The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-12-29
A MIGHTY HUNTER DEAD
HE FOLLOWED THE TRAIL OF THE
LAST Pennsylvania ELK.

I. Sportsman of the Sinnanahoning.
The man who was in at the death of
the last elk killed in Pennsylvania died a
few days ago in Potter county" said
former resident of that part of the Key
stone State. His name was Ira Par
menter, and he must have been ninety
years of age. He was born near the forks
of the Sinnamahoning, where his father,
who came from Connecticut with his
family before the close of the, last cen
| tury, was one of the first settlers. The
| old hunter Just dead was the last of his
race He had followed the life of a hunter
and trapper until three years ago, when
he became partially blind and was forced
to hang up his rifle. He had lived during
the times when elk, wolves and panthers,
all of them now extinct, were numerous
in the Pennsylvania woods, and he, prob
ably more than any of his contempor;l-
neous woodsmen, aided in bringing
about their extinction.
''For many years he insisted that he
had killed the last panther ever known
to be in Pennsylvania. But Jacob Ben
sley, an old Pike county hunter, finally
brought such evidence to bear that he
and not Parmenter was entitled to that
honor, that the latter acknowledged
Bensley's claim. That he was in the
hunt, though, which resulted in the kill
ing of the one lone elk that clung to its
native hills and fastnesses in the Penn
sylvania wilds there is no doubt, al
though the elk was killed by another
person, and an Indian at tl:at. This elk
hunt was Parmenter's favorite re1ninis
cence, among the hundreds of stirring
stories of his life in the woods that h,.
was always ready to relate, almost up 20
the day of his death.
! ON THE TRAIL.
This elk hunt occurred as late as
| 1867, although it was supposed that the
last of the Wapiti race in Pennsylvania
had met its death twenty years before
| Not any of the animals nor any sign of
them had been seen since 1945, when
Seth Nelson of Elk county, shot what
was supposed TO be the last one, and its
immense head and antlers for years Were
exhibited at Peales museum, in Phila-
delphia, as those of the last Pennsylva-
ria elk. In the fall of 1867 this same
Seth Nelson and Ira Parmenter were
hunting along the headwaters of Ben
nett's creek, in Play Swamp, from which
water flows ON one side to the sources of
the Susquehanna, and from the other to
the Allegheny feeders. They were on
the trail of deer, when suddenly they
heard the peculiar whistle a bull elk
sounds only at that time of the year, the
whistle being the call for mate. The
two hunters got their hounds on the
elk's trail and followed it all day, when
"a heavy and prolonged rainstorm came
up and the trail was lost.
s.The hunters roamed the woods foI
weeks trying to strike the lost trail, but
did not succeed. The news that there
was still another elk left in the Sinna-
mahoning woods spread throughout the
region and clear TO tht' Indian reserva
tions over the New York state line
Among these was hunter and trappel
famous on the Cattaraugus reservation
known to the whites as Jim Jacobs. Ont
day in the latter part of November Ira
, Parmenter and Seth Nelson started out
to try again to find the trail of the lon'
bull elk of the Sinnamahoning. Ther'
was a good tracking snow, and on tE,
, south edge of Flag Swamp they discos'
cred tracks in the snow that they recog
niZed at once as an elks, and at th'
? same time they were surprised and by M
means pleased to see the Indian hunter
Jim Jacobs, appear on the scene.
. THE INDIANS PRIZE.
Jacob was an old man even then
! although he lived and hunted for tel
years longer, when he was killed by tn
, cars at Salamanca, N. Y. He ha'
hunted elk for fifty years, and knew al
their habits and instincts perfectly
Parlnenter and Nelson objected to tn
Indian joining them in the chase of tn
elk; and he was forced to leave the trail
:. The two white men followed the elk fo
y four days; and it led them through tn
: almost uubroken wilderness of wester
! Pennsylvania clear down to the hea
! waters of the Clarion river, in Clario
county There binding snowstorr
: came up, but they kept on, knowing tina
the elk would not travel in the storm
At last they discovered that the elk ha
|. taken refuge in a laurel th1cket, an
), they felt that the prize was almost with
:. their grasp, when a rifle shot rang on
: upon the snowy air from the thicke
They made their way into the thicke
and in an opening in the center stoo
n the Indian, Jim Jacobs, one foot on th
n dead body of the elk, and his rife hel
h threateningly as he faced the whit
!. hunters creeping through the laurels.
. THE willy Indian had read the courk
- of the elk by his knowledge of the an
81 mails instincts, and had followed it
Il surely as if he had been on its trac
in the snow, and had actually reache
the laurel swamp where the animal toe
,e refuge before the elk reached there itsel
to The two white hunters, although di
of appointed and chagrined over their fai
n. ure to capture the prize they had folio,
he ed for a hundred miles, were forced
acknowledge the wonderful skill and u
erring Judgment of the old Indian. al
ae aided him in carrying his = rize hom