Straight-out democrat. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1878-1879, 1878-06-28
A M1GH4f MAN.
The Heron,ean Han,s{ .f.Ae Great Amer'-
cau Pfninu.

Ia0 u0ENulC0n nuutGX Oh tho OE0at AmeE1s
oan Fl 5dins.
The st. Louis Euening Post says:
About three mil/s down the Illinois
shore, near the little town Of Cahokia,
lives vely queer Indian, who has q
history as remarkable as it is romantic.
He is q full-blooded Cherokee, and,
according to his own assertions, lis over
100 years old. His name is John Nee
hoo, and he was born in the county of
Jefferson, Mississippi, where his tribe
resided over q century ago. and from
which region they were transported to
the Indian Territory. John, or the
"Big Indian" as he is familiarly term
ed, is an extraordinary person in ap-
pearanoe, being six feet four inches in
height, weighing about 100 pounds, and
in spite Of his age is erect and compare
tivey robust. His hair is now perfect
ly sow-white; he has but a few teeth
left, and within the last two or three
years he has grown somewhat bald.
he is fisherman and frog hunter by
profession, and has wife about sixty
years of age, French woman. who
does not speak English. His first wife
was an Indian half breed, by whom he
had two children. both living in the
vicinity of Cahokia, and hunters and
bpOrISInen Dy VOc8tlOn.
At the age of seventeen Meehoo had
already become noted for his physical
strength and great powers of endurance.
quarrel with the chief of the Cherokees,
Mahanatal, and slew him. Meehoo,
while making an effort to fee, was ap-
pretended by his tribe, and, after q
trial according to the forms common to
the Cherokees, he was condemned to be
burnt at the stake, but during his short
confinement, preparatory to his under
going this terrible penalty, he escaped.
He went to the northern part of the
territory OF Mi 'sissippi, where he joined
the Ohickasaws. Here, too, his belliger-
ent disposition broke out again, and he
killed two of the Choctaw chiefs and
made captive woman of the tribe, with
whom he fled. His life since then has
been a series of wandering from one
State to another. FfQm Mississippi he
proceeded to Louisiana, from thence to
Tokas, add from Tex0,s to Missouri, and
for the last fifty years'he has been liv-
ing in the vicinity. ri st. Louis, where
he has followed heprecarious avocation
OF frog hunting. He has always been
famed for his remarkable strength.
During his earlier life he was able to
A| AsVVO POUNDS ON q Qef.tt level. On
one occasion he carried on his broad
shoulders barrel of pork weighing 300
pounds, from the landing at East st.
Louis to his then home below Cahokia.
q distance Of six miles. Several years
ago he lived in the old town of Kaskas-
kia, in Illinois, where be was employed
in the Touring mill, Remarkable
stories are told of tho wonderful feats of
muscular strength performed by him.
It is said that he was in the habit OF
placing upon his shoulders two bags of
wheat, weighing 200 pounds each, and
carrying them up a fight OF stairs.
This labor he would perform for two
hours, never seeming to tire.
While roaming through the woods one
day his dogs, which were following him,
bayed huge stag in the bed of dried
creek. Meehoo was unarmed, and after
several Intellectual efforts to club the
door with such bludgeons as he could
pick up, he seized the infuEiated beast
by the antlers, and by mah strength
hurled him ogf his head, bleaking the
amsa. ANIMALS nsSss 49,. .aHlop35i1 H5s sas
mightiest hunter that roSmeA the wilds
Of the American bottom. Forty and