| Warren County
Local History by Dallas Bogan |
| Contributor: |
Dallas Bogan on 6 September 2004 |
Source: |
The following is taken from Dallas Bogan's, The Pioneer Writings of Josiah Morrow." |
| Return to Index to see a list of other articles by Dallas Bogan |
I purpose in this article to put together some accounts I have collected concerning
the life of a hunter in southwestern Ohio. Not many of the early hunters in
Ohio were able to write out accounts of their own adventures. The facts here
given are all taken from men who engaged in the scenes they describe.
The well known fact that the meat of the earliest settlers on both sides of
the Ohio was obtained solely from wild animals, and the statement frequently
met with that the pioneers had abundance of meat, I think, have given a wrong
impression as to the ease with which game could be shot or trapped. The fact
seems to be that in the earliest period game was sometimes abundant, at other
times scarce. There are well attested facts which show that the Indians in their
villages were at times on the verge of starvation. The Indian's life was one
of extremes. At one time he would be feasting in abundance; again he would be
days without food. The Indian did not hunt for pleasure, but to obtain a living.
So the early hunters of the white race did not kill wild animals for the pleasure
of killing. Hunting was the business by which they got their livelihood, the
flesh of the wild animals furnishing good, their skins and furs being objects
of trade and barter. The hunter's life was one of constant excitement; he was
always on the lookout and often doomed to disappointment. The larger game he
often secured at the peril of his life, and sometimes he was nearly starved
to death.
Among the first white hunters on both sides of the Little Miami were men who
accompanied the early surveying parties in the capacity of guides, scouts and
hunters. One of these adventuresome men was John McDonald, of Ross county, who
in a sketch of General Nathaniel Massie has given a graphic picture of the toils
and dangers of these bands of surveyors.
Nathaniel Massie in his extensive surveys on the east side of the Little Miami
would sometimes have be- sides himself three assistant surveyors and six men
with each surveyor, that is, there would be four surveying parties, consisting
in all of twenty four men. While surveying, the hunters would go in advance
to look for game and guard against surprise by the Indians; next came the surveyor,
chain carriers and markers; next the pack- horses and the man who cooked for
the company. Sometimes they would start out with flour, but often they carried
no provisions with them and depended on their rifles for a living. In one tour
of thirty days the party had no bread.
Each man carried his own rifle, tomahawk and scalping knife. McDonald relates
that after Wayne's victory they were not interrupted by the Indians, but sometimes
suffered much for food, the hunters not being able to kill any game. On one
occasion, remembered as "the starving time," the whole party consisting
of twenty-eight men, suffered extremely in a driving snow storm for about four
days. They were in a wilderness without tents or covering and what was worse
without provisions. On the third day they killed two wild turkeys which were
boiled and divided into twenty-eight parts and devoured, heads, feet, entrails
and all.
McDonald says of Massie, the surveyor, tho had been raised in a thickly settled
country east of the mountains, when on his expeditions, he could live on bread
without meat, or on meat without bread and he perfectly cheerful and contented.
Samuel Highway with a number of men arrived at the site of Waynesville to
make the first settlement at that place on March 8, 1797. With the party was
Francis Baily, an intelligent English traveler who has described the starting
of this town in his book of travels. On the morning after the arrival four men
went on a bear hunt which is thus described by Baily:
"While the major parts were engaged in necessary employment, Dr. Bane and
myself and two of the men took our guns and a couple of axes and went bear hunting.
We had discovered marks of several in-coming along and we were now going to
see if we could shoot some of them, in order to furnish ourselves with provision.
It is easily discovered whether a tree has a hole in it, and it may also be
easily ascertained whether there is a bear in it or not, for in climbing up
the trees they scratch off the bark in such a manner as to leave an indelible
track through the whole winter, when, therefore, the hunters have found one
of the trees in which they imagine a bear to be lodged, they set about cutting
it down, which those who are used to it will very soon do, and three or four
of the party, with loaded rifles will plant themselves at a little distance
off; and in the direction where they expect the tree to fall. As soon as the
tree comes to the ground, bruin starts from his hiding place and endeavors to
flee into the woods, but the person who stands nearest to the course which he
is going to pursue, immediately aims his piece and most probably kills him;
however if he should only wound him, the bear will generally turn upon his attacker,
and, in this case, the others come to his assistance and put an end to the contest
by shooting him through the head.
"This being a new species of diversion to me, I embraced with pleasure
the opportunity of going with them to enjoy it. We had not proceeded far in
the woods ere we discovered a hole in the top of a lofty oak, whose diameter
was upward of three feet at the bottom. These immense trees are generally those
to which bears fly--in fact, no others of a smaller size could contain them
at a height of sixty or seventy feet from the ground. We saw evident traces
of his claws on the bark of the tree, and it was soon resolved that the tree
should come down. Accordingly, our two men set at it, and when they had nearly
got through we took our appointed stations to watch the egress of the tyrant
of the woods.
"In a short time, the immense trunk began to give way, and, carrying all
the lesser trees before it, fell with a tremendous crash upon the ground; bruin,
finding his habitation in motion, began to look before it reached the ground,
and, with a sudden spring, arrived there first; immediately Dr. Bane leveled
his piece and shot him through the body, but only so as to wound him, and the
bear began to turn on him. This afforded me time to come round to Dr. Bane's
assistance, when I shot the animal through the head and hurt a period to his
existence. After that we left him to our men to carry to our camp, whilst we
went to discover the haunts of some others, and in this expedition we killed
two or three deer and saw a great quantity of wild turkeys, so that we had not
prospect of extreme want whilst we were here. After this, we returned home and
received the thanks of our party for supplying them so sumptuously with provision.
This diversion I pursued as often as the weather favored almost every day I
was here."
The pioneer Methodist preacher, Rev. James B. Finley spent several years of
his life from the age of sixteen as a hunter in the region nearly midway between
the Scioto and the Little Miami. Altho he had received a good education and
had completed his studies for the practice of medicine, young Finley was so
passionately fond of life in the woods with dog and gun that his parents feared
he would go off and live with the Indians. This he did not do but he spent the
greater part of each winter for several years in hunting.
In his autobiography Finley devotes several pages to his life in the woods.
At the age of twenty (1800) he and three companions started from Chillicothe
for a winter's hunt. They took no horses and every man carried his own stock
of provisions and cooking utensils. They started with a few corn dodgers, one
camp-kettle, about a quart of salt, a blanket apiece and their hunting apparatus.
After two days travel they found signs of bears in abundance, but they were
not fresh signs. They encamped and hunted all the next day, but the leaves were
dry and they killed nothing except one wild cat. This was boiled in their camp-kettle
and was the first meal they had for two days. Finley says it was the toughest
meal he had ever ate.
A third day the party hunted without success until near dark when the dogs treed
a large raccoon which after several ineffectual shots was brought down. It was
fat; a fire was made and the flesh soon roasted and thus the party of hungry
hunters who had been three days roaming the woods with only wild cat to eat,
obtained a second meal. At night a heavy snow fell and the only way the hunters
could keep comfortable was to get their dogs to lie at their backs.
The object of the hunt was to kill bears, but these animals had gone in quest
of mast and the object of pursuit was changed to deer. On the fourth day they
were fortunate in killing a number of wild turkeys for food. The camp was moved
to the large bottoms on Paint Creek where they hunted with good success and
took home with them as many skins and furs as thy could carry.
In 1801 Mr. Finley was married and made his home in a dense wilderness in what
is now Highland county where he built a cabin three miles from his nearest neighbor.
Here he was often visited by the Indians and he made them occasional visits.
He spent the greater part of the winters in hunting and the summers in cultivating
his cleared land. The first summer he planted an acre and a half of ground.
The clearing was without a fence, and having no horse or plow he cultivated
his crop with the hoe and raised over one hundred bushels.
Bear skins were the most valuable and when mast was abundant bears were plentiful.
About Christmas he made a turkey hunt. To preserve the turkeys, they were salted
and dried. Salt at this time was sold at four dollars for fifty pounds, add
to this amount in the backwoods currency was necessary to give in exchange one
large bear skin, four buckskins or sixteen coon skins.
At this period the pioneer relied much upon skins and furs for means to obtain
the necessaries they could not raise on their lands. At the trading stations
a muskrat skin was equivalent to a quarter of a dollar; a raccoon skin to a
third of a dollar; a doe skin to half a dollar; a buck-skin to one dollar, and
a bear skin to from three to seven dollars according to its size and quality.
One year James B.Finley lost all his property by going security for one of his
neighbors. His one hundred acres of land with the improvements on it and all
his money went to pay the debt of another. He told his wife to stay at home
and he would hunt in the woods. He spent the winter chiefly in hunting bears.
At night he slept on the ground by a fire wrapped in furs. He was very successful
and records that from the proceeds of one winter's hunting he was enabled to
purchase as good a home as the one he had lost.
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This page created 6 September 2004 and last updated
28 September, 2008
© 2004 Arne H Trelvik
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