Nevada County picayune., 1888-07-18
Fighting a Wild Hog
lhers are still dense tracts of for ct ip SsiIivan cousty. NY l,.;,o

1 'N'" ''i'h OIc hundred miles from
 New York city itself, where the ] nIack bear and other animals which
 long ago disappeared from regions
 that were settled years after Sullivan
 county's woods began to fall before
 the axe. are still as numerous as they ! were when the first settlers took m
 land Tn the county century and a i half ago. With such surroundings
 there natural y exists in those wild
 localities race of sturdy hunter,
 and trappcrs. descendants of
 the pioneers. and the seeker after
 material for exciting and thrilling
 stories of adventure need go no fur
 ther than to one of the many back woods hamlcts where these rude but
 hospitable people make it their home. A striking figure among one particular settlement of this kind
 was Peter Stewart. who had spent the most of long life in the woods.
 but who was an important man among his people. having twice rep resented them in the New York Leg islature, and occupied many local of fees of trust. During his life in the woods it once fell to his lot to be a participant in hunting adventure, the like of which but few if any hunt CTS ever experienced on this conti- nent at least. Old Mir. Stewart re- lated to me once the thrilling incl dent connected with that hunt They will make lively chapter in the literature of adventure
 The extensive beech woods of Sul- livan county were of great imbort- ance to the early settlers before they had cleared up farms and fields under cultivation to raise corn sufli cient for feeding the large number of swine they were obliged to keep Pork being the chief article of back woods diet. they fattened their hogs |. !, f..r rnl
 The nuts made pork that was soft and greasy. but it was pork, and the food cost nothing. The beech-nuts were scarce some years and in oth- CTS they were usually plenty. The greatest beech-nut year ever known was 1920.
 The nuts were so thick on the trees" said Peter Stewart, Il giving ehis rcniniscence. that there was barely room for the leaves. When they dropped in the fall they covered the ground two inches deep. That autumn man who lived along the Nryersink river was struck with the idea of turning drove of hogs into the woods and fattening them for market. It was calculated that a hog that was turned into the beech to fattcn would increase in value five dollars by the time it was taken out. This speculator argued that he could therefore. make five thousand dollars hv feeding one thousand hogs on bcech-nut, until they were fat enough to sell. He bought all the hogs he could find in the neighborhood and turned them into the beech all mark ed with his brand A few days be- fore the time he intended to collect his herd there came a sudden cold snap with heavy snow storm. The storm lasted for two days, and when the hoo owner went to the woods he found his hogs scattered about in heaps dead. They had collected to- gcthcr during the storm to keep warm, in grounds of fifty or more, and most of them were trampled or smothered to death. Out of his one thousand head of swine the specula- tor did not have more than one hun dred left. The dead ones were shipp- ed away for soap grease.
 "ln 1925. sam Darbee and myself were hunting bears in Rockland bccch. We had killed three bears and several deer. and one day while returning to our cabin we came across n track of some animal in the snow that was strange to us We mt a dog on the track, but It was two days before we came up wlth the animal. In the meantime, we had made up our minds that it was a wild hog, the offspring, no doubt Of some of the stock that the spcculator had not recovered five years before, On the third day. was following the track through a swamp, when suddenly one of the largest and most sayage-looking boars l ever saw jumped out with loud snort from a
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