USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume I > Part 26
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95
The buck becomes dangerous each fall, at mating time, and in the spring, before the horns drop off, for all male deer shed their horns each spring. By September the prongs are replaced. Each year the male elk grows an extra prong upon his antlers. The expert may ascertain the age of the creature by count- ing the prongs. However, if the antlers should be broken off during a fight or through any accident, the broken side grows out next sea- son as a straight horn, without the usual prongs.
During their season of mating, which is about six weeks, the bucks will attack any living thing.
All gregarious animals have some way of giving alarm of danger to those of their herds. Those animals which hunt singly need no such alarm. Some animals and birds detail one or more sentinels to outguard their band or flock while they are feeding or traveling. It is understood that those on the outskirts of the herd will act in such a capacity on their own intuition, and the hunter's experience, in ap- proaching wild creatures, acquaints him with the cunning manner in which such signalling is carried out. All living creatures are gov- erned by the instincts-first, to protect them- selves; second, to get food; and third, to re- produce. Monkeys are the smartest of all ani- mals.
A lion or tiger will eat from twelve to four- teen pounds of meat a day.
( See also sketch of AAndrew Jackson Long, below. )
ANIMALS AND FIRE
Most animals are afraid of fire and will flee from it in terror. A horse in a burning stable goes mad with fear, but a dog is as cool in a fire as at any time. Ile keeps his nose down to the floor, where the air is purest, and sets himself calmly to finding his way out. Cats in fire howl piteously. They hide their faces from the light and crouch in corners. When their rescuer lifts them they are as a rule quite
docile and subdued, never biting or scratching. Birds seem to be hypnotized by fire and keep perfectly still: even the loquacious parrot in a fire has nothing to say. Cows, like dogs, do not show alarm. They are easy to lead forth, and often find their way out themselves.
FAMOUS HUNTERS IN THIS REGION
Ilunters are born. I pause here to tell the story of three professional hunters, viz., Wil- liam Long, Jack Long and George Smith.
WILLIAM LONG, a son of Louis (Ludwig) Long, was born near Reading, Berks Co., Pa., in 1794. His father and mother were Ger- mans. In the summer of 1803. Louis Long with his family moved into this wilderness and settled near Port Barnett (now the County Home). Ludwig Long's family consisted of himself, wife and eleven children, nine sons and two daughters, William, the subject of this sketch, being the second child. The Bar- netts were the only neighbors of the Longs. Louis Long brought with him a small "still" and six flintlock guns, the only kind in use at that time. It was not until about the year 1830 that the percussion-cap rifles were first used, and they were not in general use here for some years after that. They sold for twenty- five and up to forty dollars apiece. Double- barreled rifles came into use here about 1850, and sold for fifty to sixty dollars. Guns were invented by a German named Swartz, about I378. As soon as Mr. Long raised some grain he commenced to operate his "still" and man- ufacture whisky, this being the first manu- factured west of the mountains and east of the Allegheny river.
This part of Pennsylvania was the hunting grounds of the Seneca Indians-Cornplanter's tribe. The stillhouse of Long soon became the resort for these Indians. Pittsburgh was the nearest market for pelts, furs, etc., and the only place to secure flour and other neces- saries. From the mouth of Red Bank creck these goods had to be poled up to Barnett's in canoes. By scooping the channel, wading and poling, a round trip to the mouth could be made in from one to two weeks. Although the woods swarmed with Seneca Indians, as a rule, they never committed any depreda- tions.
When William was ten years old, in the summer of 1804, he killed his first deer. One morning his father sent him into the woods for the cows. Nature was resplendent with ver- dure. William carried with him a flintlock gun, and when a short distance from the house
BILL LONG The King Hunter of Northwestern Pennsylvania
ARY
Ain 1 X
5. IONS
127
JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
he found the cows and a deer feeding with them. This was William's opportunity. He shot and killed this deer, and, as a reward for merit, his father gave him a flintlock gun for a present. This circumstance determined his course in life, for from that day until his death it was his delight to roam in the forest and pursue wild animals, and hunting was his only business. He was a "professional hunter," a "still hunter," or a man who hunted alone.
In the summer of 1804 William went with his mother to Ligonier, in Westmoreland county, to get some provisions. The only road was an Indian path, the distance sixty miles. They rode through the brush on a horse, and made the trip in about five days.
The Indians soon became civilized, so far as drinking whisky and getting drunk was an evidence. They visited the stillhouse for their debauchery and drunken carnivals. As a safeguard to himself and family, Louis Long had a strong box made to keep the guns and knives of these Indians in while these orgies were in progress. The Indians desired him to do this. Mr. Long never charged the In- dians for this whisky, although they always offered pelts and furs when they were sobered up. In consideration for this generosity, the Indians, in broken English, always called Louis Long, "Good man; give Indian whisky. In- dians fight paleface; Indian come one hun- dred miles to give 'good man' warning."
Ludwig Long kept his boys busy in the sum- mer months clearing land, farming, etc. The boys had their own time in winter. Then William, with his guns and traps, traversed the forest, away from the ocean's tide, with no inlet or outlet but winding paths used by the deer when he wished to slake his thirst in the clear, sparkling waters of the North Fork.
The boy hunter, to keep from being lost while on the trail, always followed up one side of this creek and came down on the oppo- site. When he grew older he ventured farther and farther into the wilderness, but always keeping the waters of the North Fork, Mill creek, and Sandy Lick within range until he became thoroughly educated concerning the country and woods.
In his boyhood he frequently met and hunted in company with Indians. The In- dians were friendly to him on account of his father's relations to them, and it was these Indians that gave William his first lessons in the art of hunting. Young William learned the trick of calling wolves in this way. One
day his father and he went out for a deer. William soon shot a large one, and while skinning this deer they heard a pack of wolves howl. William told his father to lie down and be ready to shoot, and he would try the Indian method of "howling" or calling wolves up. His father consented, and William howled and the wolves answered. William kept up the howls and the wolves answered, coming closer and closer, until his father be- came scared ; but William wouldn't stop until the wolves got so close that he and his father had to fire on the pack, killing two, when the others took fright and ran away. The bounty for killing wolves then was eight dollars apiece. A short time after William and his father went up Sandy to watch an elklick, and at this point they killed an elk and started for home. On the way home they found where a pack of about twenty wolves had crossed their path, near where the town of Reynolds- ville now is. Looking up the hill on the right side of Sandy they espied the whole pack, and, both father and son firing into the pack, they killed two of them. William then com- menced to "howl," and one old wolf through curiosity came to the top of the hill, looking down at the hunters. For this bravery Wil- liam shot him through the head. On their re- turn home that day Joseph Barnett treated them both to whisky and "tansy." "for," said he, "the wolves this day have killed one of my cows."
When Long was still a young man, one day he went up the North Fork to hunt. About sundown he shot a deer, and when he had it dressed there came a heavy rain. Being forced to stay all night, he took the pelt and covered himself with it, and lay down under the bank to sleep. After midnight he awoke, and found himself covered with sticks and leaves. In a minute he knew this was the work of a panther hunting food for her cubs, and that she would soon return. He there- fore prepared a pitch-pine fagot. lit it, and hiding the burning fagot under the bank, awaited the coming of the panther. In a short time after the preparation was completed the animal returned with her cubs, and when she was within about thirty feet of him Long thrust his torch up and out. When it blazed up brightly the panther gave out a yell and ran away.
John Long and William started out one morning on Sandy Lick to have a bear hunt, taking with them nine dogs. William had been sent out the day before with two dogs, and had a skirmish with a bear on Sandy Lick,
128
JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
near where Fuller's Station is now located. The two brothers went to this point and found the track, and chased the bear across the creek at Rocky Bend, the bear making for a wind- fall; but the dogs stopped him before he reached the windfall and commenced the fight. They soon heard some of the dogs giv- ing death yells. They both hurried to the scene of conflict, and the sight they beheld was three favorite dogs stretched out dead and the balance fighting. William ran in and placed the muzzle of his gun against bruin's breast and fired. The bear then backed up to the root of a large hemlock, sitting upright and grabbing for dogs. John and William then fired, and both balls entered bruin's head, not more than an inch apart. In this melee three dogs were killed and the other six wounded.
When William was still a boy he went up the North Fork and killed five deer in one day. On his way home about dark he noticed a pole sticking in the hollow of a tree, and carelessly gave this pole a jerk, when he heard a noise in the hole. The moon being up, he saw a bear emerge from this tree some distance up. Young Long shot and killed it before it reached the earth. In that same fall, William killed in one day, on Mill creek, nine deer, the larg- est number he ever killed in that space of time. At that time he kept nothing but the pelts, and carried them home on his back.
Panthers often came around Ludwig Long's home at night, screaming and yelling. So one morning, after three had been prowling around the house all night, William induced his brother John to join him in a hunt for them. There was snow on the ground, and they took three dogs with them. The dogs soon found the tracks. Keeping the dogs back. they soon found three deer killed by the brutes, and they let the dogs go. The dogs . soon caught these three panthers feasting on a fourth deer and treed two of the panthers. John shot one and Billy the other. The third escaped. The hunters then camped for the night, dining on deer and panther meat roasted, and each concluded the panther meat was the sweetest and the best. In the morning they pursued the third panther, treed it, and killed it. These were the first panthers the Long boys ever killed. This stimulated young Wil- liam, so he took one of the Vastbinder boys and started out again, taking two dogs. They soon found a panther, the dogs attacking it. Young Vastbinder fired. but missed. The panther sprang for Long, but the dogs caught him by the hams, and that saved young Long. The panther broke loose from the dogs and
ran up on a high root. Long fired and broke the brute's back. The dogs then rushed in, but the panther whipped them off. Then Long, to save the dogs, ran in and toma- hawked the creature. Long was not above eighteen years of age. At another time a panther sprang from a high tree for Long. Long fired and killed the panther before it reached him, but the animal striking Long on the shoulders the weight felled him to the earth.
In 1820 Ludwig Long moved to Ohio, and young Bill went with the family. He remained there about twenty months: but finding little game, he concluded to return to the moun- tain hills of Jefferson county, then the para- dise of hunters.
In 1828 William Long married Mrs. Nancy Bartlett, formerly Miss Nancy Mason, and commenced married life in a log cabin on the North Fork, three miles from where Brookville now is, and on what is now the Albert Horn farm, formerly the Gaup place. About this time, game being plenty. and the scalps, skins and saddles being hard to carry in, Bill induced a colored man named Charlie Southerland to build a cabin near him on what is known as the Jacob Hoffman farm. Long was to provide for Charlie's family. The cabin was built and Southerland served Long for about five years. Charles never carried a gun. I remember both these characters well in my childhood, and doctored Long and his wife in my early practice and as late as 1862.
In 1830, taking Charlie, Long started up the North Fork for bears: it was on Sunday. After Long killed the first bear, he called Charlie to come and bring the dogs. When Charlie reached him he yelled out, "Good God. massa, hab you seed one?" They continued the hunt that day, and before dark had killed seven bears. Charlie had never seen any bears killed before, but after this day was crazy to be on a hunt, for, he said, "if dem little niggers of mine hab plenty of bear grease and venison, they will fatten well enough." A bear weigh- ing four hundred pounds would render fifteen gallons of oil.
That fall Long killed sixty deer and twenty- five bears, all on the North Fork, and the bears were all killed near and around where Rich- ardsville now is. This locality was a natural home for wild animals,-
With its woodland dale and dell,
Rippling brooks and hillside springs. A life in the forest deep, Where the winds their revels keep. Like an eagle in groves of pine. Long hunted with his mate.
129
JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
The day after Long shot the seven bears he took Charlie Southerland and traveled over the same ground that he had been over the day before. He heard nothing, however, dur- ing the day but the sigh of the breeze or the speech of the brook until near evening, within about a mile of home, he saw a large buck coming down the hill. He fired and wounded the buck, and then motioned Charlie to come up to him while he was loading. Charlie came with a pine log on his back. Long asked him what he was doing with the log. Charlie replied he wanted it for dry wood. Long told him to throw the wood away, and made him carry the buck home for food. Long then voked his two dogs up and told Charlie to lead them, but soon discovering bear signs, told Charlie to let the dogs go. The dogs took the trail, and found two bears heading for the laurel on the head of the North Fork. Long knew the route they would take, and beat then to the laurel path. Soon Long heard them coming, the dogs fighting the bears every time the bears would eross a log, catching them from behind. The bears would then turn around and fight the dogs until they could get over the log. When the bears came within about thirty yards of Long, he shot one through the head and killed him. At this time Long only took the pelts, which he always carried home, the meat being of no account to hin.
This same year Long took Charlie to get some venison by watching a lick, and he took Charlie up a tree with him. In a short time a very large bear came into the lick. Long shot it while he and Charlie were up the tree. Much to Long's amusement, Charlie was so scared that he fell from the tree to the ground, landing on his back with his face up. Ile was, however, unhurt, and able to carry home to his cabin the pelt and bear oil. The next morning they saw a bear. and Long fired, hit- ting him in the lungs. This same fall, on the head of the North Fork, Long saw something black in the brush, which, on closer inspection, proved to be a large she-bear. On looking up. he saw three good-sized cubs. Long climbed up, and brought the whole three of them down, one at a time. He then handed them to Charlie, who tied their legs. Long put them in his knapsack and carried them home. Knap- sacks were made out of bed ticking or can- vas, with shoulder-straps. One of these young bears Long sold to Adam George, a butcher in Brookville. Even at this late day Long only took the skins and what meat he wanted for his own use. This fall Long was not feeling
well, and had to keep out of the wet. He therefore made Charlie carry him across the streams. He also made Charlie carry a wolf- skin for him to sit on at night, when he was watching a lick.
At another time Charlie and Long went out on a hunt near the head of the North Fork. In a lonely solitude the dog started a bear, and Long could not shoot it for fear of hitting the dog, so he ran up and made a stroke at the bear's head with a tomahawk, wounding it but slightly. The bear jumped for Long and the dog came to the rescue of his master by catching "the tip of the bear's tail end," and, with the valor and fidelity of a true knight. held it firmly, until Long, who had left his gun a short distance, ran for it. Charlie thought Long was running from the bear, and took to his heels as if the "Old Harry" were after him. Long tried to stop him, but Charlie only looked back, and at this moment his foot caught under a root, throwing him about thirty feet down a hill. Charlie landed on a rock hard enough to have burst a shingle bolt. Long, seeing this, ran to the bear with his gun and shot him. He then hurried down the hill to see what had become of Charlie, calling to him. Charlie came out from under a bunch of laurel, saying, "God Almighty, Massa Long, I am falled from heben to hell! Are you still living? I tot that ar bar had gon for you when I seed him come for you with his mouth open. Bless de good Lord you still live, or this nigger would never git out of dese woods!" That night Charlie and Long lay out in the woods. The wolves came up quite close and commenced to howl. Long saw there was a chance for a little fun, so he com- menced to howl like a wolf. Charlie became nervous. "When lo! he hears on all sides. from innumerable tongues, a universal howl. and in his fright" said there must be five thousand wolves. Long said he thought there were, and toll Charlie that, if the wolves came after them, he must climb a tree. In a few minutes Long made a jump into the woods, yelling, "The wolves are coming," and Charlie bounded like a deer into the woods, too. The night was dark and dreary; but deep in the forest Charlie made out to find and climb a majestic oak. Long, therefore, had to look Charlie up, and when he got near to our col- ored brother, he heard him soliloquizing thus : "Charlie, you have to stick tight, for if this holt breaks you are a gone nigger." Long then stepped up to the tree and told Charlie the danger was over; but coming down the tree was harder than going up, for Charlie fell to
9
130
JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
the earth like a thunderbolt and doubled up like a jack-knife.
In 1833, on his way home one day, Long saw a bear at the foot of a large tree. He came up close and tried to get a shot at its head. but the bear kept moving about so that he dared not fire. . After trying for some time. he knew from the action of the bear that there were young ones near. so he bawled like a cub. when the old bear came on the run for him, with mouth open. Long waited until she came up close, when he rammed the muzzle of the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger of the gun with the thumb of his left hand. the load knocking her teeth out and breaking her jaw. She then went back to the tree and commenced walking around in a circle. As soon as Long reloaded his gun he bawled again, and the bear this time came within six- teen feet of him and sat up straight, wiping her mouth with her paws. IIe then took aim at the stalking place and killed her. Going to the tree she had been walking around and looking up, he saw two cubs. At the sight of Long these cubs commenced to crawl down ; one dropped to the ground and ran off. Long fired at the other, breaking its back. This cub then fell to the ground, and Long toma- hawked it. Knowing the other cub would not go far away, he reloaded the gun, and espied the cub under a log close by. Taking aim at its head he fired, and the cub fell dead.
This same year, on the head of the North Fork, "where rippling waters still flow," Long espied a cub bear in a treetop. He told his attendant, "Black Charlie," that there was an old bear near, or soon would be, and if the old one did not soon come back he wanted Charlie to make the cub bawl. After waiting some time for the old bear to come, Long impatiently climbed the tree, caught the cnb and gave it to Charlie, telling him to take it by the hind legs and hold it up and shake it, which would make it bawl. After some time the cub was made to bawl. The bear, hearing this, came running with her mouth open. Charlie threw the cnb to its mother, but the bear ran by the cub and stopped. looking first at Long and then at the cub. Long fired at the bear, hitting her in the breast. She then turned and ran toward the cub. After loading again he shot her through the lungs, when she started and ran some distance, and then came back to the cub, which sat still. . After firing the second shot Long heard Charlie yell, "What tidings?" Long answered him, "Good." Charlie started for the rear, saying, Long "didn't get dat nig- ger back dar again till dat brute am killed."
As she came up Long shot her in the head, killing her. Ile then got the cub and took it home alive.
At one time Long took thirteen wolf scalps and five panther scalps to Indiana for the bounty.
. Once in this year, when Long was up on the North Fork, he shot a deer, and it fell appar- ently dead ; but when he went to cut its throat it jumped to its feet and made for him, and threw him on the ground. with a horn on each side of his breast. The stone and gravel stopped the horns from going into the ground to any depth. Long then called for Charlie and the dogs, but they were slow in coming to his aid. Before Charlie got to him Long had let go of a horn with one hand and had secured his knife and made a stroke at the neck of the (leer, plunging the knife in the throat, and again dexterously clinched the loose horn. The blood came down on him until he was covered and perfectly wet. When the deer commenced to rise Long still held on both horns until the deer raised him to his feet. The deer then gave a spring and fell dead. By this time Charlie and the dogs came up, and the negro was crying. Long was angry, and said to Charlie, "You black son of a b -. where have you been?" "Oh, massa, am you killed ?" "No, damn you; where have you been?" "Oh, just came as soon as I could. Will I let the dogs go?" Long said, "No. the deer is dead."
Charlie's domestic life was not all peace, as the following newspaper advertisement will explain :
Caution .- Whereas my wife did on the 26th day of March last leave my bed and board, and took with her two of my sons and some property, having no other provocation than "that I would not consent to my son marrying a white girl, and bring her home to live with us," thereby I hereby caution all persons against harboring or trusting her on my account, as I will pay no debts of her contracting.
If she will come home I promise to do all in my power to make her comfortable, and give her an equal share of all my property.
CHARLES SOUTHERLAND.
April 7, 1847.
In the Jeffersonian in 1852 I find the fol- lowing :
"In this day's paper we record the death of Charles Southerland (colored), who was one of the oldest inhabitants of this county. South- erland had arrived at the advanced age of nearly one hundred years. He came to what is now Jefferson county upward of forty years ago, when the ground upon which Brookville
131
JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
now stands was but a howling wilderness. Many there are in this borough who will miss the familiar and friendly visits of old Charley,' who, with hat in hands, and his venerable head uncovered, asked alms at their hands. No more will they hear from him a description of the Father of his Country. when he. Charley, held his horse at the laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol at Washing- ton City. His breath is hushed, his lips are sealed, and his body is wrapped in the cold of the grave. Requiescat in pace."
When this wilderness commenced to settle up, Long visited Broken Straw creek, in War- ren county, on the head of the Allegheny river, to see a noted hunter by the name of Cotton, and to learn from him his method of hunting young wolves. He learned much from this man Cotton, and afterwards se- cured many young wolves by following the instruction given him by Cotton. In the win- ter Long went to Boon's mountain to hunt. This mountain was a barren region in those days, that always looked in wintertime like
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.