The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-01-11
ADIRoNDACK's GREAT HUNTER

1Q6Ie Q1eQ IN EllZdDeIQlOWu uOL
long ago trapper of the old school,
in many respects resembling Cooper S
Leatherstocking. Elijah Simonds,
or 'Lige Simonds, as he was common
ly called, was a Revolutionary type
with clear-cut features, Roman nose
and high forehead. He was mild
hammered and retiring in disposition,
but shrewd judge of human nature,
and man who stood well i'll the re-
gard of his neighbors. He never
boasted of his hunting exploits, and
as he was always neatly dressed, gen
orally with white shirt and starched
collar, it was hard even for those who
knew him to realize that his liveli-
hood was gained by trapping. Though
SO years of age at the time of his
death, Simonds carried on his favor
ite pursuit to the last, and there are
at the present time number OF his
fox and bear and skunk traps scat
tered around in the woods where they
are not likely to be found.
Slmonds came of good old Yankee
stock, his father and grandfather hav-
ing emigrated from the New Hamp-
shire grants, crossing Lake Cham
plain on the ice and erecting a pio-
neer S cabin in the eastern Adiron-
dacks, just south of the present vii
lage of Elizabethtown.
Simonds father was hunter and
his three uncles were all passionately
fond of the chase, and the boy came
naturally by the trait which proved
ed the ruling passion of his life. At
6 he set his first deadfall and trapped
his first mink in the brook which ran
by the cabin door. When he was 10
a settler named Willis Gates lost
horse. There were signs of wolves in
the neighborhood, and young Simonds
set a trap and the next morning
caught a wolf, and became the most
talked about boy in the country. Two
years previously he mastered the art
of trapping foxes, and before he was
II he had not only brought down two
deer with his rifle, but had achieved
the crowning act of his ambition and
killed bear.
For more than seventy years ST.
monds hunted and trapped, and it is
said that in this time he had killed
5000 deer, 5000 foxes, $50 bears, 7
panthers and II wolves, besides
great number of otter, beaver, martin
and mink.
Though Simonds loved the Adiron-
dacks and thought no other region
could compare with it as a resort of
game and fur, he made a number of
trapping trips to Michigan and Wis
consin. In 1887 he visited Spring
Harbor, fifty miles west of Detroit,
and in short time captured twenty
two beaver, eight otter, lot of mink
and two or three hundred muskrats.
The neighborhood has long been
fertile farming section, with land sell
ing for 500 an acre, but in 1887 land
was a drug on the market at IS cents
an acre. Simonds loved to tell of the
increase in valuation, and prided him
self On the fact that he had not taken
advantage Of it. 1t was an illustra-
ton Of the fact that trapping was the
one thing he cared for.
Simonds knew every foot of the
Adirondack wilderness as possibly no
other man has known it. He hunted
and trapped at the headwaters of
Beaver River, Long Lake, Blue
Mountain Lake, Tupper Lake. North
Elba, the Boreas Country and all the
intervening sections. His trail criss-
crossed the toughest country, and he
camped on all the high mountains.
One morning when he awoke in his
camp under the ledge on the summit
of McComb he looked off to the south
and east and saw a new lake be had
not known before. He rubbed his
eyes and looked again, and presently
the sun burst over the eastern rim of
the Green Mountains of Vermont and
the lake vanished and he realized that
he had seen his first and only mirage.
One of Simonds' favorite camps
was on a hard wood ridge between
the north and south branches of the
Boquet River, which takes it rise on
the sides of those great mountains,
Nippleton, Dix and McComb. Near
by was a bear wallow where bruin
came on hot days to revel in the mud.
In another direction is the only laurel
bed known in this part of the Adiron-
dacks. The neighborhood was fa-
nous feeding ground for the deer,
which wintered in the high evergreen
clothed ridges, and years when the
beech nuts were plenty it was the
mecca of bears for miles around.
Near Lily Pad Pond, half mile
from his camp, was a tree eaten halt
way through as the result of bites of
jealous old male bears, and in the
notch that leads to the head of West
Mill Brook was path worn deep into
the ground by the feet of bears which
had passed over it. This bear trail
in places resembled an ordinary path,
but more often it was succession of
circular depressions made by each
bear following in the tracks of his
predecessor, on the principal of cross
ing a brook on stepping stones. ST.
monds frequently caught bears by
sinking a steel trap in one of these
depressions without troubling to