BEAR HUNTING
Luke Kelley’s Reminiscences #2
Submitted by Bob Davisson
Ironton Register August 3, 1854
John Kelley was raised on the frontiers and, at quite an early age, became an expert in rifle use. We have before mentioned that he paid for a large portion of the 670 acres of land entered at the homestead of himself and his father, with money earned by hunting.
The skins of animals he killed he used to sell to traders upon the river; for several years, at a very early day ____?____ Folsom, the father of Captain Sam and J. S. Folsom, took the skins at this trading boat. Mr. Kelley says that he has earned as high as $20 for skins of wild animals killed by himself alone in one day, that he frequently made $10 a day by hunting, and says he: “If I made less than $2 in a day I looked very sour.”
Bears, buffaloes, wolves, panthers, deer, turkey, etc., were plenty in this region at the coming of Mr. Kelley. For several years he killed 20 or more bears every Fall, besides buffaloes, wolves, panthers, deer, turkeys, etc. In the fall of 1799, he built a crib near where Lawrence Furnace now stands, which he filled with the meat of bears and buffaloes, dried, and packed it home on horses at convenience. We will give but one of Mr. Kelley’s bear, buffalo, and painter (panther) stories.
There was “a large she-painter” that for several years committed depredations on the small stock of this neighborhood, and being “an old un,” “a knowing un,” managed for a long time to elude pursuit. At last, “the sharp eyes of John Kelley” get a sight of her, and his “trusty rifle” soon brought her to the ground–on the hill just below Ironton. He caught her two young ones, killed one, and petted the other, which, as it grew up, became very mischievous, killed the chickens, etc., and in turn, had to be killed.
One Fall, close by Pine Grove Furnace, Mr. Kelley says he killed a “monster bear,” the meat of which when baconed weighed over 300 lbs. and, said Mr. Kelley, “after it was wholly shrunk by becoming the meat measured seven inches thick, by an English rule, and Daniel Boone, who then lived above Greenupsburg, said it was thicker by an inch than any bear meat he ever saw.” Part of this meat was sold to a boat passing down the river for $10, at a sixpence (8 1/2 cents) per pound.
The part of the bear baconed was the fat; the lean bacon became dry, tough and unfit for use. The mode of proceeding was this. After the bear was killed, he was cut open, and the insides were removed.
The meat was then split down the backbone to the skin, and the carcass was thrown across a pole on crotches, the back of the skin lying on the pole in the direction of the slit in the meat so that half of the bear would hang on each side of the pole. Then the ribs, together with the lean part of the meat, were taken off, leaving the fat part cleaving next to the skin, which in turn was shaved off, leaving the skin hanging on the pole–a curious way of skinning a bear, we should think. This fat part baconed, measured 7 inches thick, in Mr. Kelley’s monster bear.
THE LAST BUFFALO WAS KILLED IN OHIO. In 1851, Professor Mather, in the Western Agriculturalist, said:
“In 1843, an old hunter of Jackson county, Mr. George Willis, told us that he saw the last Buffalo killed within the limits of this State. He was shot by a hunter named Keenes, near the headwaters of Symmes creek, in the year 1802.”
Mr. Kelley says this is a mistake as he shot the last buffalo killed in Ohio in 1803, the next year after Keenes killed his buffalo. Let Mr. Kelley tell his own story:
“I was hunting and came upon the buffalo on the waters of Storms creek, above where Vesuvius Furnace now is. He was a monstrous large buffalo. The place for shooting a buffalo is just behind the shoulders, but I shot this one too far back so that it didn’t kill him right off, although I saw that he was so badly hurt that he would soon die, and he stood pawing and bellowing at the dogs.
I loaded my gun again and, out of curiosity, aimed another shot square at his face, which only caused him to shake his head, but made him mad, and he broke right at me, but I dodged behind a tree, and he struck off, right ahead, in a beeline.
I followed on as fast as I could with the dogs. He ran about two miles before he fell; in the last part of the distance, he began to stagger like a drunken man; he would lean up against a tree or sapling and move on slowly; finally, down he fell, all at once, dead–he never kicked after he fell. I then skinned him, laid his skin up across some sticks on a tree, and went home.
The next day I took out a horse and packed his skin home. That was a monster in the size you may know from this: Out of his hide, I cut eleven pairs of traces and two-bed cords and had some large scraps left. Judge Davisson, my brother-in-law, and Josiah Lambert, my wife’s father, had some traces. They lasted in our families for many years.”
I shall continue these sketches next week.
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