The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1915-08-25
CONCERNING cArAMoUNTs.
Wardsboro Panther Had a Successor in
the Hall of Fame.

Juo A1d1 u L eSAiAS'
/ The st. Albans Messenger, a jonrnal
exceptionally truthful, generally indie
pendent and almost always intelligent,
caused us some surprise and to take
urffbrage by admitting uneensored
to its columns certain Especial to
The Messenger entitled "Vermont
Panther Goes Not that the ar
ticle was not interesting; not that 1T
was not we'll written and worth read
| ing, but on the ground of its I'M
truthfulness in a vital particular we
charge The Messenger not only with
negligence. but with culpable utterance
of fiction.
The article in question, suspielously
dated Bennington, reports the acqul-
sition by the Boston Society of Natural
History of a stuffed catamount. 1t IS
further related that the catamount when
in the flesh Except as to one of its
fore paws) and on a day i'll November,
1875. was encountered by stephen Per-
| nv. Henry Fits and Homer Johnson on
the Webster Strecter farm in Wards
boro, Windham county, Vermont, and
then and there by them with force and
arms put to death. AS lethal instru-
ments the Especial to The Messenger
mentions one gun, one bullet, one rope,
one club. The art of the taXidermist
then placed the catamount in such con-
dition that it was on exhibition In
Wardsboro for "a number of years,
frequently taken to adjoining towns
"for exhibition purposes on occa-
sions of Fourth of July celebrations
and other public gatherings, taken to
Paris to pose as a sculptor s model and
finally, brought to Bennington to imper-
senate the original catamount that used
to crouch above the signboard of the
Green Mountain Tavern. A respectable
career and, for all we know, in the
foregoing details consistent with fact;
but we deny that the deceased was as
stated in The Messenger, "the last
specimen of North American Panther
killed in the state of Vermont. -
We seek no quarrel with WardsborC
or its reasonable claim to glory. We
have no quarrel with Bennington, thrice
famous for catamomts within its cor
poratc limits; but our allegiance Il
Windsor county and our respect for it
Importance in the civil and natura
| history of Vermont lead us to pre-
sent to The Messenger certain fact
which should not be ignored. Windso
county was the birthplace and home o
the Catamount club, a social Organiza
tion dating from a remote period
which had its annual meeting and din
: ner at Downer s Roadhouse in the tow
of Weathersfeld. In that tavern, jus
renowned for the excellence of its ia
BILE through the long and illustriOus ad
ministrations of the late Roswell
J Downer and of his father before hin
' there was a stuffed panther which ha
met its death by the hand of man o
: Ascutney mountain. The panther wa
and we hope still is in the hotel s trade
mark. Into the presence of this beaS
= of the forest the members of the Cats
!, mount club would come at the close G
q each club dinner. Two of the member
most noted for accuracy and Austen
: iousness would then be chosen as seer,
taries pro tenn, while each of the othe
!, diners would confdentia1ly commun
cate to the secretaries his estimate
4 the length of the catamount s tail. A
y ballots being east, the secretaries woul
: then by tape measure ascertain the e,
@ act length of the eaudal appendage an
}. bestow on him who had made the be
- guess a prize-a small prize-consistir
of the hard cider rum punch of char
payne which remained unconsumed.
. is said that memory of past perforr
lances was of no aid in these contes