The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-12-11
A RATTLEsNAKE HUNTERS STORY

tanuC NOoO ~ A0E many hkcc W COLlcs
A RATTL ESNAKE HUNrRR'S STORY.
More Than 5000 Snakes the Testimony
to Els Prowess.
From the NeU York Sun.
SCRANTON, Dec. 8.-Clark Goodrich, OF
| 1873 South Sumner avenue, in the Hyde
park section of Scranton, has killed more
rattlesnakes than any other man in Penn
sylvaniA. Mr.. Goodrich was born and
brought up in Greenfield township, this
county. and is 65 years old. He'll six feet
tall and weighs 100 pounds. Very few Of
his aoquaintances know what great rattle
/ snake slayer he has been, for he is not much
Of talker, and he appears TO
imagine that his experiences among
the poisonous snakes are OF no
| particular interest to people. Mr.. Goodrich
is a coal breaker builder by trade. He has
l been hurt by fallen from scaffolds several
| times and the injuries have crippled him
considerably. He is now in the employ of
the New York, Ontario and Western Rail-
road Company at Its switch and signal sta
ton near she diamond crossing, a short dis
| tanoe north of the Providence road. One
night last week the writer found Mr.. Good
rich working the levers in his coy little
lookout house, and between trains the old
man found timo to tell some Of his expert
| ences
81 have killed upward of 5000 rattle
| snakes" he said. and was on the hunt
for every one Of them when killed IL. The
only rattlesnake that came anywhere near
striking me got angry because I uninten-
ttonally stepped on It's tail, and struck the
front OF my vest with its fangs and left a
thread OF greenish poison on IL. The snake
didn't get chance to strike again, for /
pinned it TO the ground and cut It's head off,
1.-THE reason why began to hunt rattle
snakes was because my mother had three
small cancers on her face when was quite
young man. The caucers smarted and
burned and gave mother great deal of
pain, although the skin was not raw, and
she suffered from them day and night. An
Indian doctor told her to rub rattlesnake
oil on the cancers four or five times day,
saying that it would give her relief imme-
diatelv and prolong her life. went twenty
miles for some oil and paid 81 an ounce for
it. 1t stopped the smarting and burning
right away, and mother felt 30 much better
in few days that / made up my mind TO
get enough oil so last her q year, and
didn't propose 70 go twenty miles to get 1t
or to pay 80 an ounce for it,
"There were no rastlesnakes in Greenfield
township, the nearest rattlesnake grounds
being on the Moosie mountain range. be-
| tween Carb ondale and Dunmore. I had
never killed a rattlesnake, but l heard Of
| an old rattlesnake hunter on the mountain
| near the Pennsylvania Coal Company's
gravity railroad, and on May s trudged
| fifteen miles to his house TO get him to teach
mo how TO hunt the reptiles. He couldn't
| go with me, but he showed me how to pin
the snakes necks TO the ground with a
| crotched stick, and he pointed out q rocky
| side of the mountain, where, he said,
| would find plenty of rattlesnakes near their
den. That was all the instruction / had,
| and before noon | was convinced that the
| old snake hunter knew all about the hAbits
and hsunts of the rattlers in the nsighbor.
hood.
"My first rattlesnake hunt was the most
successful one ever had. My only imple-
msnts were @ crotched sappling o SHARP
jack-knife, and quart bottle. l had The
bottle to put the fat in, the ssppling &c
catch the snakes with, aud the knife to be
head the reptiles aud cut the fat out. The
snakes were a good deal more numerou.
than ! expected to find them. They were
only q short distance from the den they haC
wintered in, and killed 1874 before the mid
die of the afternoon The bottle wasn't
half big enough to hold all the fat tool
out of the rattlesnakes, and made a birch
bark box 20 put the rest in. It was long
after dark when got home with the fat.
| had walked nearly forty miles and killec
lS4 rattlesnakes since O'Clock IN the morn
ing, aud was tired and proud. fried out
twenty ounces Of oil.
Tho only fat In q rattlesnake lies in
J slender strip from nine to thirteen inohe
long on each side OF the intestines near til,
backbone. 1t takes but a minute TO slit tbs
! snakes belly open and peel out the thir
layers OF fat. The fat is as white as milk
You have to fry the oil out In an ear theI
vessel and the scraps that are left amount
to almost nothing. There is not particle
of OIL in the flesh of rsttlesnake / hav,
| ord oh han ar{x,ex al-.o.
by the head in the sun 80 as to let the OF
drip into basin or pail. There Is nothing
but nonsense In such q statement as that
Let q rattlesnake hang In the hot sun al
day and not a drop Of oil would come out
OF its body anywhere. The flesh would dry
up and absorb all the fat inside. Leave th,
snake in the sun for two days and 1t would
SO dry and brittle that you could break il
in pieces like rotten stick.
I'm my experience with rattlesnakes
have found that the best time to hunt them
IL soon after they come out Of their dens IN
the spring and when they congregate neal
the dens in the fall. They have Just al
much fat In them when they crowd out OF
their winter quarters as they have when
they return for their winters sleep In the
summer the snakes are scattered all over
and IL Is a waste of time to hunt them then
The rattlesnakes leave their dens from May
to Is and stay close to them for severa
Gays, so as TO ghue .paca 10 cast
chilly frost comes. When they
become satisfied that there are going TO b,
no more cold snaps they wander away, ant
they don't begin their journey toward the
den until some time between the middle o.
September and the first of October. They
loiter outside Of the den until the cold drive
them in, and while they are waiting outsid,
10 large numbers Is when the hunter has til,
best chance TO kill them. / have been II
berry fields hundreds Of times in the rattle
snake regions in the summer, but hav,
, never yet seen a rattlesnake except when
} was hunting for him.
> You can't tell anything about the ag
OF rattlesnake by the number of rattles OF
3 his tail. have killed old snakes that has