plans to do it again in the summer ahead:
Dailey’s letter and the photographs reached Jackson during the April 1945 week when the new President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, was privately recruiting Justice Jackson to be the U.S. chief prosecutor of the leading Nazi war criminals.
President Truman announced publicly his appointment of Jackson, to the job that became serving as chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, on May 2, 1945.
Two days later, Robert Jackson, in the midst of doing two jobs (Supreme Court work as its term was ending, plus the massive tasks of getting started as “Nazi prosecutor”), dictated, signed, and mailed a letter back to his friend Don Dailey:
Jackson’s May 1945 hopes to get back to the U.S. that August to join a Dailey, Wehle, and company fishing trip were in vain.
To my knowledge, Robert Jackson did no fishing—except for staff members, their good behavior, diplomatic concessions by Allies, and evidence against would-be German criminal defendants—in summer 1945.
Jackson also seems not to have done any (real) fishing in the United Kingdom or in Europe during 1945 or 1946.
Robert Jackson did, resuming in summer 1948, go on additional fishing trips with his friends Don Dailey and Louis Wehle. The last one was in July 1954, during Jackson’s final summer.
about to head out on a fishing trip on Wehle’s cabin cruiser, Jenny III.
Thank you to Dailey and Wehle family members the late Robert Emmet (Bob) Dailey, Louise Schaefer Dailey, and Bonnie Wehle for their assistance.
