Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-06-14
FIGHTING A WILD HOG.
An Exciting Adventure in q New
York Forest.
Desperate Encounter with an Infuriated
Animal-ThouSh Badly Wounded
the Beast Nearly Kills
Two Men.

LAG AcdSt ->ca'Ay AAAAS
Two Men.
There are still dense tracts of forest
in Sullivan County, n. Y, lying less
than one hundred miles from New
York City itself, where the black bear
and other animals which long ago dis
appeared from regions that were set
tied years after Sullivan County S woods
began to fall before the axe, are still
as numerous as they were when the
first settlers took up land in the coun-
ty a century and half ago. With
such surroundings there naturally ex-
lists in those wild localities a race of
sturdy hunters and trappers. descend
ants of the pioneers, and the seeker
after material for exciting and thrill
ing stories of adventure need go no
further than to one of the many back
woods hamets where these rude but
hospitable people make it their home.
A striking figure among one particu-
lar settlement of this kind was Peter
Stewart. who had spent the most of
a long life in the woods, but who
was an important man among his
people. having twice represented them
in the New York Legislature, and oc-
cupied many local offices of trust.
During his life in the woods it once fell
to his lot to be participant in hunt
ing adventure, the like Of which but
few, if any hunters ever experienced,
on this continent at least. Old Mr..
Stewart related to me once the thrill
ing incident connected with that hunt.
They will make lively chapter in the
literature of adventure.
The extensive beech woods of Sulli-
van county were Of great Importance
to the early settlers before they had
cleared up farms and fields under cul-
tivation to raise corn sufficient for
feeding the large number of swine
they were obliged to keep. Pork being
the chief article of backwoods diet,
they fattened their hogs on beech-nuts
for several years. The nuts made
pork that was soft and greasy, but it
was pork, and the food cost nothing.
The beech-nuts were scarce some wears
and in Others they were unusully
plenty. The greatest beech-nut year
ever known was 1920
1.-The nuts were SD thick on the
trees" said Peter Stewart, in giving
this "reminiscences. ''that there was
barely room for the leaves When
they dropped in the fall they covered
the ground two inches deep. That
autumn a man who lived along the
Neversink river was struck with the
idea of turning drove of hogs into
the woods and fattcning them for mar
ket. 1t was calculated that hog that
was turned into the beech to.fatten
would increase in value five dollars by
the time it was taken out. This spec.
ulator argued that he could, therefore,
make five thousand dollars by feeding
one thousand hogs on beech-nuts until
they We're fat enough to SELL He
bought all the hogs he could find in the
neighborhood and turned them into
the beech all marked with his brand.
A few days before the time he intended
to collect his herd there came sudden
cold snap with heavy snow-storm.
The storm lasted for two days. and
when the hog owner went to the woods
h. found his hogs scattered about in
heaps dead. They had collected to-
gether during the storm to keep warm,
in groups of fifty or more, and most OF
them were trampled or smothered to
death. Out of his one thousand head
of swine the Spectator did not have
more than one hundred left. The dead
ones were shipped away for soap
grease.
lin 1925 Sam Darbee and myself
were hunting bears in Rockland
beech. We had killed three bears and
several deer. and one day while re.
turning to our cabin we came across
a track of some animal in the snow
that was strange to US. We put dog
On the track. but it was two days be.
fore we came up with the animal. In
the meanwhile, we had made up oul
minds that it was wild hog, the off:
spring, no doubt, of some of the
stock that the SPECTATOR had not re
covered 1--WE years before. On the
third day. I was following the track
through a swamp. when suddenly one
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