USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > History of the city of Evansville and Vanderburg County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 2
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When he gets tired of playing with them he will go to some body of water and wade around the edge till he makes one great leap into the woods
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far away from where he left his trail. Many think that the deer leaves a distinct scent with its hoofs. It does after a fashion, but the strong scent is left by two tufts of hair that grow just inside each hind leg at the knee. Deer can keep out of almost any danger from brutes.
Years ago Dr. Bacon, hunting over the country just across the Wabash and back of the camp owned now by a party of our citizens-a territory where I killed big game as late as 1878-saw, while under cover of a thicket, two deer, a large buck with spreading antlers, and a doe in full flight before two dogs, in the woods that formed part of the forest of the Hickling and Finch farms, not far from the now Charles Finch's home. The doe was accompanied by a very young fawn, which appeared quite exhausted and ready to drop. The mother deer, doubtless well aware of this, slackened her pace and presently stopped close to some thick bramble bushes. The doctor's sympathy went out to the much scared and nearly heart-broken mother.
He determined to save her fawn, even should he have to pay for the sacrificed dogs, if necessary. He fixed his gun and got ready for action. She remained some time there with lowered head as if awaiting the onset of her pursuers. Suddenly an idea seemed to strike her and with a butt of the head she tossed her fawn right in the middle of the thicket. Then first advancing as if to make sure it was well hidden-the buck had now got out of sight-she soon set off by rapid bounds in front of the dogs. The latter barking close upon her heels, she made a sudden bend to the west and thus drew them far from the spot where the incident occurred.
The howling of the dogs became fainter and fainter, the valiant animal having doubtless led them several miles away into the marshes of the Rose pond, where the dogs lost their scent, and it was learned later that they returned to their owner's home in an exhausted condition, while the intel- ligent mother doubtless returned to the bushes to find the little fawn that she had so closely hidden and placed in safety.
But why is it that Mother Nature, having given the creatures of the wild the power and the instinct to ward off danger from their natural foes, has always left some habit which man learns and of which he takes advantage? Often while seated on some old log in the deep woods I have thought of this and wondered. Even the boy, killing his first squirrel which has seen him plainly and gone around the tree on him, knows that he has only to throw a chunk into the bushes on the other side of the tree and the squir- rel will forget him and dart back from the new danger.
But to return to still hunting, the only sport. The man who "hounds" is to me only a butcher. The still hunter matches his ears, his eyesight and his knowledge of woodcraft against that of the deer. He goes out in the early morning, after a heavy dew or rain, for if the leaves are dry he might as well stay at home. Arriving at a good place he stands still and lis- tens and looks. He is not misled by the jumping of a squirrel on a tree,
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or the alighting of a bird on a bush. He is looking for a brown patch that moves at intervals.
Soon he locates one and looking to see that it is the twitching ear of a deer, he sinks slowly to the ground till he looks over the lay of the land. A city man might look a year at the exact place and never see it, but the eye of the old-time hunter was wonderful.
Now here is where Nature made her mistake in the deer. As long as it is browsing on the ground, nothing moves but its lips. Its tail is down and the ears are laid back. But, just before it intends raising its head to look for danger, it wiggles its tail. After looking around on every side it wiggles it again just before it puts down its head. Thus the hunter has a sure barometer. His settling and watching is to be certain to know when the deer is feeding and when looking.
As soon as this is done he rises, and while the head is down he glides rapidly from tree to tree. This is called "stalking." At the first wiggle of the tail he stands like a statue no matter if in an open place, for the deer fears only moving objects, and as long as he stands quiet takes him for an old stump.
Soon he is in range, and if a good shot holds at the "edge of the white" just behind the shoulder. This sends the bullet through the heart. Again Nature helps him. If the deer bounds off with its tail high in the air, he has made a clean miss, but if the tail is clumped down, he has only to fol- low the bloody trail and he will find a dead deer.
Strangely, the bullet invariably cuts out a little round patch of skin and hair, which drops. To show how true this is I may be excused for relating a little incident.
While hid in a thicket watching for turkeys a big doe ran past. I heard her snort and run before I saw her and figured just where she would pass. I had a clean shot and saw her tail go down and clump and knew I had her. So I sat and waited for my partner who was to meet me if I shot. Soon he came up with, "How did you miss that big doe?" "I didn't," I replied. "Why," said he, "I saw her go across that prairie head-like a race horse." "Did you notice her tail?" "No, I was too far off." "Well, let me con- vince you then," and I rose from the log for the first time, for it is always well to keep quiet after a shot. (Another deer may come along, as hap- pened one day when I shot a doe and without ever moving except to throw in another shell got a fine buck that was trailing her. If I had moved he would have run back long before I even saw him.)
But to return. I first showed him where all of a sudden all her feet fairly dug into the earth. That was when she was hit. Then we hunted till we found the patch. We found the deer in the brush just across the prairie, stone dead. The bullet broke a rib, cut a V out of her heart down low and smashed a rib on the other side. It fell out all mushroomed, when we hung her up and drew her. I held a fraction too low, and that was, why she was able to run.
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It is useless to speak of shooting deer at the salt licks. No hunter who had any self-respect would do it, for it would stamp him as a man too lazy or not smart enough to still hunt. To kill at a "lick" the hunter simply made a place in a tree where he could stretch comfortably and wait for the deer to come to lick at the salt earth. There is no telling how many have been killed at the old salt well in Cooks Park. I saw a fine buck near there in 1858, but I think it had strayed over from the Wabash country. I had only quail shot in a single barrelled gun and could not have killed it, so did not shoot.
In mentioning the fact that the buffalo did not stay in great quantities in the state of Indiana, it must not be assumed that great bands of them were not seen at various times, and the fact that the early settlers never went far west from where they decided to locate led them to believe that the buffaloes they saw made this their home, but this is not a fact and for the reasons that I have given. They could not exist in the northern part of the state, for that would be out of their latitude but they passed through Southern Indiana without doubt and in great quantities. A recent writer in treating of the old days of Indiana, speaks of a buffalo trace. This is a misnomer. There is no such thing as a buffalo trace. I was west during the last days of the buffalo and was daily with men who had hunted them for years and never heard the word trace used. In fact, it was always the word trail. They would speak of the Mexican trail or Santa Fe trail and the Texas trail, but each and every one was the same. And again he speaks of a beaten path wide enough for a wagon road. It is with no wish to criticise him that I must correct him in this. A buffalo trail consists of a great number of little paths no wider than the ordinary cattle would make. These diverge and converge in and out. Sometimes they wandered out into the prairie as if starting in some different direction, but they soon turned back into the old trail. There is nothing I ever saw as peculiar as one of these big trails. Just this side of Fort Morgan, Kansas, was one of the largest trails in the west. It was dotted on every side with buffalo wallows and as far as the eye could reach these green spots in the prairie could be seen. They were of course on both sides of the trail as the buffalo, when wanting to make a wallow, always wandered out from the main trail. Al- though no buffaloes had passed there for several years, the prairie dirt was so beaten down that when I tried it with my knife, it was almost like picking stone.
To return to the wallows. The writer to whom I refer speaks of them and gives their appearance as the reason for the plentifulness of buffaloes in the early days and mentions some of them as the "mud-holes." In these wallows which existed in the west for years after the buffalo were all gone, the grass was very green and much stronger than anywhere else and as they are soon to be a thing of the past and will never be seen by coming generations, having gone out of existence with the wiping out of the buffaloes, a description will be interesting.
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In hot weather, buffaloes suffered very much from the heat and also from the flies and gnats. This country formerly was full of these pests and so plentiful were they that deer have been known to come near the fires where settlers were clearing their ground, and stand in the smoke to rid themselves of these pests. In fact, it was no unusual thing when a farmer wanted venison, to step out to one side of his burning log heaps and watch for a good fat doe to come up. In spite of the thick hide of the buffalo, they suffered from these insects and these wallows are the result of their attempt to defend themselves from them. As a herd would be going along, a big buffalo bull would spy a little green spot possibly near the bank of some stream and his instinct would tell him that there was water underneath. Naturally one would ask "Why didn't they go into the water to rid themselves of the flies and gnats?" but it was not water they wanted, as will be seen. The big bull would go to this little spot perhaps not larger than a foot across, and dropping on his knees, would commence goring the sides with his short but very strong horns, working himself round and around as a hog would. As he made his hole, the water would come in and he would keep digging and digging until he had the hole al- most twice as large as himself and then he would wallow in it exactly as a common hog does in a mud hole and when he came out his whole hide would be covered with a mass of mud which would soon dry and which made his skin impervious to insects. All this time the rest of the herd would stand around and if the spot was at all swampy, other wallows would be made but the second bull in the herd, and by this I mean the one nearest in strength to the one which was always the leader, would step right into the original wallow and take his bath in turn. There was no chivalry in this matter at all. The buffaloes measured everything by strength. The bulls took their turns and the poor cows had to wait and often a whole afternoon or almost a day would be spent by these animals in plastering themselves with the mud and they would then go along their trail in a direc- tion which their instinct had always marked out before. At times these trails turned away to the salt licks but they were always from east to west and the buffaloes that passed through here were always on their road to that great west in which they naturally found their proper surroundings. Mr. Wilson in his well-written book on Dubois County, says that in that county the presence of the buffalo was only transient, that he was seen going or coming and then not later than 1808. He also says that toward the close of the 18th century, a very cold winter, which continued several months, froze all vegetables, starved the animals and the herds never re- gained their loss. I think this bears out my idea that buffaloes only used this state and only the southern part of it, for a passage way and the trails which crossed the river at Louisville and at Big Bone lake and the Blue lakes in Kentucky, were simply on their road to the far west. My only reason for giving so much space to this is that the buffalo is and will always continue on the state seal and as it is now wiped out of existence by merci-
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less skin hunters, anything pertaining to the animal which once roamed this continent in countless millions may be interesting to the reader of the present day.
To this day when wild game and "varmints" are almost unknown in this section, there are still many who love fox hunting and enjoy it on every occasion. At the little town of Poseyville, and near there, are many good hounds and during the proper season fox hunting is a regular thing but they are very scarce now and this is one reason why Posey County is so full of good poultry, for of all enemies of chickens, with the exception of perhaps the weasel, there is no such enemy as the fox. In the old days everybody had among their dogs, a few good hounds. Nearly all of these were brought from North to South Carolina by the pioneer settlers. They could run anything and seemed to know by instinct whether it was foxes that were wanted or deer. But as a rule, each neighborhood had two or three dogs that were trained to hunt foxes alone. It was no unusual thing for a little party to get together and arrange for a fox hunt and certain dogs would be selected and the rest tied up. It was no trouble to start a fox almost anywhere, for the country was alive with them and once started, the wildest kind of fun began. As labor was very scarce, most of the fences which were made of rails, were very low. Just high enough to keep out stock; and the hunters had no trouble in the excitement of the chase in jumping their horses right over them, but if they came to a high fence they immediately tore down one section and went through, never stopping to put it back in place and no farmer ever complained at this, for he might do the same thing for a neighbor on the very next day. But so much of this was done that at last the farmers joined together and even the fox hunters with them, and the trespass law was enacted. It will be news to many to know that this was what first started it. The fox has been known to go 20 miles during one night. Of course not in the same direc- tion, but circling or "doubling" as they called it. In those days, the treas- urers of the various counties paid 50c. each for all fox scalps that had both ears attached, that were brought to the court house. The majority of the foxes were red, but there were a few grey foxes in this country and their hides were of much greater value than the red. The old fox hunters claimed that a common fox could make a mile in two minutes and 20 sec- onds and a fox hound in two minutes and 40 seconds. This would seem to make the hunt a very long one, but it was simply a case of condition. The fox might have been jumped up just after having eaten a hearty sup- per on some stolen pullet or wild duck, while the hound in the old days was always so lean that every rib showed. After the trespass law went into effect and to save time and trouble the farmers built fences which were called "horse high, pig tight and bull strong." These were of course the very best rail fences that could be made. But each farmer had to make his own for his little settlement was sometimes miles away from that of the nearest neighbor. As we look today over some of these beautiful farming lands,
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
rolling for miles, the only fence along the road and sometimes not even there, because the stock law is rigidly enforced, it is hard to realize how these little farms used to look when every little squared spot had to have a high fence around it.
WILD BEES.
It can easily be understood that where sugar was almost an unknown quantity, and was only brought in as a rule by the hardy men who flat- boated to New Orleans, who brought back "brown sugar," a sugar-house molasses, wild honey was one of the housewife's treasures.
There are many who claim that wild bees did not appear till after the ad- vent of the first settlers here. This is all folly for, no matter what else they brought, no settler ever brought with him a "bee gum," (so called from the fact that they usually used hollow gum stumps, sawed off for the hives of their tame bees). Yet the tame bee loves to roam, and I do not doubt that thousands of bee trees along Green River owe their colonies to little bands of tame bees that started from the big bee house on the Weeler farm near its mouth.
Bee hunting required a keen eye. Many were found by the hunter who happened to see a bee as it passed by. Its home flight, to the hive, was always a straight one, and he would follow as far as possible and then getting on the shady side, watch for another, and take up its flight and so on till he reached the tree that held the store. If he started out with bee hunting in view he simply took a little honey or molasses, or anything sweet, and after placing it in a good open spot, would wait till a bee came. He would then take up the flight as before explained.
His first thing was to put his mark on the tree, and that mark was sa- cred, just as would be the mark of his cattle or hogs, for men were honest in those days. A marked tree was usually held at one dollar and the finder often sold without the trouble of ever looking up the quantity or quality of the honey contained in it. Of course the finder of a tree soon decided whether or not the colony was strong. If few bees were flying, it was a young colony and he left it till next year. But one could never tell. In my young days I helped fell a big bee tree that contained an enormous colony, but it was so old that the hollow or crack was filled with old comb, and we didn't get enough good honey out of it to pay for the long work of cutting. In fact I think we traded all we got to an old colored auntie for a good meal, and it was one to remember-chicken, sweet potatoes and hoe cake, but cooked as only those old slave women could cook.
WILD HOGS.
Southern Indiana was a very paradise for wild hogs and soon after Evansville was settled the woods back of here were full of them. Those who know how prolific the hog is can easily understand that when an old
GENERAL AND MRS. ROBERT MORGAN EVANS
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sow "went wild," in other words strayed so often that she did not care to come home and had her litters in the dense woods, there was soon plenty of wild pork. One can hardly believe that this country was once so full of nuts or "mast." There were so many nuts that all the animals that loved them and all the wild hogs could hardly make an impression on them and untold millions of bushels went to waste every year. Of course the original founder (or founders) of each drove was marked with the mark of her owner, and the drove stayed on their range near the home place, but they were as wild as any wild animal. Every farmer had his mark, which was duly registered on the books of the county after this fashion :
John Jones. Slit in right ear.
Wm. Jones. Slit in left ear. Crop on right.
Wm. Wilson. Crop on right, underbit on left.
Thos. Perkins. Crop on right, and underbit on same.
John White. Cattle. Crop on right. Crop on left. ¥ Hogs. Same, and tail cut off.
These marks were generally respected, as I have said. It is not so long ago that when pork was brought into this city, the question would be asked, "What is it? Corn fed or mast fed?" But the settlers only turned to pork after the bears were all gone. While pork is called a "sweet" meat, it is not to be compared to that of the bear. Bear meat was more easily kept, needed less salt and when cured was regarded superior to the best corn-fed pork. Bear oil was also much richer than hog's lard.
The undergrowth was so dense that about the only time a farmer could kill his wild hogs was after a good tracking snow. Then he would take his sons who were large enough to handle a gun or help in any way, and his cur dogs and start out and soon track down a drove.
The best shoats were then killed but there was constant danger from the old boars. These old fellows with their great tusks that would rip open a dog, or slash a man's leg, were always to be feared. They were the most vicious animals that roamed the woods for all wild animals would sneak away when they had a chance, but the boars would come right into the open to fight. They really knew no fear as many a man can testify. I once had a narrow escape from one. He was in a "bed," hid by tangled vines that grew all around the upturned roots of an enormous tree that had blown down. I had slipped noiselessly up and was just thinking "what a good place for a bear," when I heard a slight rustle. I had two heavy deer loads and both hammers cocked, and whirled around just as I heard a heavy animal rush out. All I could see was a great black body, and I took a snap shot, not ten feet away, at where I knew the head must be.
I heard a fall and a continued struggling, but I slipped in another shell and waited till all was quiet. Then I gave the "call" yell for my hunting partner, and he came to me and we took our big hunting knives and cau- tiously went into the tangled mass. It was an enormous black boar with not an ear mark on him, and the whole load had gone right into his neck,
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one of the buckshot having broken it. When I saw that wicked head and those great tusks I realized what an escape I had had, for if I had missed him or had not hit him in the right place, he would have cut me to pieces.
Another time I was still hunting and saw a drove coming. I stood very still hoping they would pass by, but they saw me and started slowly forward. . Some good Samaritan had sawed a tree high up-probably to get past some bad knots near the base, and I blessed him as I made a run for it and quickly clambered up. Here I stayed for fully two hours, while the herd walked around and around that stump champing their teeth till great clots of foam hung from their mouths. And what made me hot was that even the young ones only a third grown were just as bad as the old ones. Some- one will say, "Why didn't you shoot?" The answer is, "Because I didn't want to stay on that stump all night."
One shot and one squealing hog and the rest would have spent the night and perhaps all next day trying to get at me. When they finally, find- ing me so still, trailed off, I made a bee line for camp, only too glad to get away.
But these wild hogs were of great value in ridding this country of rattlesnakes. While a deer would kill any rattlesnake that it found coiled up, by jumping into its coil and spreading its four feet like a flash, thus cutting it to pieces, the hogs would keep after them all the time. Any kind of a snake was fair prey for the hogs, and they were immune from poison. Many a hunter has seen fights between wild hogs and rattlesnakes in which the latter always fell victims and were eaten up by the victors.
But wild hog was never considered a very satisfying dish by our pio- neers. At various times the younger wild hogs were caught by the dogs and brought to the clearings where they were penned up and fed corn in order to try to do away with the "wild" taste of the meat. But most of these attempts were unsuccessful. The young porkers seemed to have inherited a natural wildness and would gnaw at their frail pens till they got out. Many of them would actually refuse food, or take so little that they would never grow fat. The old term razor-back applied to these wild hogs. There are many of them in the woods of the south to this day.
BEARS.
How often have we heard that old old story told to the children "and a big bear came and ate him up." As other game has been spoken of so freely, the bear-not a ferocious wild beast, but a good article of food- ought to have his share.
Out west they have the grizzly, silver-tip and cinnamon bear, but in this country the only bear was the black bear. Black and glossy in winter when his fur was in condition, and a dirty brown in summer.
He was one of the most inoffensive of animals. Give him wild honey, roasting ears and plenty of berries and he would never go near a settle- ment. When hungry in winter he might carry off a shoat or a lamb, or, if
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURG COUNTY
he found a small child alone in the woods, he might take it, not knowing what it was.
Give him a chance and he would slink into the undergrowth and paddle away as fast as possible. Even when wounded, he would still try to get away. A crippled bear was not as bad as a crippled deer, for there are two instances of where bucks have been hit, and ran awhile and then came back to fight. Near Newberg one jumped into the road and gored two oxen in a wagon very badly, and though there were three men in the wagon they could not beat it off till it had done much damage.
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