Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-04

stocking tales OF uaunCleSS caring were
Matched in our then expansive Ameri-
can wilderness bear stories (which would
send the chills scooting up the spine of
the ordinary citizen were enacted regularly
in the uninhabited terrain where clearings
ended and marsh timberlands began.
Pioneers INDUCED in bear hunting a rec
feative relief from telling trees. building houses
of logs clearing land and introducing virgin
soil to the civilizing influences of primitive
plows ChaSes after Sir Bruin, incidentally,
which more often than not brought home the
bear steaks. For in those eras of almost for
gotten yesteryears, big game roved the Virginia
Underwater, grazed and browsed the rocky red
soiled hillsdeS of District-land and generally
lived the carefree life Of independence which
our Zoo animals now dream about-h they
dream.
Days when buckskin breeches were worn as
the underpinning for squirrel tail caps and
shirts fringed with fancy beads When man
without a gun sooner or later metamorphosed
into man without the throb Of life stirring his
circulation. When firearms were more essential
than salt. sugar, pepper or -four. For if you
didn't have the former, you wouldn't need
the later. There would soon be another under
taking for the undertaken and. you would be
1.-THE prey of some untamed varmint that
was qualified to fight more in minute than
IN unarmed man could in a lifetime
Probably you get my point by the time you
read this far~that the East was once as
wild as the much heralded wild land woolly
West. Before civilization backed the frontier
toward the setting sun and CARRIED Virginians.
Marylanders and residents Of the District in
garments of WOOL cotton and silk as replace
ments for the hides of wild beasts and the
rough homespun which they once wore.
Yet it is possible even today to journey on
cushions of air during the interval between
dawn ard dark from the effete supercilous-
ness of the East-wllch the West likes to josh
about-back century or so to region which
is wild the latitude of Washington
during the days when Indians hunted bison
where the White House stands. Please record
in your book of facts that it was once plenty
wild around our National Capital long before
modern whoopee parties and counterfeit liquor
were coined
DRED SCOTT was not the dscoverer Of the
Dismal Swamp OF virginia-one of the last
vast wildernesses of the Atlantic seaboard-but
he contributed appreciably to gaining plenty
Of attention for that tract of virginia. desolation
in history books Albeit. bred was good picker
of hiding places. For not excluding the epochal
Everglades of Florida and the spacious Ofdecho-
mckee Swamp Of Georgia, the biggest unmapped
area of the Old Dominion is one ideal place
in which to "hole out" from your irate help
mate nagging relatives or officers of the law.
Some 700 square miles of waterlogged wilder
ness speckled with drainage canals with pic
turesque Lake Drummond which is about 5
miles long. its core.
Civilization in its forward march has pro-
crossed as far as the headlands Of the Dismal
Swamp. Its moisture-sated labyrinths are
fringed with small homesteads Of hardy truck
ers and farmers lured there by the remarkable
fertility of the reclaimed soil which has been
freed Of its web feet The agriculture advance,
however, has gone just far and no farther.
It came to halt where scientific engineering
and modern reclamation financing met their
Waterloo. The outskirts Of certain borders Of
the great swamp have been drained and har-
messed for food production. But the majority
Of that gargantuan wilderness Is as wild as 1t
was when bred Scott, historical runaway slave,
first splashed through its black waters in his
wild dash to freedom
man named Barnes has pushed his way
deeper into the tangled jungle than any Of his
mates. He has established q coy and COM
Portable home far up one Of the canals which
taps the flooded terrain and leads to Lake
Drummond. Mr. Barnes is an experienced and
expert hunter and also serves as one of Uncle
Sans aides in keeping Official records of the
water level and other aquatic data on Viz
ginia's last frontier. Hunters from every State
in the country as well as from abroad are
friends Of this man Barnes. They have come
there from all directions of the compass year
after year in quest of black bear, deer. panthers
and other big game which still abound in the
Dismal Swamp. They have bespoken the hospi-
tally Of the Barnes family because there was
nowhere else to camp. Barnes and neighboring
trappers have acted as guides for these nimrods.
Mr.. Barnes in particular provides guest hunters
with valuable information on the freshest bear
trails in the swamp.
The Dismal Swamp is of our last meccas
of big game life which is capacitated to give
Mister Hunter few thrills and chills before
he bags his bacon" or rather bar meat and
yenison. And that is why such eminent sports
men as Gen. William Mitchell formerly chief
of the Army Air Corps and his like never miss
Q season but that they hie to the Dismal Swamp