Year: 1879

A Life and Death Struggle IN the Wilds


OF New York state.


Colonel Seth A. Abbey, the veteran
printer, who in 1921 issued 10000 copies
of the old English Reader, has just re,
turned from California, Oregon and
Washington Territory. He is full of
those hunting "reminiscences now 80 rare,
and favors the Cleveland Herald with
the following: ] went TO Watertown,
Jefferson county, New York, in January,
1919. with my printing establishment,
and commenced publishing newspaper.
Jairus Rich was kind Of halfway law
YER: he had started q newspaper year
or TWO before and failed. lie and his
VIII. then started little tavern near the
court house, and they did not succeed IN
that very well. lie said to me one day:
II think I can ret better living with
nv rifle and traps in the woods than |
can by hanging around here IN the VII
lage." Rich was Nermonter by blrth;
4 small, muscular man. The north por-
ton Of Jefferson county, at that time;
WAS IN almost unbrOken wilderness. ana
thither Rich, with his wife and traps,
bent his way. A number of months
ELAPSED before | heard anything from
him. At length rumor came that
he had been killed by panther. Near
IL :, month after this got letter from
him describing his encounter with a
panther; he was hardly able to write
then. His story ran thus: " had fast
ened one of my traps to the root OF
large hemlock tree, and near by was Il
dense thickct of low hemlocks of about
half an acre. When / visited my trap
this morning I discovered one panther
fast in the trap and another near by. !
fired at the one outside Of the trap and
wounded him, and hemade Immediately
for this thicket. I had little whitfet
dog with me, and l put the little dog
nto the thicket where the panther enter
ed, and ran around the thicket where !
thought the panther would come out ana
met him Just rs he came out OF the
thicket. | tried to shoot him, but my
gun missed fire, and there we were, face
TO face. and I had to run or fight. ]
threw down my rifle and drew my
hatchet from my belt and made pass at
linn and he knocked my hatchet more
than twenty feet from me. We then
clinched in and we were up and down IN
every shape; he tearing away with his
c;aws and chewing my hands. He
would sometimes have one hand IN his
mouth and sometimes the other. We
were wrestling and tearing in this way
until was nearly done for. In one of the
falls he happened to come under. and l
clappcd nv knee right in his flank. for
ward of his hind leg, with my left hand
in his mouth. then slipped my right
hand into my pocket and pulled out my
iack-knife and opened it with my teeth
and made short work of it then. | lay
there by the side Of my victim q long,
long time. Ny clothes were torn OH
from me or hung in shrcds; my face and
limbs gore of blood. The nearest
settler was two miles. / came to myself
after time, so that I killed the Other
panther. 1t took all the rest of the day
to make the house Of the nearest settler.
I knew this man for many years after
| this encounter, and, strange to say, he
still continued to hunt panthers and
wolves. | saw panther skin that was
green, killed by him and just taken from
the body, that measured, from the nosr
to the end of the tail, nine feet. | would
like to tell you one of Rich's wolf stories


He did not tell it for several years after
it occurred-the reason why you vii


probably guess at after hearing the story


lie said he was out among the rocks anc
discovered a wolf: he shot and killed it


Upon examining it he found it to be q
she wolf, and sucking young ones. He
finally found her den and crawled into
it, and found ten young pups. lie took
them to his shanty and built a log per
| for tho,,, opd raorad tbem on deer meat
they were too young to get the bounty
on. There was then bounty on each
grown-up wolf offered by town, county nty
and State, in all amounting to about S5l
for each wolf. They were the large gray
wolf. one of them nearly black. This
one. he said, he used to take out and play
with it the same as n dog. He said he
regretted to kill this one very much, bu


$50 was too great temptation. A:
these wolves grew up, he would tak'
them into different sections, kill them


take their scalps of, and get the bounty