The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1879-05-01
A PANTHER FIGHT.
A Life and Death Struggle m the Wilds
of New York State.

of New York State.
Colonel Seth A. Abbey, the veteran
printer, who in 1921 issued 10000 copies
of the old English Reader, has just re-
turned from California, Oregon and
Washington Territory. He is full Of
those hunting "reminiscences now so rare,
and favors the Cleveland Herald with
the following: | went to w atertown,
Jefferson county, New York, in January,
1919. with my printing establishment,
and commenced publishing newspaper.
Jairus Rich was kind of halfway law
yer: he had started newspaper year
or two before and failed. He and his
wife then started little tavern near the
court house, and they did not succeed in
that very well. lie said to me one day.
81 think can get better living with
my rifle and traps in the woods than |
can by hanging around here in the vii
lage." Rich was Vermonter by birth;
a small, muscular man. The north por-
tion of jefferson county, at that time,
was an almost unbroken wilderness, and
thither Rich, with his wife and traps,
bent his way. A number of months
elapsed before | heard anything from
! him. At length a rumor came that
! ly Il month after this / got Il letter from
him describing his encounter with a
panther; he was hardly able to write
then. His story ran thus: 81 had fast
ened one Of my traps to the root of a
large hemlock tree, and near by was a
dense thicket of low hemlocks of about
half an acre. When ! visited my trap
this morning l discovered one panther
fast in the trap and another near by. |
fired at the one outside of the trap and
wounded him, and he made Immediately
for this thicket. ! had little whiffet
dog with me, and | put the little dog
nto the thicket where the panther enter
ed, and ran around the thicket where
met him Just as he came out of the
thicket | tried to shoot him, but my
gun missed fire, and there we were, face
10 face, and | had to run or fight.
threw down my rifle and drew my
hatchet from my belt and made a pass a
him and he knocked my hatchet more
than twenty feet from me. We theI
: clinched in and we were up and down IL
every shape; he tearing away with hi
c.aws and chewing my hands. Ill
would sometimes have one hand in hi
mouth and sometimes the other. w
were wrestling and tearing in this wa.
until | was nearly done for. In one of tn
falls he happened to come under. and
clapped. my knee right in his flank; for
ward of his hind leg, with my left hant
+ in his mouth. then slipped my righ
+ hand into my pocket and pulled out m.
| iack-knife and opened it with my teeth
$ and made short work of it then. | 10.
1 there by the side of my victim long
+. long time. My clothes were torn OF
? from me or hung in shreds; my face AM
! limbs n gore of blood. The neares
t settler was two miles. ] came to mysel
t after n time, so that | killed the othe
e panther. 1t took all the rest of the da
d to make the house of the nearest settler.
o | knew this man for many years afte
e this encounter, and, strange to say, h
y still continued to hunt panthers an
wolves, ! saw panther skin that wa
e green, Killed by him and just taken froI
?, the body, that measured, from the nos
II to the end of the TAIL nine feet. Iwoul
y like to tell you one of Rich's wolf storie
|. He did not tell it for several years aftt
y it occurred-the reason why you wi
n probably guess at after hearing the stor,
II He said he was out among the rocks an
W discovered wolf; he shot and killed i
IS Upon examining it he found it to be
il she wolf, and sucking young ones. +
finally found her den and crawled I'M
le it, and found ten young pups. He toe
e, them to his shanty and built log p'
A. for them and reared them on deer me
n they were too young to get the boun
/: on. There was then a bounty on eat
I'd grown-up wolf offered by town, coun
to and State, in all amounting to about 8
ne for each wolf. They were the large gr
he wolf, one of them nearly black. I'll
he one, he said, he used to take out and pl
a with it the same as dog. He said
he regretted to kill this one very much, b
les $50 was too great temptation
these wolves grew up, he would ia
them into different sections, kill the
ON take their scalps of, and get the boun