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Resources
for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia
This book, except that portion of it illustrating he life and adventures of Wilburn Waters, the great hermit hunter and trapper, comprises a series of articles written for a weekly newspaper, partly for pastime, and partly to preserve for the use of the future historian a few facts connected with the early settlement of Southwestern Virginia, and which otherwise might have been lost. These facts, together with attempted descriptions of various localities, and all that the book contains, have the merit at lease of being true. Being thus hastily thrown together, without revision or systematic arrangement, the author's only apology is, that it reappears in this form at the urgent solicitation of a great number of persons who read the articles as they appeared in the "Abingdon Virginian," and who thought them worthy of preservation.
With no further apology or explanation, this little volume of "multifarious small things" is thrown into the tide of current literature, not without hope that it may afford a few hours' pleasant pastime at the fireside of the mountaineer, and some of its facts form the nucleus of a much more comprehensive work by an abler pen, embodying the history of our own beautiful Southwest Virginia.
Chapter I. -- Description of White Top Mountain, near Which, Forty-five Years Ago, Wilburn Waters Selected the Spot for his Cabin, and Where, Except at Short Intervals, He Has Ever Since Resided
Chapter II -- Birth, Parentage, Nativity, and Early Orphanage of Wilburn Waters
Chapter III - The Indian Nature Developed--Lying Out There Months--First Schooling--His Great Strength and Activity.
Chapter IV -- His First Wolf-Hunting
Chapter V - Adventure with A Wounded Buck
Chapter VI - Experience at A Camp-Meeting With a New Hat
Chapter VII - In a Close Place With a Large Wounded Bear
Chapter VIII - An Exciting Wolf-Hunt In Black Mountain
Chapter IX - Four Bears in One Tree
Chapter X - Fight With a Bear on the Brink of A Precipice
Chapter XI - A Bear Hunt in the Iron Mountain
Chapter XII - An Adventure With a Mad Wolf
Chapter XIII - Adventure With a Four-Pronged Buck in the Holston
Chapter XIV - Another Adventure with a Wounded Buck
Chapter XV - Amusing Adventures with Bears
Chapter XVI - First White Settler in Southwestern Virginia
Chapter XVII - The Abingdon of Modern Times
Chapter XVIII - The Brief History of Washington County, Its Organization, Etc.
Chapter XIX - General Campbell's Adventure with a Daring Tory
Chapter XX - Southwestern Virginia - Its Topography and Resources
Chapter XXI - The Soils of Washington County - Products - Ancient and Modern Mode of Farming
Chapter XXII - A Brief History of the Saltworks of Southwestern Virginia - Their Management, Revenues, Etc.
Chapter XXIII - A Jaunt into Tazewell County, With A Description of Some of Its Romantic Scenes and Natural Curiosities
Chapter XXIV - An Indian Incursion at Abingdon and Incidents in Pioneer Life
Chapter XXV - A Race for Life -- Indian Depredations of the Holston
Chapter XXVI - A Thrilling Narrative of Katy Sage, the Lost Child of Grayson
Chapter XXVII - The Abductor of Katy Sage -- The Horse-Thief's Revenge.
Chapter XXVIII - The Pioneers of Castle's Woods and Troubles With the Indians
Chapter XXIX - Troubles of the Early Settlers
Chapter XXX - The Battle of Long Island Flats
Chapter XXXI - Remarkable Incidents in Pioneer Life
Chapter XXXII - A Singular Incident in the Life of Hon. William C. Preston
Chapter XXXIII- Massacre and captivity of the pioneers of Abb's Valley
Chapter XXXIV - The Massacre of Archibald Scott and His Children, and the Captivity of His Wife
Chapter XXXV - Brief History of Two Colleges
Chapter XXXVI - Incidents of the War
Chapter XXXVII - The Streams and Springs of Washington County
Chapter XXXVIII - Story of a Haunted Ball Room
Chapter XXXIX - Monticello and Its Surroundings
Chapter XL - Baron Teu Beuf, The French Nobleman who Settled in Russell County Near the Close of the Last Century.
Chapter XLI - The Natural Bridge of Scott
Chapter XLII - Brief History of Religious Organizations in Southwestern Virginia, and The First Ministers--Memoirs of Rev. Charles Cummings
Chapter XLIII - The Introduction of Methodism into Southwestern Virginia, with the Names of the First Ministers of that Denomination.
Chapter XLIV - The First Baptist Church in the Holston Settlements, and its Pioneer Ministers
Chapter XLV - Brief Description of Caney Valley
Chapter XLVI - History of the Weeping Willow
Description of White Top Mountain, Near Which, Forty-Five Years Ago [ca. 1832], Wilburn Water Selected the Spot for his Cabin, and Where, Except At Short Intervals, He has Ever Since Resided.
Before entering upon a narrative of the life and adventures of the remarkable man who is to be the subject of the following pages, it is proper that the writer should give his readers some idea of White Top Mountain, near which, when about twenty years of age, Wilburn Waters selected the spot for his future home.
This is a peak in the Appalachian range, here more familiarly known by the local name of Iron Mountain, and near the point where the three states of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee all unite at a common corner. It is about twenty miles from Abingdon the way the crow flies, though perhaps thirty by the intricate bridle paths, through intervening mountains, by which it is approached. Until within a few years, comparatively, owing to its inaccessibility, it was in its primitive state, and visited only by hunters and trappers, and here and there a "squatter," who may have fled to its fastness to evade those penal enactments which a certain class of men in most communities deem oppressive. It is some 5,000 feet high from base to summit, and upwards of 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. Its summit is a vast field, comprising from 300 to 500 acres, without a tree or shrub, and covered with a luxuriant growth of wild grass, resembling that of our Northern prairies, which is highly nutritious, and cropped with insatiable avidity by vast herds of stock driven there from the neighboring settlements to graze and fatten. During the months of May and June, this field, as well as a large portion of the wooded part of the mountain, is gorgeously carpeted with wild flowers of very imaginable hue, and so fragrant that their perfume is often wafts a considerable distance on the wings of the wind, which sometimes sweeps across the broad field like the dying throes of a hurricane, with fitful shrieks of wild and melancholy music.
Bordering this natural field are great numbers of native gooseberry and currant bushes, which yield their acrid fruits in never-failing abundance, and the wild leopard-lily, springing from its rocky bed, sways to and fro, and scatters its rich perfume as the blast sweeps by. Upon the very summit, various springs of ice-cold water gush from the rocks and leap down the declivities, babbling their wild music as they disappear among magnificent rhododendrons and the dazzling crimson of the Indian pink. These waters are so pure and light that they never oppress, no matter how freely the thirsty visitor may quaff them.
The field above referred to is bordered by a very singular as well as very beautiful growth of timber, known in that region by the name of Lashorn. Some of these trees grow to an immense height, but generally are not more than from thirty to fifty feet high, and, what is very remarkable, where not crowded they are perfectly flat on top, spreading out to a diameter of from fifteen to thirty feet. Its is a species of and very much resembles Norway Spruce, an ornamental tree often found in the yards of our more elegant city residences. The lashorn of White Top is peculiar to that locality, and of the thousands that have been transplanted, not one has ever been known to grow, though some have lived several years. The limbs at the top where they spread out are so tenacious and inflexible, and so closely interlaced, that the writer has seen as many as twenty persons standing and stepping about upon the top of the same tree at the same time. It is very east to ascent and descend, as the limbs usually begin at the ground, and being cut off about a foot from the trunk, a very convenient "Indian ladder" is formed, and then a hole being cut through the foliage in the centre of the top, it is not difficult for even a lady to ascend and step out upon the vernal platform. Where the forest of the singular and beautiful growth is dense, there is no undergrowth, the trees limbless to the height of forty or fifty feet, the tops intermingling and forming a canopy the sun can scarcely penetrate, and the earth covered with a carpeting of lichen moss, which feels to the tread as soft and elastic as a sponge. During the summer months, these trees are literally alive with snow birds, the little creatures congregating here in millions to build their habitations and rear their young.
Notwithstanding the romantic beauty of this grand elevation, and the exhilarating effects of the highly rarified atmosphere upon the system, hundreds and thousands of people have lived and died within sight of it without ever having paid it a visit. The reason for this has been the difficulty of access, want of accommodations in the vicinity, and the mere cattle-paths by which it is approached through deep and intricate gorges, over steep foot-hills, and through almost impenetrable laurel jungles, sometimes infested by bears, wolves, wild-cats and rattlesnakes. There are but few of these "varmits" there now, except the latter, Wilburn having nearly exterminated them. Rattlesnakes, however, are still abundant, though settlers are rarely bitten.
The view of the summit of White Top is grand beyond description or even conception. Looking toward the south, you have within the scope of vision, stretching away from east to west, the Blue Ridge range, which, in the dim distance, looks like an azure band bordering the horizon, with here and there a tall peak hiding its head in the clouds. To the east, mountain piled upon mountain meets the view, their gentler slopes in placed dotted with "clearings," and a column of smoke, here ascending and there laying in long folds along the mountain side, denoting the rude habitation of the ruder "squatter." Looking toward the north, you have the grand old Cumberland range, the barrier that divides the "Dark and Bloody Ground" from the Old Dominion, as if swelling up from an ocean of green, and struggling to lift itself above the vapor that hangs lazily upon its sides. To the west, the view, though less imposing, is not less beautiful. You have before you the broad Valley of Holston, which, although diversified with hill and dale, bold promontories and pine-clad ridges, still, from the altitude from which you look out upon it, it has the appearance of a vast sea dotted with picturesque islands. In the distance, the spires and tin roofs of the town of Abingdon glisten in the sunlight, large plantations look like blankets spread out from behind a bluff or winds its way through a green pasture, may the White Top Fork of Laurel be seen, like a serpentine thread of silver, its sparkling waters shimmering like diamonds among the foliage and wild- flowers upon its banks.
The writer of this has enjoyed the luxury of many a magnificent scene in his wanderings, but never has seen that from the summit of White Top excelled, or even equaled. He was there on one occasion when a storm came riding on the blast more than a thousand feet below where a company of gentlemen were standing. The whole valley was shrouded as with a pall. The deep-toned thunder bellowed below, preceded by brilliant flashed of lightning, illuminating the dark bosom of the cloud. The scene was awfully grand, and so far transcends the power of mortal description, that he would not dare attempt it.
It was near the base of this mountain, upwards of forty-four years ago, in an obscure "cove," where the rays of the sun are partially shut out by the dense foliage of a grove of giant sugar-maples, that Wilburn Waters, then about twenty years of age, pitched his lonely tent and lighted his first camp- fire. He chose this spot for several reasons--first, because the foot of man rarely polluted the virgin soil; second, because it was the covert of wild animals in cold and stormy weather; and third, because a bright and bubbling spring of pure cold water leaps from the rocks and dashes off singing its wild lullaby among gorgeous flowers and the songs of birds of strange and brilliant plumage.
Wilburn is one-fourth Indian--what is called a quarteroon. For some reason he has never given, except his fondness for solitude and hunting, he sought and settled the obscure spot in which he has resided so many years, and still thinks he would be crowded to suffocation were a family to settle within sight or hearing of him. The writer of this, soon after hearing of the hermit-hunter, now more than twenty-five years ago, found his way into the mountains and sought him out. When he found him, he was eating his morning meal upon a log,--which consisted a corn cake, bear-meat and wild honey, and water from the spring--his two savage bear-dogs meanwhile standing sentinel, awaiting his word for action. We broke bread together, and from that day to this, if the writer has a friend upon whom he could rely in any emergency, that friend is Wilburn Waters, the great hermit-hunter of White Top Mountain.
Although sixty-odd years of age, he is still active and athletic, still devoted to hunting, still unerring in his aim, and was, when I commenced writing these pages in March, 1874, on a wolf hunt in the Alleghanies, where he expected to be the most extensive of his long career in that line, an account of which will probably be included in this little book. Whenever he finds the "sign" of a bear, wolf, or any other animal, he never loses the trail, although he many have to follow it from mountain to mountain for days together and to great distances, and is almost as sure of his game as if he had it. He is very pious, and will have no intercourse with a swearer of Sabbath-breaker. His motto is, "If a man has neither fear of nor respect for his Maker, he is a dangerous companion for his fellow-man, and should be shunned by all who love the Lord and honor His Institutions."
Birth, Parentage, Nativity and Early Orphanage of Wilburn Waters
Wilburn Waters was born on what is called Ready's river, a branch of the Yadkin, in Wilkes county, North Carolina, on the 20th day of November, 1812. From the best information that can now be had, his father, John P. Waters, was a French Huguenot, who emigrated to America in early life, about the beginning of the present century, and settled in South Carolina. He was a man of some education and liberal acquirements, of strong prejudices and passions, restless, reckless and fond of adventure. Being remarkably stout, fearless and passionate, he was considered dangerous when excited or laboring under a sense of injury, and was supposed by those with whom he communicated most freely, to have been a refugee from South Carolina, if not from France, from some cause he never revealed to others. He settled down, without any apparent calling, among the simple and obscure people on Ready's river, where, after a time, he married his wife the mother of Wilburn, who was a half-breed of the Catawba Indian.
From what little history we have of the Catawbas, they were a small portion of the tribe that inhabited Roanoke Island when Lord Raleigh took possession of it about the middle of the sixteenth century, and being dissatisfied with the encroachments and exactions of their new and powerful neighbors, they sought a new home among the mountains on the western boundary of the colony, where game was abundant, and the clear, bold streams afforded a plentiful supply of trout and other excellent varieties of fish.
It is not known whether or not there were other Indians there at the time, but they had occupied there quiet retreat but a few years before the whites began to settle near and even among them, and at the time John P. Waters found a home among them they mostly half-breeds and quarteroons, with very few full-bloods, and the latter the aged members of the community. It is said they originally bore the name of Chowans, but after finding their way into the mountains they took the name of Catawba, the name by which one of the principal streams in that region was known.
Wilburn's mother was one of these people, and was, as before stated, a half-breed. He is, therefore, what is termed a quarteroon. She was said to have been very handsome, tall and straight, with nearly all the characteristics of a full Indian, except that she was unusually amiable in her disposition, and fond of quiet, domestic life. She had some education, was pious and affectionate, and was very anxious that her children should have pious instruction and the best education their limited means and opportunities would allow. She was the mother of five children--four sons and one daughter--of whom Wilburn was the youngest. She died when he was between two and three years old, and the only recollection he has of her is, that she had long, glossy black hair, which she wore loose, and reached nearly to the floor when she stood erect. She died young, and her death was a terrible blow to her husband, who was warmly attached to her, and whose turbulent nature she could control with a word. Notwithstanding this attachment, and his apparently unsubdued grief, he soon married another woman, left the community and his children among their relatives, and was never after heard from by his family.
Wilburn's first realization of the loss of his parents, and a circumstance that seems to have been burnt into his memory by bitter tears, was in being carried away on a horse by a stranger, and adopted into a white family several miles away from the little circle he had known as kindred and friends. Of course the children--even the oldest not being able to provide for himself--became separated, and in the providence of God were never re-united as one family again.
Soon after his father's second marriage and disappearance from the neighborhood, Wilburn, then about three years od, was taken to the house of Mr. Frank Flournoy, on Ready's river, in Wilkes county, where he remained between two and three years. Here, when between four and five years old, he gave the first evidence of his natural fondness for daring and adventure. Following some ladies out one Sunday afternoon to the bank of the river, where there was a shelving rock reaching down into the water a very deep and rapid place in the stream, he was greatly interested in seeing them each in turn slide down the face of the rock as near to the edge of the water as possible without getting in, and where the rock was so steep they could not get back without help. Refusing to permit him to try the experiment, he determined to dodge them on their return to the house, go back to the stream, and see if he couldn't get farther down on the rock than any of them had gone and get back without aide. He carried out his plans, let himself down the steep face of the rock to the very edge of the water by inserting his fingers in the crevices, and then discovered that it was impossible to get back. Young as he was, he took in the situation at a moment, and governed himself accordingly. Still clinging to the rock, with his hold weakening every moment, and being aware that he was bound to drop in, he noticed which way the currant ran, and that some willows just below the rock shot out their roots on the bottom of the stream, he determined to let all holds go, drop to the bottom, and then make his way as fast as possible on all-fours tot he roots and work himself out. His plan succeeded, and he returned to the house perfectly elated that he had performed a feat that none of the young ladies had accomplished.
After remaining with Mr. Flournoy will he was nearly five years old, he was apprenticed to a saddler by the name of John Ernest, high upon the Yadkin, where he found his first bee-tree, cut it down and got a gallon of honey. Here, too, he got his first whipping for taking a whole day to go an errand not requiring more than half an hour. Knowing that he deserved it, he submitted to the chastisement without complaint, though it was very mortifying to his pride, and made him wonder why it was that one person should have the right to punish another.
At the expiration of the first year, Ernest sold his time to Nelson Alloway, sheriff of Wilkes County, for $30. Here he remained eleven years, or till he was about seventeen years old. When about twelve, he had his first adventure with a bear--a pet chained to a stake. It was at the house of a neighbor, and he went to it when no one was about, and was feeding it chinquapins. While engaged in this, the bear became very friendly, and laid one paw upon his shoulder. Feeling complimented by this manifestation of so much affection, he kept feeding the animal, which became still more affectionate by placing the other forepaw on his other shoulder. This, he though, was remarkably kind, but in a moment he was brought to a sense of his danger by the bear clapping both of its hind feet upon his knees. He now found himself in bruin's power and saw in a moment that there was but one way of escape from a hug that didn't exactly comport with his sense of propriety. He formed his plan in a moment, which was to slowly and carelessly recede till the chain became tight, and then to spring off suddenly, tearing himself loose. He did so, leaving part of his clothing in possession of the bear, which became terribly enraged at his escape.
About this time he had his first adventures with a deer, a copper-head snake and a mad dog. Being on the river bank one morning, he saw a deer that had been run down by dogs lying in the bushes near the edge of the stream. Seeing that it was not disposed to move at his approach, he took a cord from his pocket and tied it around one of its hind legs, when the deer gave a sudden flirt, and striking Wilburn with both hind feet, plunged him into the middle of the stream, nearly stripping his clothes from his body and lacerating his person. He then called up a dog and caught and killed the animal, as much safer and quicker than attempting to lead it home with a cord.
Being bitten on the ankle by a copper-head, he was disabled six weeks, and was only relived by the application of a chicken cut open and the warm insides applied to the wound, which he still regards as a sovereign remedy.
During this year, or when he was about thirteen, he was out in the field one day, and saw a strange dog passing near him, which he called and tried to coax to him. The dog passed on without noticing him, and bit a horse and a hog near by. In a little while several men passed along in pursuit, and informed him that the dog was mad. He considered his escape a special providence.
He became excessively fond of rabbit-hunting and fishing, and followed one or the other pursuit nearly every Sabbath. He had but little respect for religion at that time, as the family he lived with were very strict on Sunday and very profane through the week. Seeing a very large yellow-jackets' nest, a man told him he could easily whip it out, as they couldn't sting at that time of the moon. He undertook the job and soon found his pants and hair full of the little torments, and didn't get rid of them till he ran to the river and dived. He has never since had much faith in moon signs.
Wilburn had a great many little adventures while in his early teens, showing his recklessness and presence of mind in extricating himself. For instance, he several times became lost in the mountains, but discovered by experience that by taking the opposite direction to that he believed to be, or rather seemed to be right, he always found himself without difficulty. When about fifteen, he offered up his first prayer. He had climbed a very large blackoak after squirrels. Getting some ten feet above the first limb, which was sixty or seventy feet from the ground, he found it very difficult and dangerous to get back. He fastened his finger in the bark, but could get no purchase for his legs or feet. He then held on with his hands and prayed to the Lord for assistance. Then, making another effort, his legs took and he got down safely. He is still satisfied the Lord heard his prayer and relived him.
The Indian Nature Developed--Lying Out There Months--First Schooling--His Great Strength and Activity.
Wilbun, now in his seventeenth year, begins to show the spirit of retaliation and vindictiveness of the Indian. Mr. Alloway having chastised him for some trivial offense, with the promise of repeating it the following morning, he sharpened his tomahawk and knife and ran fifteen miles to a mountain, near where his oldest brother lived, where he laid out three months, sometimes coming down to his brother's cabin in the night. His brother begged him to return and finish out his time, and Mr. Alloway proclaimed so that he got to hear it, that if he would return and stay till he was of age he would give him twelve months' schooling, and a horse, saddle and bridle. He would listen to no proposition, but when he heard that Alloway was hunting for him, and sometimes saw him from his mountain perch riding among the settlers in search of him from his mountain perch riding among the settlers in search of him, he determined that he would never be taken alive, and that he would kill any one who attempted to arrest him.
After spending three months in the mountain, he left there, and went to live with a man by the name of John Cox, in Ashe, now Alleghany county. Here he remained only about a year, the Indian propensity at retaliation making it necessary for him to change quarters. He set some traps near the barn, and caught a number of partridges one afternoon. As Mr. Cox, who was absent, was very fond of birds, Wilburn put four of them away to save for him. In the morning they had disappeared, and some one of the family having told a hired woman that Wilburn accused her of eating them, which he disclaimed, she flew into a violent ragte, and declared that he should catch no more birds, as she would go right straight and destroy his traps. She started to do so, and as the traps were within view of an upper window in the room where the woman slept, and wehre she had a bran new feather-bed of her own, he went up there to watch her motions. There were four traps, and as she approached the first she destroyed it. As soon as he saw this, he deliberately took out his knife and split the tick of her own bed half-way along. She then demolished the second trap, and he finished that side of the tick with his knife. As the third trap was scattered, half of the other side of the tick had a slit in it, and as the fourth and last trap shared the fate of the others, the last slit was made in the tick and the bed was in two pieces.
Having finished the traps, she returned to the house still mad with passion, and said to Wilburn: "Now go and fix up your traps if you want them." "All right," said he, "and if you want to sleep on your new bed to- night, you had better go up to your room and fix it." Suspecting something wrong from his countenance and manner, she ran upstairs and found feathers all over the floor and the tick in two pieces. This made the house too hot for him, and he had to leave. Having no education or good counsel up to this time, he felt great need of both, and determined to go to his oldest brother, William P. Waters, for advice and direction, who was keeping a school at a place called Whiteoak Grove in Wilkes. He carried out his determination, was kindly received by his brother, taken into the school, where he continued six months, paying his board at a neighboring house by working nights and mornings and Saturdays. While going to school he cut down and split up two very large hickory trees for a flax and cotton shirt.
When the school term was out he hired himself to a man by the name of Hanks, on Elkin, in Wilkes, at twenty-five cents per day. One afternoon Hanks and another man propsoed to go to a deep hole in the creek to bathe, and invited Wilburn to go with them for the purpose of having some sport at his expense. He discovered this from their talk and manoeuvers, and determined to keep even with them if he could. They were under the impression that he couldn't swim, and intended to amuse themselves with him in deep water. When the other man got in the water Hanks ordered Wilburn to strip off and jump in, telling him the man in the water would not let him drown, but would learn him to swim. Pretending to be willing to comply, he prepared himself, and just as Hanks approached to push him off the bank into the water, he suddenly caught him (Hanks) by the ankles and tossed him over his head backward into the middle of the stream, with his hat, boots, and all his clothes on. Wilburn then quietly dressed himself and walked back to the house, Hanks taking it all in good part, or at least saying nothing about it.
Hanks was himself a laborer, and a very poor man, and hired Wilburn, as the latter discovered, at twenty- five cents per day for the purpose of hiring him out at fifty-thus making a quarter clear per diem. So the next day after the adventure in the creek, Hanks and Wilburn went to work for Thomas Bryant in the same neighborhood were Hanks was to receive a dollar a day for the two. Mr. Bryant, thinking this was not exactly fair, said to Wilburn: "Why work for Hanks, he will never pay you anything, but come and work for me and I will pay you something." This suited Wilburn's views of things, so he quit Hanks and went to live with Bryant, particularly, as he said, they lived light at the house of Hanks, while there was always penty at the house of Bryant, and he was fond of good living. He remained with Mr. Bryant two years, was kindly treated, had wholesome moral instruction, and was promptly and liberally paid for his labor.
Shortly after going there to live, there was a corn-shucking and quilting at Mr. Bryant's, which drew together a large number of the men and women of the neighborhood. After the men had come to the house, Mr. Bryant directed Wilburn to chop and carry some wood. He chopped it, and was about to carry in a log first to put on behind, whne one of the men sat down on it. Wilburn asked him to get up as they were in a hurry in the house for a fire, when the man rose and demanded a scuffle. Wilburn, Indian-like, had no disposition for that sort of amusement, and took it in solid earnest. Finding the man disposed to keep it up, he krew back and knocked him some twelve or fifteen feet, the man turning some two or three somersaults before he stopped. This exasperated the men, and they determined to so annoy him after supper as to make him understand a joke. Accordingly they got out into the yard and commenced playing with each other in such a rough way as to induce Wilburn, in the simplicity of his nature, to imagine that they were fighting. The plan succeeded, and when he got among them first one and then another would thump him in the back. By this time he discovered that instead of fighting each other they were fighting him, as he thought, and concluded that it was about time to go to work in self-defence, and in less than a minute he knocked several of them down, hurting one or two quite badly. This was the second time he had developed the Indian, and he informed the writer that it was on that occasion that he discovered for the first time his great strength and activity, though then under eighteen years of age.
Sometime after this, or before he was nineteen, he went to live with Rev. Morgan Bryant, brother of Thomas, in Ashe County, North Carolina. Here commenced his career as a hunter of the larger game, a narrative of his exploits and wonderful adventures in which will be commenced in the next chapter.
His First Wolf-Hunting
When Wilburn commenced shooting with a rifle he was very awkward and unsuccessful, missing about as often as he hit. Perseverance and a determination to excel, however, soon made him very expert, and it was not a great while before he could hit an object the size of the bullet that fitted his gun as far as he could see it, and he can to so yet althouh sixty-five years of age, always taking sight with both eyes wide open. The secret of his great success in hunting has been his wonderful eye- sight, instinct in following a trail, and the cat-like stealthiness with which he can approach his game.
Soon after going to live with Morgan Bryant, he commenced his career in the woods by hunting wild turkeys, at which he was very successful, and rarely failed to secure one or more where the most experienced hunders in the region failed to find them. When hunting in company with others, he would nearly always get as many as all the rest together. He soon became noted as a turkey-hunter, and had no rivial in the mountains of Ashe.
We now, after leaving out many adventures with deer, catamounts, &c., come to his first wolf-hunt, or rather his first wolf-trapping. Mr. Bryant himself, as well as several of his neighbors, werre old and experienced wolf-hunters, but nothwithstanding this there was an old male wolf in the settlement that had been living on the stock of the farmers for several years, and every plan they had devised to capture him had failed. Early one morning, Mr. Bryant, in crossing a mountain, where there was an old wagon-road, found six of his sheep that had been slaughtered the previous night by this old enemy. He at once returned to the house and directed Wilburn to take the ox-cart up and bring the dead sheep down and skin them. Wilburn, with his innate love of adventure asserting itself, proposed that if he would let him have the dead sheep for bait he would catch the wolf. Mr. Bryant ridiculted the idea that he, a young and inexperienced boy, who had never seen a wolf, and had no knowledge of the habits of the cunning animal, should undertake to capture him, when the most experienced hunders in that mountain range had failed and long since given up the job as hopeless. Wilburn, however, confident of his ability to circumvent and capture the old depredator, that now prowled about with impunity, was so importunate that Mr. Bryant finally consented that he might use the sheep for that purpose, and also to use one of his traps. So he yoked up the oxen at once and started, and before night he had the dead sheep hauled to a convenient place, quartered them, and placed the pieces down the side of the mountain toward a small stream that was spanned by a fallen tree, which his Indian instinct doubtless led him to believe would be a good place for wolves to cross. He carried th last quarter across this log, and suspended it under the log and above the surface of the water with a hickory withe; then, by removing the stones and moss immediately under it in the stream, he scaped out a place in the sand and fitted his trap in it, and then nicely covered it with the sand and moss, and left it to take its chance.
Being impatient, and almost absolutely certain that he would catch the wolf, he returned in a day or two, but none of the bait had been disturbed. In a few more days he returned again, and found all the bait gone except the piece suspended over the trap. He was now pretty sure of his game the next morning, and on returning found the bait undisturbed, but the trap was gone. (For the information of those who are unacquainted with the manner of trapping for wolves, it may not be amiss to state that a large steel-trap is used, with a chain attached four or five feet long, with a triple hook or grapel at the end. The trap is never made fast to any thing stationary, as the wolf, if he cannot get away with it, will gnaw off his limb and escape. Nor is a trap ever baited, but carefully concealted in a place where it is supposed a wolf will travel. Hence Wilburn concealed his exactly where he knew the wolf would place his feet if he attempted to get the bait suspended from the log.)
As before said, when Wilburn approached the bait he saw at a glance the trap was gone, and on castin his eye to the ground saw the trail very plainly, and followed it to a laurel thicket about fifty yards off. On parting the bushes with his hands, there stood the first wolf he had ever seen within a few feet of him, with one leg in the trap and the gapnel fast in a root. As he was an exceedingly large animal, Wilburn determined to take him home alive, and for this purpose made a noose in a cord he had with him, slipped it over the mouth of the wolf, then tied his feet together, and slung him around his shoulders like a powder-horn. Finding him too heavy to carry, however, he cut his throat, took off the hide and carried that home, which was sufficient evidence that he had captured a wolf that all the most noted hunters in that region had long since given up to depredate with impunity.
This first success gave him notoriety among the settlers, and in a few weeks he was sent for from a distant neighborhood to go over and trap for an old female wolf--perhaps the mate of the one he had captured--that had been killing sheep for two or three years, and could not be caught by the most experienced trappers. Having borrowed the same trap, he soon appeared on the scene of action. On inquiry, he found that the old animal had been in the neighboring mountains several years, and had become so wary and cunning that all attempts at capturing her had proved abortive. Wilburn at once made his way to a certain range where her lair was supposed to be, and it was not long before he discovered signs of her whereabouts and her line of travel towards the settlement where she procured her rations. This was very plain to him in a piece of marshy ground on the mountain side, near an obscure cattle path, where crawfish had erected those peculriar chimney-like structures when we frequently see in marshy places. His instinct for trailing where none but an Indian can discern a track, soon revealted to him that the wary old animal avoided the path where so many traps had been set for her, and invariably placed her feet upon one or more of these crawfish chimneys, as if conscious there could be no traps concealed beneath them. Seeing that she had passed that way a night or two before, leaving one of these little towers standing, and naturally supposing she would but her foot upon it the next time she passed that way, he carefully removed it, scooped out a place for his traps where it stood, fitted it in nicely, concealed it with leaves, and placed the crawfish structure upon the trap, looking precisely as it did before he moved it, and left the trap to take its chance.
In a day or two after he returned and found that he wolf had been in his trap and left two of her toes, which he put in his pocket. Knowing that she would not go far with her crippled feet, he went out into the settlement and got about a dozen men and as many dogs to run her down, telling the men that she had been in his trap, and that he knew exactly where to start her, without informing them that she had left her toes. Next morning the were all on the ground at an early hour, and started the wolf within fifty yards of where the trap had been set. The men being stationed at various "stands" in the range, she found it difficult to get out, and doubled from point to point with the dogs on her trail, till late in the afternoon, when she was forced to seek and take shelter in her cavern. At this time all the men except two had given up the chase and returned to their homes, and only two dogs remained, belonging to the two men who held out. Wilburn himself was so close upon the wolf when she entered the den that he saw her, and the two dogs were right at her heels. He called up his two companions, and told them to make their dogs go in and bring her out. They entreed several times, but were as often whipped out, torn and bleeding. Growing impatient, Wilburn at last took off his coat and crawled into the cavern snake-fashion. After proceeding thus some distance, he saw her eyes shining like two balls of fire in the back part of the den, brought his gun, which he had pushed along before him, to bear, and fired. Not seeing her eyes after this, he worked himself out and sent the dogs in again, when they soon returned draggin the dead wolf after them.
As the scalp was worth $20, both the men affecting to believe that it was not the wolf that had been in the trap, and each claiming that his dog and "holed" her, and that Wilburn, therefore, had no claim to her. "Well," said he, "I can settle the dispute in a minute," drawing the two toes from his pocket. "Here", said he, "take those toes and examine her feet, and if you find they will fit one of them, she belongs to me, if not she belongs to you between you." This was sufficient evidence that the wolf had been in the trap, and Wilburn, after a little plain talk to them about their meanness, took off the skin and made his way home with it. This gave him the reputation of being the most daring and successful trapper in all that mountain region, and made him an envied as well as honored character among hunters and trappers.
Adventure with a Wounded Buck
About the time of Wilburn's first experience with wolves, as related in the preceding chapter, he had his first adventure with a wounded and exasperated buck, which he regards as the most dangerous animal to approach in our forests, when wounded or at bay.
He had gone out to a "lick" a little before night to watch for deer. These licks, or low marshy places, where there are deposits of sulphur, salt, &c., and which deer love to frequent, are very numerous in all this mountain region. He had gone to one of these, which he knew deer were in the habit of visiting almost every night. He had just climbed a tree to be out of sight, and just about dusk up marched two bucks, one of them very large, with a magnificent head of horns. After cautiously snuffing the air as if apprehensive of a hidden enemy, and failing to wind him, they walked boldly into the lick. Failing to get them in range so as to kill both at the same fire, he selected the larger of the two, brough his rifle to bear and fired. Both sprang off at the crack of the gun, but he saw from the motions of the one that he shot at, that it was from the motions of the one that he shot at, that it was badly if not fatally wounded. He came down from the tree, followed the trail a few yards, and there lay his buck apparently lifeless. As he approached it, it sprang to its feet in a moment and came at him with the ferocity of a tiger. There was no escape from a terrible struggle for life, and he knew that his only chance was in his extraordinary strength and activity, as well as coolness and presence of mind. He had scarely had time to think even this much, when the buck rushed upon and attempted to impale him. He grabbed him by the horns and threw him several times, but the active animal was on his feet again in an instant, and so the struggle continued several minutes--to Wilburn it seemed hours--sometimes one on top and then the other, but Wilburn's great strength enabled him to keep his hold, although his clothers were badly torn and his person considerably lacerated by the sharp hoofs of the animal, which cut with the keeness of a knife. Whilst thus struggling, he at length found time to get his knife out of his pocket and open it with his teeth. He made a desperate lunge and supposed he had entirely severed its windpipe, but it made another effort for freedom, kicked him loose and plunged into the undergrowth. He followed it a short distance and found it dead with its head nearly severed from its body.
Although Wilburn has many times since been in very close places, and had many hand-to-hand fights with both bears and wolves, he thinks he never has been as near whipped out and in as much danger of losing his life, as he was in that encounter with a maddened four-pronged buck.
Being now about nineteen, and having but very little learning, he determined to return to the neighborhood of Thomas Bryant, where he had lived the year before, and go to school. He continued in the school about ten months, and had learned to read, write and cypher a little. The wolves becoming very destructive about this time, it was proclaimed in the neighborhood that the counties of Ashe, North Carolina and Grayson, Virginia, had offered handsome premiums for wolf- scalps, he at once determined to embark in the business, for the sake of both pleasure and profit. He was boarding at this time with a man by the name of Wyatt, whose daughter was the wife of Andrew Blevins, and they lived at White Top. Blevins and his wife being then on a visit at Wyatt's, and White Top being with in the prescribed limits of the premium for scalps, Wilburn asked Blevins if his was a good region for wolves. On being informed that any number "used in those parts," as well as bears and all sorts of wild animals, he at once determined to go there and try his luck, and accordingly gathered up his gun and traps, and was soon at his future home.
But here we must go back a little, and bring up the history of Wilburn's religious convictions, experience and conversion, which will doubtless be dry and uninteresting to some, who can, if they choose to do so, skip the balance of this chapter. His religious convictions commenced while at school, under the preaching of Rev. George Douglass, a Baptist minister. As he expressed it, he felt very wretched, but could not tell why, and tried all manner of ways to suppress his feelings. He then returned to Morgan Bryant's, where there was regular circuit preaching by the Rev. George Baker. He determined to attend preaching regularly, give way to his feelings and see what it would result in. On one occasion he felt as if he were suffocating, that the house was too small for him, that he was too near the preacher, a cold chill ran through his system, and he thought he was about to die. As soon as preaching was over, he started to a very dense thicket he knew of in the woods, where no one could see him, for the purpose of praying. When he reached it, it was not half as dense as he had supposed, and he was very much afraid somebody would see him. However, after peering all around and satisfying himself that no one saw him, he knelt down and prayed. He arose with his mind still unsatisfied and desponding, and again tried to stiffle his convictions, but the more he tried the more wretched he felt. On Sundays he would take his Bible and go out into some obscure and dark hollow in the forest and read and pray, but the doctrine of decrees that he had sometimes heard confused and perplexed him, and then again he would seem to hear as if in an audible voice the words "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish."
He continued in this frame of mind several months, often exhorting others to forsake their sins, although still uncoverted himself. It was at this time that he met with Andrew Blevins, and the impression that White Top would be a favorable place, on account of its solitude, to find religion as well as game, induced him to determine to make its fastness his future home. Although after getting there he lived in a family who had no regard for the Sabbath and sacred things, he continued to read his Bible and pray, and had an idea that reglion would be revealted to him in an audible voice or some other equally miraculaous way. Finding his own efforts of no avail, he at last made a full surrender, and came to the conclusion that he would cast himself unreservedly and helplessly upon the great and abounding mercy of the Lord, who had promised to save all who called upon Him in sincerity, truth and faith. This he determined to do, if he died and perished in the attempt. He then retired to his garret and prayed the livelong night, and early in the morning he felt as if he had dropped a heavy weight, and was inexpressibly happy. The skies looked brighter, the trees greener, the sun shone with a glory he had never seen before, the birds sang more sweetly, the flowers were surpassingly fragrant and beautiful, everybody he saw looked bettery than they had ever looked before, the very woods and mountains seemed to clap their hands with joy, and everything appeared to be praising the Lord. A great burden had been lifted from his heart, and he felt as if he could fly away as on the wings of an eagle and enjoy the full fruition of the saints in light. He then for the first time comprehended, with inexpressible delight, that Scripture which says, "The wind bloweth where it listeth; thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst no tell whence it cometh or wither it goeth," &c.
From that day to this--more than forty-four years he has never faltered or doubted, though, like all others he has his seasons of depression and refreshing. He found peace in the fall of the year, though he made a public profession during the following winter, not unite himself with a church; he did not suppress or try to conceal his feelings, but rebuked sin wherever he saw it, and exhorted sinners to forsake their evil ways. As he was among Baptists principally, they had some influence with him, but his feelings revolted at close communion and the doctrine of no falling from grace. In the spring he put up a rude shelter where has ever since resided, and although entirely alone, he held what he called family prayer every morning and night. Soon after this a family came to stay with him awhile, and it was a great cross to him to pray in their presence, but he determined to pick up the cross and carry it, which was far better than to drag it along, and continued to keep the flame alive on the altar.
During the summer he heard of two days' meeting that was to be held at the house of Isaac Widner, in Widner Valley, twelve miles from his cabin, and determined to attend. He did so when the time arrived, where he met for the first time Mr. John Wesley Price, a very pious gentleman, who talked to him a great deal, and seemed to take unusual interest in his spritual welfate. There was to be a love-feast meeting during the day, and Mr. Price insisted that he should attend it and relate his experience. He at first refused, believing that he could not possibly speak before so many people, but finally determined to try as a matter of duty. When the time came, he felt as if a great weight held him down to his seat. Several had spoken, and, thinking that his turn had come, he made a desperate effort to rise, sprang clear from the floor, spoke the best he could, in a very stammering way, and became exceedingly happy. There was to be a secret prayer-meeting that evening, and fearing that he might be called on to pray, he tried to make an excuse to be absent; but Mr. Price prevented him, and he was the first one called upon. He complied in a very feeble manner, but he though of the Publican's petition and took encouragement, remarking to a friend that it was no wonder Jonah was willing to be swallowed by a whale rather than go to Ninevah and preach.
Liking the Methodist doctrine and manner of worship best, he united with that church, and from that day to this, "through eveil as well as good report," he has maintained his religious integrity, performing his Christian duties and obligations with an earnestness and zeal manifested by few, and even since he has been an old man he will walk miles through the mountains to attend religious worship. A few years ago he was appointed Superintendent of a Sabbath-School in a neighborhood eight miles from his residence, and he never failed to be present, no matter how inclement the weather.
While on the subject of Wilburn's religious characteristics and experiences, the next chapter will narrate some of his peculiarities of though and action at a camp-meeting not many years ago.
. EXPERIENCE AT A CAMP-MEETING WITH A NEW HAT
In 1858 or 9 the Holston Conference held its annual session in Abingdon, and the writer of these pages knowing that Wilburn had never attended the deliberations of such a body, and believing he would enjoy the procccdings and the ministrations of the occasion, prevailed upon him to come out of his retreat, although he was averse to visiting towns and had not been in Abingdon for many years. He came, attended the sessions regularly and punctually, was at preaching every day and night, hut failed to manifest as much interest as it was supposed he would. Bishop Early, who presided over the deliberations of the body, became acquainted with and very much interesid in him, and talked a great deal with him about his wild and solitary life, as well as about his religions joys and sorrows. One evening near the close of the term of conference, during the entire session of which the devotional exercises had been of that dignified and quiet character not always suited to the tastes of persons of impulsive and excitable temperament, and to Wilburn rather lifeless and formal, the Bishop asked him what he thought of the ministrations and other exercises of the occasion.
"Well, Bishop," said he, "I will answer your question by giving you a bit of history in my own religious experience. About three years ago I heard of a camp meeting in Ashe County, North Carolina, some twenty-five or thirty miles from my cabin, and on Friday night I made up my mind to go, fixed up my plunder, greased my boots, and started in that direction very early on Saturday morning. On the way I had to pass a store, and as the hat I had on was rather shabby, I concluded to stop in and buy a new one, as much to honor the Lord as to look more respectable myself. I bought one that suited me, paid pretty high for it, put it on, left the old one and my gun at the store till I should return, and arrived at the camp-ground early in the afternoon. When I arrived, a minister was in the stand preaching a cold and innanimate sermon--one, as I thought, without unction or spirituality in it--and I quietly took a seat as near the altar as I could get, puttin my new hat under my seat for safety. Just as I was about to raise my heart in prayer, I heard some one's feet shuffling under my seat, and I knew my hat was in danger. This cut my prayer short, and I moved the hat and sat it on the ground beside me, and went to praying again, but just then a man behind me spirted a mouthful of ambier all round it, and I began to think it would be ruined in spite of all I could do if I didn't keep it on my head, which I couldn't well do in the congregation. I moved it to the other side, where another man seemed to have a like grudge at it, and I took it into my lap. The fear that I would mash it drove prayer out of my mind, and I looked all round for a limb or something to hang it on out of the way of feet and tobacco-juice, but could see nothing. The minister preached on, aqnd I again tried to pray, but that hat was in my way and filled my mind, and my prayers seemed to stick fast in my throat. The sermon seemed to me as cold as a snow-drift, and the meeting as lifeless and formal as a Quaker funeral. When I tried to be devotional, something would whisper in my ear, 'You had better take care of that hat, or you will get it mashed as flat as a battercake.' At length the long, dry sermon closed, sunset came, and some one proposed, as the Lord had not poured out His spirit upon us, herpahs he would, if we would all, with one heart and one mind, go out in to the silence of the forest and supplicate Him. We went, I with my new hat in my hand, fearful all the time that it would get mashed in the crowd or injured in some way. We prayed and sung, and sung and prayed, but our prayers didn't seem to rise higher than our heads, and our songs higher than the tree-tops. At last a good old father in Israel said: 'Well, brethern, there must be an Achan in the camp, the Lord refuses to bless us, and we might as well return to our tents.'
"I stood musing a few minutes, not knowing what to do, with my hat still in my hand for fear it would get injured, when I heard a man utter a deep and bitter groan. Looking around I saw, that all had left except that man and myself, and he seemed to be in great agony. I asked him what was the matter, when he replied that he was great sinner, and he didn't believe the Lord would pardon him. 'Yes, He will' said I, 'if you call upon Him as you should with your whole heart and soul, without depending upon anything you can do yourself.' He said he had prayed, but it didn't seem to do any good, and asked me if I wouldn't pray for him. I told him yes, bless God I would, laid my hat carefully away in a clump of bushes where I thought nothing could get at it, and to praying I went with all my might, soul and spirit. How long I prayed I don't know, but when I came to myself the stars were all out, the whol congregation had returned, the desparing man was shouting and praising the Lord, all the believers were happy and clapping their hands with joy, and for the first time after the man asked me to pay for him I thought of my new hat, and it was gone. I looked for the clump of bushes, but they had been trodden down by the great crowd, but finally seeing something black in the dust where the congregation had been shouting and shaking hands, I picked it up and shook it into some sort of shape, and it was that new hat of which I had been so careful, and which had occupied all my thoughts. Forgetting it, my heart went out to the Lord. He heard my supplications, the unhappy man was converted, the son of Jesse came into the great congregation, the cry of of 'what shall I do to be saved?' rang out on the night air like the noise of many waters, and there was joy and gladness in the encampment.
"And now, Bishop," said he, "there is a moral to this story, and it is this--there are too many new hats in this conference."
IN A CLOSE PLACE WITH A LARGE WOUNDED BEAR.
As stated in a preceding chapter, Wilburn made his first appearance at White Top in the fall of 1832, when he was about 20 years of age. Being but little mast that season, there was of course but little game, and he did but little successful hunting, not being yet prepared for wo1f-trapping. While roaming through the mountains, however, he came across the place where he subsequently pitched his tent. As related in the first chapter, he selected it because it was in a rich, obscure cove, some distance from the nearest settlement, and, was the common refuge of wild animals in cold and stormy weather. In addition to this, it was among the surrounding mountains, and a spring of clear, cold water gushed from the rocks within a few feet of the site of his future cabin. The land being vacant, he entered 640 acres in the spring, and pitched his tent. This was a rude concern, such as we sometimes see at a coal-pit, with one end open. This was his habitation for four years, where he lay at night with his feet to the fire on the outside, often lulled to rest after a hard day's hunt, by the howls of wolves and the screams of catamounts, which would prowl around but were too much afraid of the fire to approach very closely.
During the first summer and fall after going to house keeping in this way, he killed a large number of wild turkeys, and deer, six bears and several wolves and catamounts, though he had no daring or dangerous adventures. The first wild bear he ever saw was during the fall, while out stalking deer, but a mile or two from his cabin. It was standing on a log about sixty yards from and looking straight at him. Having heard that a bear was a very hard animal to kill, and unless struck in a vital place a very dangerous adversary, he determined to shoot it the mouth or eye. As the former was the largest target he concluded to aim at that, and if lie should fail to inflict a fatal wound, and it should make fight, he would meet it fair and square with his tomahawk. He drew a bead and fired, when the bear. sprang from the log to the ground and died in a few minutes. On examining it, he fount the ball had split his nose, passed through the lower part of his mouth, through the heart, and traversing the whole length of the body from end to end.
Sometime after this, having killed a number in the meantime, he had his first dangerous encounter with a very large wounded and ferocious bear. He had been following the trail on Pond mountain all day through a deep snow, and as the snow was still falling at nightfall, he determined to remain where he was till morning, instead of returning to his cabin several miles off; as the track might be filled up before he could return. Thus deciding he scraped away the snow at the root of a large tree, started up a fire with the dryest sticks he could find, and laid down supperless to rest.
As soon as the snow on the surrounding peaks.began to glisten in the rays of the rising sun, lie arose, shook the flakes from his locks, and started out with his rifle to find the tracks of the bear. The snow that had fallen through the night had entirely obliterated the trail, but he had gone but a short distance till he saw the tracks of a 'coon that had passed along so short a time before that the trail was still plain. Feeling that a little fresh meat-and especially 'coon meat, second only to that of bear with a hunter--would be very acceptable for the breakfast of a man who had no supper the night before, he followed on a hundred paces or more, when his attention was arrested by what seemed to be a bear-skin rolled up and lying on the snow, some thirty or forty paces in front of him. While standing and looking at it intently, and wondering how it had gotten there, or who could have killed and skinned a bear near his habitation without his knowledge, he noticed gently rising and falling like an animal breathing. Scrutinizing it closely, and being satisfied that it had life in it, the difficulty with him was, whether. it was a full grown bear partially covered by the snow or a cub lying on the surface. If it should be the former, it would be a dangerous experiment to shoot at it without a vital part visible for a mark, and if the latter, a ball would kill it, hit where it might. He revolved the matter in his mind some watching it closely all the time, and finally concluded that it was nothing but a cub, and, to use his own (missing words) he "shot at the pile." At the crack of the rifle, (words missing) bear he had followed all the day before rose (words missing) the snow surging and whirling as if it had (words missing) hurricane into a column of fog, and fixing his glaring eyes upon his assailant, gave unmistakable evidence of a furious attack. Wilburn was well enough .aquainted with the disposition of a wounded bear to comprehend the situation in an instant, and as the animal started towards him he knew there was but slight hope of escape from a square fist-and-skull fight with a very large, wounded and exasperated bear. He had but a moment to think, but in that moment he remembered that his gun was empty and that he had left his tomahawk at the place where he had slept. There was, therefore, but one possible chance of escape, and that was to spring as high as he could at a single bound up a beech sapling by which he was standing, and remain as motionless as he could, and this must be done while the bear would lose sight of him for a second in passing round a large tree between them. Wilburn made the spring at the very instant the tree was between them, holding to a limb above him with one hand, holding his gun with the other, and his feet meantime drawn as high up as he eculd get them, some three or four feet above the ground. Before the sapling had done shaking, and while thus perilously suspended, the bear bear, in a terrible rage from his wound, with his nose to the snow and his ears projecting forward, passed immeiately under and almost touching him. The situation was a fearful one, for the hear, scenting but not seeing him, tore up roots and twisted down saplings as if they had been straws;; circling round and round, and occasionally springing upon and fighting a log or a rock in (missing words) to grapple with his adversary. Failing (missing words) mortal foe, who had been suspended above him for (missing word) minutes by one arm, he took Wilburn's back track and disappeared in the undergrowth about fifty yards off. Knowing that he would not give up the effort to find him while the track was visible, but would return in a few minutes, Wilburn dropped from his perch, ran down powder and ball in his' gun without patebing, and followed on as fast as he could. When he arrived at the edge of the undergrowth he heard the bear making a furious attack upon a rock that protruded out of the snow, and parting the bushes he saw him struggling as if with a living enemy, and only about fifteen paces off. Wilburn made a noise to attract his attention, and as the bear raised his head, and before he had time to spring to the attack, the report of the rifle rang along the mountain-side, and the bear rolled over dead in his tracks with a ball in his eyes. He weighed near four hundred pounds, and yielded eighteen gallons of oil.
AN EXCITING WOLF-HUNT IN BLACK MOUNTAIN.
In giving the more thnlhng of the hunting adventures of Wilburn Waters, the writer cannot pretend to give them in the order in which they occurred, as he is without dates as to most of them. He will content himself with giving the facts, as these are all that the reader will care about.
Some years ago, but little hunting having been done for some time, the wolves became very numerous as well as very destructive, not only in Southwestern Virginia, but fearfully so in Western North Carolina; so much so that but few sheep had escaped them in the vicinity of the Black, Yellow and Roan mountains in Rip Van Winkle's dominions. The fame of Wilburn Waters, as an intrepid and successful hunter and trapper having gone out into all that country, a number of farmers and stockraisers whose folds had been broken up and scattered-some sixty in all--drew up an obligation to give him one sheep each for every wolf he would capture, in addition to the five dollars' bounty given by the county for each scalp.
Wilburn considered the proposition, and after killing a few that were infesting his own neighborhood, he employed one of his nearest neighibors to attend to his stock locking up his cabin, gathered his traps and started out upon the perilous and laborious expedition. Having raached his hunting-ground, a hundred miles away from his home, he entered upon his business. Month after month he traversed those silent and almost impenetrable ranges, sleeping in their gorges and among their precipices, but still the game eluded him, and seemed to mock his efforts to come up with them. Finally coming on "sign," and following this till it became a broad trail, he stuck to it like a blood- hound, following it from mountain to mountain and from county to county--at one time leading him out into the open country, and then again plunging iuto the deepest and darkest recesses of that uninhabited and almost untrodden region.
At length the trail became so plain that he could run upon it, and estimate not only the number, but the sizes of the different individuals of the gang, from their tracks at watering places. The sign and trail appearing to be fresh all the time, he knew he must be elose upon them, and followed on from crag to crag and from cavern to cavern, for weeks, and yet they eluded him, and at night seemed to be as far from him as they were in the morning. But having undertaken to capture them, he intended to do it, though he should have "to fight it out on that line" all the year. After having followed them thus closely, and so long patiently, and believing them to be but a short distance off, he marked the spot at which he had arrived, and concluded to return to the nearest settlement, rest a day or two, repenlish his exhausted haversack, return to the trail and never give it up as long as one of the gang remained. With this determination he started hack, but had walked but a few paces, when he resolved to try the last expedient, though a dangerous one, to ascertain or not they were within hearing, which was to howl. This was an important matter as well as perilous, and required to be managed with great adroitness. If an exact imitation, he knew that the gang would dash at him in the greatest fury, and if not an imitation, that it would frighten and drive them to a distant covert. lie stopped, gave a long tremendous howl, as is the custom of the wolf when separated from his companions, and so exact was the imitation, that the echo was still reverberating along the distant peaks, when a portion of the gang, eleven in number, sent up a responsive howl altogether, that almost, as he expressed it, made his blood run cold, so fearful was it in the deep, dark gorges of the mountain, miles away from the nearest human habitation. Before the combined howl had ceased ringing in his ears, he heard them coming through the undergrowth, and by the time he had his large double-barrel shot-gun to his shoulder they were within a few feet of him, with foaming jaws and bloodshot eye-balls. Drawing a bead upon the largest, and waiting till another came in line, he pulled the trigger, and the two fell dead in their tracks and at the crack of the other 'barrel another sprang in the air and fell motionless alongside of them. The others instead of avenging their death, or falling upon and rending their slain companions, as they often do, and with terrifying smell of gunpowder in their nostrils, raised a long melancholy howl and fled back into the deeper an more distant recesses of the mountain.
Securing the hides of the three he had killed, and making sure of the course the others had taken, he made his way out to the nearest settlement, rested a day or two, replenished his haversack, and again plunged into the forest, not to return till he had captured the last wolf of the gang. He held out faithfully, though they led him from mountain to mountain and from gorge to gorge, to great distances and for weeks; but when he returned he brought the scalps, not only of all that gang, but of others, in all forty-two wolves as his winter's hunt. Besides these, he captured during the hunt a number of catamounts, a few bears, an otter or two, and any number of wild turkeys and other small game.
During the same general hunt, he had an exciting time with a detachment of five wolves that had wandered off to some distance from the main gang. He was entirely alone, without even a dog, high up one of the tall peaks of the Roan mountain, and several miles away from the nearest human habitation. The five wolves he was in search of were two old ones and three half grown. They had destroyed a great deal of stock in the range as well as in the valleys, running out dogs that had been put upon even evincing a disposition to attack man when alone.
Wilburn had found "sign" and had followed it up to a tall cliff near the summit of one of the highest and most inaccessible peaks in the range. It was a sultry, drizzly day, and the "sign" appearing to be several days old, and having greatly fatigued himself working his way up through tangled vines and laurel jungles, and climbing over steep and ragged precipices, he lay down to rest under a shelving rock and fell asleep. In about an hour he arose refreshed, and crawling out of his resting place he found that the old leader of the gang had been reoonnoitering while he slept, and had passed along on a ledge a few feet below him. Picking up his gun and tomahawk, he took the track, and on approaching a precipice, he saw the old male wolf at its base, quietly licking his chops and apparently winding prey or an enemy in the distance. Stealthily advancing to within convenient range, Wilburn brought his shot-gun to bear and fired, when the largest and most formidable wolf of the gang fell and died without a struggle. Securing the skin, he made his way with great difficulty to the top of the precipice, and there, just beyond the turn of the summit, he saw the four others, three of them gamboling like puppies around the dam, not having heard the report of the gun under the cliff. They were in an open place, and it was very difficult to get within range without being seen, heard or winded, but he made out to "snake" it to within forty yards of them, and "pulled down." Two of them dropped dead, but the old dam and one of the cubs escaped into a cavern near by.
Having started out with the determination of capturing the whole family, he went to digging with a sharpened stick; he soon reached. the old one, which was too large to get 1far into the hole, drew her out by the hind legs, and tied her feet together. He had to widen the passage for a distance of ten or twelve feet before he could reach the other. The hole, after being thus worked out, was barely large enough to admit his body, and it being impossible for the wolf to escape, he had to meet it face to face. All that he could see of the animal was its eyes, which shone like two balls of fire in the darkness of the cavern, and having no room td operate with gun or tomahawk, he cautiously slipped his hand over the wolf's head, grasped it by the neck, brought it out and tied it as he had the other. He then marched out into the settlement with two wolves and three skins, without having received a scratch or wasting a load of ammunition. The day's work brought him $175, made up by the settlers, whose stock had been destroyed and whose lives had been menaced by the gang.
Four Bears in One Tree
During the war, owing to the scarcity of ammunition and the danger of losing his stock during his absence Wilburn hunted but little. Hence bears accumulated somewhat in the neighboring mountains, and even ventured into the settlements, as if conscious that their mortal foe had given them the largest liberty to come and go at pleasure. About the close of the war, in passing over of the mountains in his vicinity from his own to a neighbor's cabin, he came upon bear sign, and the hunting of that species of game having become second nature with him, he could not resist the temptation to return to his cabin for his dog and gun, which he had left behind, and to follow the trail, whether it should terminate in the neighboring mountains or lead to coverts many m away. The sign having indicated to his unerring judgment, or rather instinct in such matters, that there were four bears in company-an "old she" and three half-grown cubs---he was all the more determined to follow them up, knowing that it was next to impossible for them to him within sight of the smoke of his own, chimney, and to capture a whole fanlily of bears at one time was rather more of a wholesale business in that line than he had been accustomed to of late years. Having returned the trail and started the dog upon it, the eagerness with which he bounded off convinced Wilburn that it was fresh and the game not far in advance. He .followed on as rapidly as he could, and at the end of some three or four miles the dog gave notice that the game was at bay. Hurrying up, he was delighted to find all four of the bears on the topmost limbs of a very high tree on the summit of the mountain. After looking at them awhile and reasoning with himself as to the best policy to pursue under the circumstances, being alone and having but one dog, he determined to kill the old one and two of the cubs, and and then as he was in want of a pet, take the largest cub alive. But the latter he couldn't do without help, for he had tried strength of cubs before, and could not hold and tie it without assistance.
He then shot the old one out, which fell like a beef at his feet, but the cubs being smaller and quicker in their motions, eluded his aim for some time, and the sun had gone down before he succeeded in shooting them out. The larger and finer of the cubs was still in the tree, and now it became necessary for him to keep it there, which he knew would be difficult after it had lost its companions, till he should go to the cabin he had started to visit in the morning and procure assistance. Accordingly he built a fire at the root of the tree, and telling his dog to stand sentinel during his absence, soon found his way to the cabin several miles off. When he reached it he was disappointed to find that there was not a man about, but there were two women there, both stout and fearless, as most mountain women are, and they promised to be with him by dawn of day in the morning, and tie the cub if he could catch and hold it. Satisfied with this arrangement, and telling them exactly how and where to find him, he returned to the tree, and found that the dog had been faithful to his trust, the cub being still in the tree, but exhibiting considerable impatience to effect a "change of base." Wilburn stretched himself upon his back near the fire during the weary hours of that long, cold night he; kept his eye on the motions of tha't well-grown and active cub, as it would occasionally come down the body the tree to within ten or a dozen feet of the ground, and 'then, with the apparent agility of a squirrel, mount again to the very highest limb large enough to bear its weight. He knew that it would not be apt to come down while the fire was burning brightly so close to the tree, and hence permitted it to enjoy the sport of descending and ascending at pleasure.
Just as day was breaking, the two women, true to their promise, made their appearance upon the theatre of action. He placed them at a little distance, prepared with thongs, instructed them not to speak and to remain as motionless as possible, and then lay down within reach of the tree, with the dog and the fire on the opposite side. As soon as the sun began to tinge the tree-tops, the cub knew it time to be traveling, and gradually descended, tail fore-most, as is their custom, occasionally reaching out its hind feet feeling for the earth. After considerable delay, climbing down the' body of the tree and then bounding up again, as if halting between two opinions, it came within reach as it protruded its feet to feel for the ground, Wilburn's iron grasp was upon each foot, and away they went down the mountain side wheelbarrow fashion, at a rapid rate, regardless of whatever interposed. Wilburn finally succeeded in getting astride of it with his hands tightly grasped about its neck, but it was larger and stronger than bargain for and carried him with John Gilpin speed over bushes logs, rocks and briars, sometimes one on the top and then the other, tearing nearly every rag from his body, and lacerating him with its claws from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. But he held on, for it he a burning disgrace to lose the cub after waiting for it saying that he intended to take it alive. They finally reached the base of the mountain, both pretty well exhausted, but still in a terrible struggle for the mastery.
The women in the meantime followed on with the thongs as fast as they could, though far in the rear, as they had not bear to ride, and when Wilburn heard them coming in the distance, as they followed the broad trail left by himself and the cub, he came to the conclusion that he was not in in the proper costume for the reception of, company, his wardrohe comprising but little besides the waistbands of his pants, suspenders and one sock. Whilst ruminating as to the best policy under the circumstances the women, from whom he was still concealed by the thick laurel, were within a few paces of him, when he informed them it would be imprudent to come any nearer to the cub, and that if they would return to the settlement and procure assistance to get the dead bears out, he would manage to tie his cub with his gallowses, and meet them at the cabin sometime during the day. In a word, there was no admittance for ladies at that show.
The women, having seen detached portions of his clothing in his wake, took the hint and left him and the cub to settle the difficulty in their own way. Wilburn, after considerable trouble attended with no little danger, succeeded in tying his pet tight and fast, and in due time made his appearance among his female friends, "clothed and in his right mind," having safely carried the cub to his cabin, 'where the writer of this saw it a few weeks after.
FIGHT WITH A BEAR ON THE BRINK OF A PRECIPICE.
One of' the most dangerous and exciting encounters Wilburn Waters ever had witb a bear, occurred on the lirst day of January, 1873, after he was sixty years of age. He had been making his home for some time with Clark Porterfield, of Grayson county, who kept good dogs and was as fond of hunting as himself. At the time spoken of; Porterfield suggested that they should take a turn in Pine Mountain, a few miles off; and see if they couldn't hustle up something that would pay for the trouble as well as afford them a little sport. There having been a good deal of rain and snow, the former having frozen before the latter fell, it was very difficult to get along, particularly where the ground was anything like steep. For this reason, as well as his knowledge that tbe surface of the mountain was broken with precipices, chasms, and densely covered with dwarf pines and matted vines, Wilburn remonstrated against trying it at that time, but finally yielded to his companion's importunities. They started out, and had not gone very far on one of the spurs before the dogs struck a trail and dashed off toward the top of the mountain. This put "life and mettle" in Wilburn's heels, and it was not long till, he left his young and active companion far in the rear. Knowing that no "varmint" but a bear would refuge in a spot so high and rugged, and in an atmosphere almost Arctic in its rigor, he hastened on as fast as he could, zigzaging along narrow ledges, sometimes losing his foot-hold and sliding back many feet until stopped by a tree or a rock, and at one place crossing a deep and dangerous chasm on a tree that had fallen across it, and which was incased in ice, he emerged into an open place on the mountain-side, and there, within about forty yards of him, he saw the two dogs at the root of a tree, and three bears, in the top, one of them an uncommonly large one. He thought it was the grandest sight he ever saw in his life. He had his shot-gun with him, for a rarity in a bear-hunt, one barrel of which was charged with a musket-ball, wrapped with tow to make it fit, and the other with a dozen buck-shot. He calculated on killing all three if Porterfield who he heard calling in the distance, should come up in time to assist him, and selected the largest for the first fire. He first tried the ball, and for the first time in his hunting career made a clear miss, the bear taking no more notice of it than if he had not fired. He then drew a bead with the barrel charged with buck-shot, and at the crack of the gun the bear came down the tree in a hurry, disabled one dog at the first pass, and seizing the other by the head they both glided down to the bottom of a deep gorge as if shot from a mortar. Seeing that the dog was no match for I and maddened adversary, Wilburn, like shot from a shovel, was with them in an instant in the narrow bottom of the gorge, with tomahawk in hand. Before he had time to reflect upon the situation, he found himself, as he termed it, in a hand-to-hand fight with the bear. The bear at once let the dog go, which was too badly hurt to render any farther assistance, and made at Wilburn in a terrible rage. For a few minutes they took it. lick about, with this difference--Wilburn making every lick with his tomahawk tell, while he successfufly dodged each pass of the bear. While the combat was going on the bear was all the time slowly retreating toward a precipice a few yards off, from the brink of which he could leap into the, tree-tops below, and make his escape, and finally made a rush for it, when Wilburn, seizing him by the hair, mounted him and had a fearful ride for a few jumps. While thus seated he gave him the last fatal lick between the eyes with his tomahawk, just as he reached the edge of the precipice. When the bear fell, his head and fore-feet were hanging over. One foot farther, or one lick less, and they both pitched headlong a hundred feet or more down jagged rocks, and the bears and wolves would thereafter have prowled and depredated at will in that locality, as their mortal foe would have gone to the happy hunting--grounds where his fathers and people had long since gone.
By this time Porterfield came up out of breath and out of patience, in not being able to make the connection in to be in at the death of the game. He and Wilburn returned to the tree where the latter had left the two bears, but they were gone. They had come from the tree, descended a high and steep cliff; but it was so intensely cold, night coming on and no dogs able to follow up the trail, they were forced to relinquish the hunt. They returned to the dead bear, divided and carried it out to where they had left a horse, and sometime during the night reached the residence of Mr. Porterfield nearly frozen, but happy in the possession of a bear that weighed nearly four hundred pounds, and meat for a month that love better than any other, and that Wilburn regards, as an Irishman does whisky, "the very life of man."
A BEAR HUNT IN THE IRON MOUNTAIN.
The following was related to the writer by a friend who took his first and last bear-hunt with Wilburn Waters some years ago.
Happening to be in Wilburn's dominions one snowy November, something less than a dozen years ago, and feeling that I could trust my steel-barrel rifle in almost any emergency, as well as having a desire to knock up the trotters of one bear during a residence of an ordinary life- time within sight of their foraging-grounds, I had the temerity, without due and sober reflection, to ask him if he could'nt get up a chunk of a hunt for my special benefit. "Oh, yes," he rep]ied, "there are two pretty good ones in the laurel across the ridge yonder-I saw the sign yesterday and if you will take a stand on a branch of the mountain in the morning, I'll hustle 'em up and drive 'em out to you."
"All right," said I; "but, Wilburn, I want you to remember that I am a novice in bear-craft, and you must be careful not to send out too many at once." "Don't be uneasy," said he, "as one will he about as many as you can manage, and I should'nt be surprised if you don't think that he is one too many before you are done with him, for they're awful troublesome critters sometimes."
The hunt being determined upon and arranged, we had bear-meat, corn-dodgers and. wild honey for supper, and the long ride through the rarefied air of the mountains that day having whetted my appetite to a pretty keen edge, and having stowed too large a portion under my vest, I was fighting, shooting at, and running from bears the livelong night, in my troubled dreams, and rose from my bed of skins in the morning with very serious misgivings as to the wisdom of bear-hunts in general, and of the present one in particular. But, having of my own free will and accord proposed it, and Wilburn having cheerfully and promptly acceded to it, I had no alternative but to "screw my courage to the sticking point," and go into it whether I got the bear or the bear should get me. We had early breakfast, but somehow or other my appetite was not as sharp as it was the night before, and an involuntary nervousness would occasionally creep over me, when I thought of what a dangerous animal a hunted and maddened bear was, and which I could not dispel by more than one libation of "mountain dew" which I usually carried with me in my rambles, as an antidote for snake bites!
Everything being ready, we swung our accoutrements around us, threw our guns across our shoulders, Wilburn whistled up his dogs, and off we started. For the first mile or two he diverted my thoughts by instructing how to act in presence of bruin, and how and where to shoot as he approached me, during which time I stepped along lightly enough, and paid but little attention to the spurs and cliffs over and around which we had been climbing; but after walking along thus for about four miles, the laurel in which the bears held their revel came in view when all at once, though not without serious premonitory symptons, my feet began to feel exceedingly heavy, and I entertained very solemn doubts as to whether there was so very much sport in bear-hunting after all, particularly where the chances were about equal of being eaten or to eat-the difference, if any, in my opinion, being rather in favor of the bear. My spirits, too, began to flag very perceptibly, and though I tried, I could not attribute my feelings to the weather, for, although the earth was covered with snow, was bright and balmy, the sun shone out in all his splendor, and the crystalized dew-drops hanging upon the foliage of the tall hemlocks, sparkled like gems upon the tresses of an oriental bride. The red-birds, all dressed in crimson sheen, flitted in happy glee from spray to spray the squirrels played their wild gambols among the bespangled tree-tops, and all living creatures around me seemed to be as happy as a bevy of holiday-dressed children at a Sabbath-school festival. I, however, had no relish for the grand and beautiful, for of all animated nature in the wild-wood that lovely morning, I alone was to run the risk of being eaten by a bear!
At length we came to the place where I was. to take my stand. It was a wild, silent spot upon the mountain-side, a few paces from the edge of the laurel where bears "most do congregate" and as soon as Wilburn left me and disappeared in the jungle, I began to feel very uncomfortable--a sort of weakness about the waistbands of my pants--and very earnestly reasoned with myself whether or not it was right and proper to stand behind a tree and murder an innocent bear in cold blood while going about his, legitimate business! The more I thought about it the worse I felt, until my knees grew singularly weak, and if I did'nt have an old-fashioned shake of ague, it was something so near akin to it that I couldn't well tell the difference; but when, a few minutes after, the perspiration broke out all over me in great big beads, I was ready to be qualified that I had the real bona ftde Arkansa~ fever and ague, and. thought it not only in very bad taste, but criminally imprudent, for a man in such a wretched state of health as I was at that moment, to be standing away out there on the mountain-side without a physician, or quinine or a bottle of French brandy.
Whilst ruminating upon my condition, and the more serious probabilities of killing a hear or of a bear killing me-in which I had a very decided choice, notwithstanding the maxim that "it is a bad rule that don't work both ways"-I heard the bay of Wilburn's dogs in the distance and all at once the skin of my head felt as tight as a raw hide on a banjo, and it seemed to me that I would never be able to shut my eyes again, though I never had better reason to keep them as wide open as possible. I would have felt more comfortable under an oyster-shell at the bottom of the ocean. Looking and listening with the most intense interest, I heard the tread of something coming that seemed to be as heavy as the march of an elephant, and I felt as if I had taken a new lease of life. when the formidable animal proved to be a boomer, a specles of mountain squirrel. Whilst wondering how so small an could make so big a racket, I heard the report of Wilburn's rrfle away down in the jungle, and my heart raised in thankfulness with the hope that there was one bear less to make a dinner off my bones that day. Another report soon followed, which instead of relieving my anxiety in like ratio, suggested the apprehension that Wilburn, instead of killing a bear, had probably, only wounded one, and if so, and he should come across me on his way to the cliffs above, I had better be preparing my nerves for a steady aim, or saying my prayers, or perhaps both. With this unwelcome thought intruding itself, I grasped my rifle with a tenacity that a yousg earthquake could scarcely have shaken loose, and with a determination that nothing but desperation could have imparted, and awaited the coming of the last thing I wanted to see on the face of this green earth--the very bear I had gone out voluntarily and purposely to kill! While standing thus with one foot rather unsteadily planted in front, the breech of the rifle to my shoulder, and my eye running along the barrel, a hand was laid upon nay shoulder from behind, and a voice, which I at once recognized as Wilburn's, said, in the sweetest tones to which I had ever listened-"Stop, friend, hadn't you better spring your trigger and cock your gun before you shoot?--but you needn't waste your ammunition; I've killed two bears down' in the laurel, and there isn't another within ten miles of here!"
If I ever felt happier in my life I have forgotten the time, place and circumstances; my knees became firm and steady; I was all right about the waistbands; the cold sweat had vanished like the dew of the morning; I could open and shut my eyes with the facility of a frog, and have not felt a sympton of fever and ague from that day to this.
An Adventure with a Mad Wolf
Some thirty-odd years ago, when the writer of these pages spent a large portion of his time in the woods and mountains that might have been more profitably employed in more useful pursuits, it fell to his lot, one pleasant day in autum, to be in a deer drive with Uncle Billy Stevens of Drutor's Valley, who was long known by the most of the citizens of Abingdon, as well as by a majority of the men of Washington county, as a genial, honest, warm-hearted old man, who loved his friends and his grog, and was ever ready to let the plough stand still in the furrow or the mash in the still-tub, when a friend called upon him for a hunt. On one occasion, as before said, it fell to the lot of Uncle Billy and the writer tobe the drivers in a big deer-hunt on the South Fork of Holston. We had gone out into the mountain some distance, leading half a dozen dogs each, with several out in advance hunting up a trail, and as we dashed off eagerly and soon disappeared in a direction contrary to that usually taken by deer--in the opposite direction from water. "I wish I may go to heaven, honey," said Uncle Billy, "if the dogs haven't hustled up a varmit of some sort, for a deer wouldn't gallop right straight off from the river as warm a day as this is, with four dogs behind him."
We kept on up the spur, but hadn't gone very far before we met the dogs trotting back with their tails down and the hair on their backs turned the wrong way. "There!" exclaimed Uncle Billy, "I told you so, and there's nary devil if they haven't jumped a wolf or a bear, and are frightended into fits." We kept on, the dogs following us very timidly and suspiciously, and soon came to a bed in the leaves in a patch of laurel, which, as soon as Uncle Billy saw, he put his hand in it and exclaimed, "By Jingo, they've jumped a wolf sure enough, and the bed is warm as a skillet. Let's go away from here on to another spur, or we'll have no sport to-day, and them darned dogs that's been frightened won't get as far from us as our shadows for fear the infernal varmit will eat 'em up."
We changed our course, made our way farther into the recess of the mountain, turned our dogs all out, a few at a time; started two or three deer towards the river where the standers were stationed, and made our way back to the settlements. On arriving at the cabin of Davy Stevens, a brother of Uncle Billy's, and telling him about the wolf, he remarked that the part of the mountain where the dogs had jumped him was, in his younger days, the greatest wolf-range in all this country, and then went on to relate an adventure he had with a mad wolf many years before, and which will be related in his own words, as near as the writer can recollect them.
"Some forty years ago" said he "I went out to a cave in the mountain to salt a few cattle I had in the range. I rarely ventured far in that direction without my gun, as bears and wolves were,as plenty at that day as rabbits are now, but as I had to carry a poke of salt and a heavy bell and collar to put on an old ox among the herd, I had to leave my rifle at home. A heavy rain coming up, I was detained some time in a hollow tree, and by the time I had gathered together and salted my cattle, the sun had disappeared beyond the hills. I started.out towards home, and as I topped the Double spur I heard a faint howl in a deep gorge some distance in my rear, but it was so faint I couldn't tell exactly what it it was-whether a dog, a wolf or a big owl. Stopping a few moments to listen, the sound became more distinct and seemed to be coming rapidly nearer. I now knew it to be the howl of a wolf, and from the direction the animal was taking, it was evident he was following my track. I thought this very strange, as a wolf is a cowardly cuss, avoids the track of a man, and skulks from his presence. I at once concluded it must be famishsed and wanted to make a supper off my bones. This thought made my feet feel very light, and I didh't let much grass grow under 'em as I ran down the spur, leaping rocks and logs like a buck. Before I reached the bottom I heard the wolf top the ridge precisely where I had crossed it, and start directly down the spur which I was just leaving. Fright gave me speed, and reaching a low place where the heavy shower a few hours before had left a pond some twelve or fifteen feet in diameter around a big hemlock, the limbs of which grew out to within a few feet of ground, and finding from his howls that the wolf had gained upon me very rapidly, I waded in and climbed the tree. The sun was just about setting, and I had scarcely hidden myself as well as I could among the foliage, when the wolf, one of the largest I had ever seen, came bounding along on my track, with long flakes of yellow foam streaming from his mouth, and eyes like two balls of fire. He was so intent on overtaking me, and running with such eagarness, that he overran the trail some distance, and finding himself at fault, he circled round awhile, and then came back to the the edge of the pond where he had lost my track, which he was now unable to find. He looked in every direction, and perhaps scenting me, trotted around the pond a time or two, and then raised a long, tremulous, melancholy howl. By this time darkenss was beginning to fall upon the scene, and I arrived at the unpleasant conclusion that I was to have my lodging place for the night among the limbs of that hemlock. After remaining some ten or fifteen minutes, as if conscious that was somewhere near, and as if undetermined what to do under the circumstances, he took the back-track and galloped off slowly up the spur we had come down less than an hour before, howling at intervals, and when I hear him cross the summit, and the last faint echo of his receding howl died away as he descended the other side, I dropped out of my perch and tookto my heels like a quarter- nag. In an hour I was safe and snug inside of my cabin.
"Being pretty well broken down by my long and exciting foot-race, it was not long will I was in bed and fast asleep. About midnight a terrible storm came up, and right in the midst of it, while the lightning was flashing, the thunder pealing and the wind shrieking, I heard a tremendous rumpus in the yard between my two big curs and some sort of'a varmint. I got up and went to the door, but the night was so dark I could see nothing, though the dogs seemed to be in a death struggle with something that appeared to be a match for them. I lighted a torch and stepped out, and there, within a few feet of me, stood the very wolf I had seen in the mountain, viciously snapping at the dogs as they held him at bay. A wolf is afraid of fire, but notwithstanding the torch in my hand he rushed towards me with great fury and foaming at the mouth like a mad dog, when the dogs clinched him behind and stopped him. I at once saw that he was mad, for I knew that a wolf that had his senses about him would never have come into the yard to such severe dogs, or rush at a man with a fire-brand in his hand. I stepped back into the cabin and got my rifle, and holding the torch in my left hand along the barrel I put a bullet between his eyes, which settled his hash, and then went back to bed.
"Next morning I rose early and went out and found that my dogs were both badly hurt, torn and bleeding in, various places. Fearing that my suspicions of the wolf being mad might be correct, I chained them and went to doctoring their wounds. In less than two weeks both of them took the hydrophobia and I had to put an end to their sufferings with the same rifle that ended the career of the mad wolf."
ADVENTURE WITH A FOUR-PRONGED BUCK IN THE HOLSTON
~ The writer hopes to be pardoned for giving a narration an exciting adventure in which he acted a prominent part. A number of years ago, when I was a younger and much more active man than I am at present, it fell to my lot to participate in a deer-drive that came very near being my last.
Colonel Addison White, at that time a representative in Congress from Kentucky, and now a resident of Huntsville, Alabama, was spending a few weeks in Abingdon (of which he is a native), and as he was, as he still is, a genial, whole-souled gentleman, a splendid shot, and passionately fond of hunting, those of his friends here who kept hounds and were as fond of the sport as himself, made up a hunt for his 'gratification, and repaired to the mountains with a tent and such creature comforts, both solid and liquid as were deemed necessary for a sojourn of several days in the woods. Arriving at the bank of the river, some dozen miles from town, we pitched our tent,. made a huge fire of logs in front of the opening, partook of supper, and fed the waiting hounds all standing round in couples. This accomplished, some stretched themselves upon their blankets, others amused themselves at "Old Sledge" and other pastimes, while the "drivers," of whom I happened to be one, divided the dogs among them, filled their haversacks and bottles, and for the purpose of making as early a start as possible, proceeded to the mountain, a few miles away, to rest beneath the tall hemlocks, where, deprived of the hi]arity and good cheer of the encampment, they enjoyed the soothing influences of the "voices of the night"
For the information of ~e reader who may not be familiar with the modus operandi of a deer-drive, it may not be out of place to give a brief explanation: All except the drivers take stands. Deer, in warm weather, usually seek the highest, coolest and most inaccessible peaks in the mountains, and when started from their lairs run certain well-known routes, and make for the nearest stream, at certain points or crossings, which hunters call "stands." Nine deer out of ten, and nine times out of ten, if started in the same range, will make directly for these crossings, are all known to, practical hunters.
On the occasion referred to, Colonel White was stationed at one of the best stands on the bank of the Holston, and it fell to my lot, as before stated, to be one of the drivers. Early in the morning, while all was serene and quiet, and the wild-flowers were budding beneath the moisture that nature had distilled upon them during the night, I untethered my canine companions and started them out upon their mission. They had trailed off but a short distance, when they "opened" in lively and eager chorus, soon jumped, a large four-pronged buck, in flill view from, where I was standing, which, from the direction he took, I was satisfied would attempt to cross the river at the stand occupied by Colonel White. Believing this, I followed on as rapidly as possible, and was surprised when I reached the river and had crossed to the stand to learn from the Colonel that he had neither heard a dog nor, seen a deer. But while we were talking about it, we heard a solitary dog coming down the bank of the stream, on the side we were on, and a moment after we saw the buck-the same I had seen in the mountain several hours before--going out on the opposite side, one hundred and eighty yards as was subsequently ascertained by actual measurement. The deer, not being as closely pressed as is sometimes the case, had circled around awhile in the hills, crossed above through an unguarded stand, and was now trying to elude the dogs by recrossing the river and making back toward the mountain. But, as before said, we saw him going out on the opposite side, one hundred and eighty yards above us, and seeing that Colonel White was about to shoot, I suggested that the game was too far off and running too fast for a rifle, and that he would miss him, but he replied the would be sure to miss him if he didn't shoot, and blazed away. The buck, with as much nonchalance as if nothing had happened, shook the water from his flanks and disappeared in the undergrowth. My own impression was that the ball had not reached him, but the Colonel contended that he had struck him, and that the wound was fatal, as he had seen the mist fly from his hair at the crack of the gun. To settle the question beyond cavil, I took the dog, which had came to us a few minutes after the buck had disappeared, knowing that if he had been wounded he could not go far from the river, and started across. Coaxing the dog along as I waded into the stream backward, which was about one hundred and fifty yards wide, deep and rapid-being swollen by recent rains--I fell backward over a sunken rock, and of course went under, neck and heels. Belonging, as I did, to that branch of the church militant, sometimes sacreligiously termed "web-footed" because they maintain the "Apostolic doctrine of immersion," I didn't mind practicing what I preached, but struck out, swam across, followed by the dog; and put him upon the track, the Colonel meanwhile remaining at his post. As soon as the dog found the trail and started, I "shed my linen" and so forth, and spread them out on the bank to dry. Whilst thus divested, and meditating upon the uncouth and uncomfortable appearance our first parents must have presented before they learned the art of sewing fig-leaves together, I heard the dog in full tongue, circling around toyvard the river a short diutance above me. For the purpose of heading the game down stream towards where the Colonel was standing, I started up the bank, but coming to a rugged chff, bristling with a formidable growth of bamboo briars, I concluded it would not be very pleasant to pass through them in the unprotected and delicate condition in which I happened to be the moment, and plunged into the stream for the purpose of swimming around the barrier. Just as I had gotten about, half-way along the cliff, I heard a racket above, and looking up I saw the buck, with the dog hanging to him suspended between "wind and water," and the next instant the buck, dog and myself were about as near being, in a, pile as three animals could well be in five feet water. Knowing that a wounded buck was dangerous, or even at bay when not wounded, and that I was bound to "go up the spout" or to the bottom of the stream if the dog didn't save me, and seeing the enraged animal turn toward me with his blazing black eyes and hair all turned the wrong way, I called upon th'e dog as loudly and as earnestly as ever a man called upon a friend in a pinch, and he responded nobly. He swam up and seized the buck by the throat, but was stricken to the bottom in an instant, and when he again appeared on the surface, he was at least twenty feet from where he went under. Meantime the buck was approaching me with all the ferocity of a tiger, and I retreating as fast as a man could retreat in water up to his chin--I had no time to swim-when the dog again grappled him behind, and they had it round and round in the current, the dog holding his grip with a tenacity that proved he comprehended the difficulties of the situation. Here the scene became exciting, and, unlike the woman who, when she saw her husband and a bear fighting, said she didn't care which whipped, I must confess I had a very decidec choice. The tussel lasted several minutes, and I beame so much interested in it, and had so much sympathy for one of the combatants, that I forgot my' danger, when I had ample time to get out of the water and take a tree if I found it necescesary. Colonel White, hearing the melee in the water, came up, waded into the stream up to his arm-pits, held the muzzle of his gun to the buck's head and fired, and the first I knew of his presence was the report of his rifle and seeing the buck float off with a bullet in his head. On getting the deer out on dry land we found given him a fatal shot the first time, the ball having entered his flank and ranging diagonally through his body had lodged under the skin behind the opposite foreleg. A right good shot with a rifle at one hundred and eighty yards, and the game at full speed.
ANOTHER ADVENTURE WITH A WOUNDED BUCK.
The writer having related one hunting adventure in which he himself participated, he is tempted to narrate one more--and only one more.
A number of years ago I had two friends living not far from the Iron mountain, where most of my hunting was done, but the names of William B. and David L. Clark. They were brothers, and always ready for a hunt or any kind of adventure in which there was sport or excitement. William, at the time of which I write, had a good farm, an interesting family, kept horses and hounds, was the most daring and successful in all this mountain region except Wilburn Waters-and even excelled him in deer-driving--and all the hunters within miles, when they felt like enjoying something extra in the sporting line, flocked to his hospitable and pleasant home, where they knew the latch-string always hung on the outside. Not only so, but he was the best marksman as well as the best driver in all the mountains and was always ready, no matter what else might be on hand, to take a hunt with a friend. He was one of nature's noblemen, and positively, and by odds, in my opinion the best man I ever knew, in any and every sense; and I here take occasion to pay his memory this passing tribute because he has gone to the land of shadows-- his life, in the prime of his manhood, was laid upon his country's altar in defence of the "Lost Cause." He was not a professor of religion, though I always thought he professed it in the natural way. He had a heart in him big enough fbr the Giant of Gath, a benevolence and disinterestedness as pure as the mountain and the lake, a hand as ope'n as the day-in a word, he was the only man I ever knew in whom I could not suggest some improvement were he to be "reconstructed."
His brother David, now a citizen of High Point, North Carolina, and an artist of some celebrity, was younger, unmarrie'd, and lived with him, an'd was somewhat like him in some of his character' istics. He also had a passion for hunting, but while the former rarely wasted time and ammunition upon smaller game, "all were fish that came into the net" of the latter, from a snow-bird to a big owl, or from a squirrel to a bear. He usually carried both a rifle and a shotgun, with, a tomahawk and a butcher-knife so as to be prepared for whatever might come in the way. He was as fearless as a Turk, and was one of our most successful hunters.
These two friends and myself had 'arranged for a hunt among ourselves, and I rode over to their home, nine miles off, in the night, to have an early start to the mountain next morning. I had been hunting a long time, but always preferring the post of "driver," had never had the pleasure of killing a deer. William Clark was to do the driving on this occassion, and David and myself were to occupy the stands. It was a bright and bracing morning, and a shower the night befure had so dampened the earth as to enable the dogs to trail without difficulty. As I had never killed a deer, I was anxious to make sure work of it, and had prepared myself with a large shot-gun, six feet in the barrel, and carrying twenty-four buck-shot. I occupied the best stand, as the brothers were more anxious, if possible, than I was myself, that I should "bag the game." I posted myself with my back against a double tree on the bank of the river, where the stream was some one hundred and with my heart thumping and my fingers itching to pull the trigger, I awaited the coming of the game, which I was sure would come, for William Clark never failed to do what he promised, and he had promised to send me a deer that morning. I was not kept long in suspense. Listening very intently, I heard a chug in the water, and looking toward the opposite bank I saw a very large buck dashing through the rocky and turbid stream directly towards me. To my excited vision he looked as large as a three-year old steer, with a heavy and wide-speading head of horns. I stood as motionless as the double tree against which I was leaning, and waited till he came within fifty yards, when I drew a bead and it right in the face, his body being in the water. At the crack of the gun we both fell-it shot at both ends! It kicked me--the gun, not the buck-into the fork of the tree, where I was as tight and fast as a glut in a rail cut.
here was a pretty predicament to be in, squirming and twisting like a worm on a hook in the fork of the tree, and a wounded buck only a few feet off. While trying to wriggle myself lose, I could distinctly hear the frenzied animal floundering in the water, and momentarily expected to feel his antlers, though I couldn't see him, and to receive a wound which I would never he able to see without performing one of the feats of the India-rubber man in Old John Robinson's Circus, was rather more than I had bargained for, or was willing to put up with. I finally cork-screwed myself out, and there was the buck, not a dozen yards from where my load of buck-shot met him, floundering and charging round among the rocks, and seeming to be doubtful as to what direction he ought to take. I proceeded to reload-being careful to be more moderate in my charge-and stepping away from the forked tree as a criminal would from the stocks, and was about to fire the second time when I heard the report of David's rifle a few feet off, which put an end to the capers of my buck and took away exactly half of my laurels.
On getting the buck out of the, water we found that seventeen out of my twenty-four buck-shot had penetrated his face and head, and both eyes were shot out. I have never since put twenty-four buck-shot in a gun, and have never fired one with my back to a forked tree.
AMUSING ADVENTURES WITH BEARS.
The following short chapter, comprising a couple of anecdotes, may or may not be strictly true, but the writer gives them as they were related to him, and was acquainted the characters named. The reader can either peruse or skip it, as he will not gain much by reading, or lose much by not reading.
Not a great many years ago there were living in Washington county, within fifteen miles of Abingdon, two old gentlemen, by the names of John R. And James H., familiarly called by their neighbors "Uncle Johnny" and "Uncle Jimmy." They lived together, not far from the base of Iron Mountain. The first was an old and experienced bear-hunter, but the other, although he had some aspirations in that direction, had never been so fortunate as to get into a successful hunt. Uncle Johnny, having been out one day to salt his cattle on the range, came across fresh bear sign, and meeting with Uncle Jimmy as he was hastening home for his dogs and gun, told the latter he would give him the opportunity of killing a bear if he would go with him. "All right--I'm in," replied Uncle Jimmy, "that's one thing I've been waiting to do, for lo! these many years." They soon got ready and started out. About half-way up the mountain, the dogs in advance of them brough something to bay, and the two old men hastening up found that they had treed a good-sized bear. "Just hold on, Jimmy," said Uncle Johnny, "till I put a bullet through his smeller, which will bring him out of there quicker than no time for a bear can't stand to be touched at either end-and as soon as he touches the ground the dogs, who understand their business, will seize him by each side of his head and hold him as tight as if he was in a dead-fall; when you can take my. butcher-knife and cut his throat." "All right, I'm in," replied Uncle Jimmy, "and if I don't open the cuss' juglar, you may shoot me with a pack-saddle." The bullet was fired the nose split, and down came bruin to th'e foot of the tree. As Uncle Johnny had predicted, the dogs seized him on each side, as he sat upright against the tree. "Now's your time," exclaimed Uncle Johnny, "just walk up and cut his throat; he can't hurt you, for the dogs will hang to him like a sticking-plaster, and won't let go till it thunders." "All right, I'm in," repeated Uncle Jimmy, and cautiously walking up to do his part of the work, te'npted to lay his left hand on top of the bear's head while he cut his throat with the right, when bruin seized him by the left arm, which so much surprised and alarmed him, that he stood as motionless as if paralyzed, with knife upraised but without attempting to strike. Uncle Johnny, seeing how matters stood and growing impatient, exclaimed, "Jimmy, why in the dickens don't you cut the cuss'throat?" "Why don't I?" rejoined Uncle Jimmy; "why don't you see the darned things a bitin'?"
Uncle Jimmy finally comprehended the situation, and very naturally concluded that now, if ever, was the time for action, cut the bear's head nearly off with one swipe, and escaped with slight injury. As long as he lived he loved to relate his adventure with that "cussed bar."
The other anecdote is about as follows:
Soon after the close of the war, a very large bear, in crossing from one mountain to another, passed near Abingdon. Some of the young men armed themselves, called up their dogs, mounted their horses and were soon on the trail. Some few miles from town, in close pursuit, they passed through the farm of a good old citizen, who happened to be out in one of his fields, with his dog following him. Hearing the noise of the chase, and looking up he saw the bear floundering through the snow and coming directly towards him. Being unarmed, and not exactly ready to be eaten just at that moment, he sprang to the fence a few feet off, and, climbed to the top of a stake, determined to give the bear as wide a berth as possible. While thus perched, the stake, gave way at the bottom and I to the ground face-foremost. It occurred, to him very suddenly that he had heard or read that a bear would not molest a dead body, and that he might escape by feigning to be in that condition. His fall frightened the bear and turned him in another direction, but his own dog, not exactly understanding the strategy of his master, ran up and began to smell about him as he lay upon his face in the snow. Thinking it was the bear, and that the critical moment had come when "to be or not to be" was the great problem with him, he lay as motionless as possible, and thus in suppressed and sepulchral tones, addressed the supposed monster:--"Go on, bear, go on-the hunters will kill you if you stop-- besides I'm dead--have been dead a week--and ain't fit to eat no how!"
The young man who bad approached and heard this earnest appeal to the supposed bear, was never forgiven for having divulged it, as long as the worthy farmer lived.
FIRST WHITE SETTLER IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA.
We now come to the third division of subjects to be treated--the first settlers on Holston and the subsequent history of Southwestern Virgjnia.
Tradition informs us that the first white adventurer who made his home jn the Valley of Holston, was an English-man by the name of St. Clair, who had ingratiated himself with the Indians, and erected his cabin near where the old Church stands at St. Clair's Bottom, in what is now Smyth County. At what period he fixed his home there is not known, but it is supposed to have been about the time of Braddock's defeat, which was in 1755.
Between 1755 and 1760, an enterprising gentleman by the name of Patton made his way westward of the line of civilization, and appeared on the head waters of the Holston. He was accompanied by three relatives, two by the name of Buchanan, and one by the name of Campbell, besides some two or three other persons. From Mr. Patton and the three others named, sprang the families who first the State. The Buchanans intermarried with the Pattons, and Campbell was the father of General William Campbell, of King's mountain memory. From these sprang the Prestons, Floyds and Thompsons, who subsequently owned the Saltworks, Burk's Garden, and all that magnificent boundary including the Seven Mile Ford, the estate of Mr. James M. Byars and all the intermediate lands.
Mr. Patton and bis associates came with compass and chain, for "the purpose of "spying out the land," and surveying and locating, such portions as promised to become unusually valuable in the future. Somewhere in the vicinity of what is now known as Seven Mile Ford, they met with St. Clair, a white man in Indian garb, on a hunting and trapping expedition. Surprised to find a white man where they supposed themselves the first of the race who had ventured thus far into the wilderness. Mr. Patton questioned him as to his knowledge of the country, and was astonished as well as gratified to find him a man of more than ordinary intelligence, an experienced woodsman and familiar with all that broad belt of rich lands between the Apalachian and Cumberland mountains.
Mr. Patton proposed to employ him both as a guide and a protection against the Indians, provided they should meet with them during their stay upon this, one of their favorite hunting grounds. St. Clair informed him that to survey the lands would be a dangerous undertaking and might forfeit the lives of the whole company should the red men catch them at it, but that he would show him the choicest sections and guarantee the safety of the company, on condition that after' Mr. Patton should have such boundaries as he might desire, he would survey and enter a certain boundary for him (St. Clair) which would show him. Mr. Patton of course agreed to this, especially, as it was "Hobson's choice" with him. The agreement being settled, Mr. Patton surveyed and took possession of the large boundary where they were then standing, including the magnificent estates above mentioned.
They then proceeded to the "Lick" where the Saltworks are now situated, and where the aborngines had been making salt from seeps from time immemorial, near the present residence of Mr. Palmer, 'the whole of that beautiful and rich alluvial bottom then being a lake. Several thousand e here sur'veyed and located. They then proceeded up the North Fork of Holston, and appropriated all that valuable land in Rich Valley comprising the estate of Captain Charles Taylor and others adjacent. This, it may be thought, should have satisfied the most extravagant covetousness for the acquisition of lands, but Mr. Patton was still desirous of securing more, when they, with great difficulty, crossed what are now known as Flat-top and Clinch mountains, and laid their chains upon that immense and valuable blue-grass boundary known as the Cove, and now in the possession of the Bowens, Barnes, and others in Tazewell county.
Partially satisfied for the time being, and winter warning them of its approach, Mr. Patton proposed that they should return to the Valley of Holston, and survey and locate for St. Clair the boundary for which he had stipulated. They accordingly retraced their way back across the mountains to the South Fork, where St. Clair pointed out the coveted boundary, which included all the land along the river, especially on the, south side, which is now known as St. Clair's Bottom, then covered with splendid timber, full of pure, bold springs, and abounding with cane and nutritious wild grasses.
Not long subsequent to this, Mr. Patton met in his rambles the pioneer Burk, who revealed to him the discovery he had made of that magnificent body of land ever since known as Burk's Garden, in Tazewell county. From the description given him Mr. Patton was captivated, and proposed to the discoverer if he would show it to him, and if it proved to be half as valuable as represented; he would be at all the expense of surveying, platting and entering it, and lay off such portion of it to him (Burk) as he might designate. Burk, being a poor man, readily entered into the arrangement, but the whole of the Garden, the arable portion of which coniprises some fifty thousand acres, eventually came into Patton's possession, was inheirited by a grandson bearing his name, and squandered in dissipation by the possessor, who died at twenty-eight years of age. One thousand acres in that Garden is now a fortune for a man of reasonable desires. Mr. Patton thus secured all the finest lands on the principal sources of the broad and beautiful Tennessee, and yet, although the third generation has not passed away, scarcely an