Charlevoix county herald., 1915-10-30
BEARS THICK
AS SQUIRRELS
GRAND OLD MAN OF THE WOODS
TELLS OF THE TIME
IN MAINE.
PHTs SOLD At DOLLAR APIECE
Veteran Hunter, Now 90, Chats Of
Early Days and Doughnuts Fried
In Bears Grease.

Bangor, Maine.-Uncle Greenleaf
Davis, the hermit of Shin Pond, bear
hunter, nature lover and philosopher,
is the grand old man of the woods"
On the death of his father sixty years
or more ago he inherited log house,
primitive sawmill driven by water
power, and a township of timberland
containing about $4,000 acres of
spruce and pine. But of all this he
has little or nothing left save a camp
on the shores of Shin Pond and few
acres surrounding 1t; for he never
was a business man, his tastes run
ming rather to poetry and the study of
nature.
For many years he has spent most
of his time at Shin Pond, which Is
near the town of Patten, in the north
ern tip of Penobscot county, where he
kept bachelor hall and followed his
natural bent of seeking companion
ship with birds and animals and fishes
rather than with men. In mid-winter
it has been his habit to seek greater
comfort in the village Of Patten, but
b, far the greater part of the last six.
ty years has been spent apart from
mankind.
Henry d. Thoreau, the famous Amer
lean naturalist, visited Mount Katadin
in 1843, and Davis, then only twenty
six, accompanied him on several
weeks tour of the forests of that re-
gion, assisting him in gathering ma
terial for his book "The Maine
Woods" Besides being hunter and
fisherman, Davis is something Of a
naturalist. It was he who made tho
discovery that the beautiful markings
of birdseye maple are caused by wood
peckers seeking the sweet sap of the
tree, the dents of their sharp bills
leaving scars that in time assume
reddish hue.
The old mans memory goes back
to the days when game, instead of be-
ing scarce, was rather too plentiful,
and when the Tarratines, original pro-
prietors of this part of Maine, had not
living in frame houses, but were real
Indians without an idea in the world
outside of hunting and eating, and a
little fighting between times.
"When I was young" he says (he
has killed more than ESQ bears In his
time), "fat bears were almost as thick
among the old growth beeches along
the slopes of Mount Katadin as red
squirrels are today. In the fall, after
the early frosts had loosened the
beechnuts, could go out with an old
smoothbore gun and shoot two or
three most any day. Every fall faith
er used to call us boys and get up a
bear hunt to get meat to roast through
the winter. Sometimes the hunt last
ed a week, sometimes longer, but we
never quit till we had put by the car
casses of eight or ten fat bears.
"In the days when Tippecanoe' ran
for president there was no railroad
within 100 miles of where we lived,
and IL any one had told us about Chi
cago dressed beef coming through
to Maine in refrigerator cars we
would have locked him up as crazy.
The hindquarters of fat bear that
had fed on beechnuts, when hung on
a spit, roasted before hardwood fire
and basted in its own fat until 1t was
shiny brown, made eating good enough
for the minister or the first select
man.
The kidney fat of bears. which was
oily and soft, like lard, was used for
frying doughnuts and for bread short
ening, while the harder belly fat was
run into candles. l have eaten thou
sands of brown doughnuts that were
fried in bears grease. That same
grease today 1 could sell to druggists
for IS quart.
"As for the skins Of the bears, we
rubbed them on the fleshy side with
powdered alum and salt and used
them for rugs, bed coverings and
sleigh robes. Nobody placed any
great value on the pelt of bear In
those days. It was the meat we were
after, and as the skin had to come OF
before we could get at the meat, we
considered 1t merely a by-product.
Sixty or seventy years ago one could
buy all the bear pelts he wanted for
a dollar apiece. Now they are SIS
to $25, and many OF them poor at
that.
See this wiper" pointing to long