Experience With a Panther

INTERESTING SKETCH
Experience With a Panther

Ironton Register, August 9, 1888.

(The following sketch was prepared by Mr. W. B. G. Hatcher for Mr. John Campbell to keep the facts from being lost. Mr. Campbell kindly allows us to publish the sketch – Editor Register.)

“Israel’s Place, Coal Grove, Lawrence County, Ohio, August 1st, 1888 – Hon. John Campbell, Ironton, Ohio

Dear Sir:

Nearly twenty years have elapsed since I promised you a biographical sketch of my mother, whose age is nearing her four score years and ten, and I now propose to fulfill that promise and some additional information.

Nathaniel Melvin, of English descent, married Miss Anna Foster of the city of Boston, Massachusetts, about 1760, and some time afterward settled near Cambridge, Lamville County, Vermont.

To them were born four sons and two daughters – Moses, Nathaniel, Jonathan, and Theodore, Ann and Ascenath – one of whom married Levi Whipple, who, it will be seen by the records of original surveys of the Northwest Territory, was Deputy Surveyor General, and surveyed all the townships and divided them into nine square sections in this county, except three – Windsor, Aid, and Decatur.

After Mr. Whipple had received his appointment as Surveyor General of this, then the Northwest Territory, he organized a party of several men to come out with him as assistants. Among them were his two brothers-in-law, Nathaniel and Jonathan Melvin. After starting here to work, and while passing to windward of a small town in western New York, where the citizens were cleaning and burning old infected clothing, Jonathan Melvin caught smallpox and, in a few days, was compelled to stop where he could be cared for. The others of the party continued on their journey and landed at a point where Proctorville, in this county, now stands, September 1798, where they began work.

After Jonathan Melvin had recovered from smallpox, he continued his journey to Marietta, Ohio, where some officials informed him where his party had gone to work. He immediately continued his journey to that vicinity. After a long search, he was unable to find them and returned to Marietta, Ohio, where he engaged to work at his cooper trade. After working there, he married Miss Nancy Anne Broome, daughter of John Broome, who had come from Maryland and settled in that vicinity.

To them were born their two children – Nathan, born in 1799, and Sarah, the subject of this sketch, on May 6th, 1802. In this year, Jonathan Melvin removed his family to Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, and not finding wages as remunerative as he had expected, he purchased a pirogue boat, something like a large canoe, and placed his family and household goods in it. March 1804, and cordelled his way back, intending to go to Marietta again.

While on his way between Storms and Ice Creek in April of that year, it rained a brisk shower and wet them and their things in the boat, and when they reached this point, now known as Israel’s Place, in the afternoon, they determined to stop and dry their clothing, and for that purpose went out on the shore on what was known as a second bank, just below the mouth of the run below the Israel residence, and built an open camp of logs and bark and spread their things around a fire to dry as best they could. Soon, night came on.

Sarah, then nearly two years old, still nursed and, toward evening, became fretful and cried to go home until she fell asleep. Mr. and Mrs. Melvin arranged for the night by putting a bed on some bark and leaves in the camp near the fire and had set a barrel close by to put some things on to dry. They had one large, white, spotted female dog with them, and she lay outside the camp.

About midnight, when the ashes had covered their fire, a panther slipped in and caught Sarah, who was sleeping on her mother’s arm, next to where the fire had been, the lower teeth in her shoulder and the upper teeth near the top of her head. Fortunately, the teeth curved so as not to penetrate her skull, and in turning around to get out, it struck Sarah against the barrel and tore its hold loose. At the same time, her mother jumped and screamed, her father rose instantly, the dog jumped into camp, caught the panther, which was compelled to slap the dog away to get out, and in the commotion saw some fire, leaped out and up a little tree in front of the camp.

Mr. Melvin threw fire at it, and it jumped down on the ground. The dog caught it, but one slap from the panther’s paw set it at liberty again, and it ran up on the ledge of rocks nearby and gave such wild, vicious screams and growls that Mr. Melvin and his wife thought it best for them to leave at once, which they did, leaving everything but the dog.

They dropped down in their boat to a house that had been recently built near where Union Landing now is. There they stayed till morning when Mr. Melvin crossed the river and went out into the bottom where Col. Lindsay Poage had two hundred slaves clearing land. Mr. Melvin told him what had occurred that night and that he would like to stay there, for a while at least, as there were many nice cedar trees along the bluff hills, out of which he could make nice woodwork.

Accordingly, Col. Poage sent two of his slaves, who were good hunters, with hunting guns, knives, axes, etc., and two large trained hunting dogs, with Mr. Melvin, and that day helped him make what is known now as a good wood-chopper shanty, at that place, getting done near sundown.

The slaves said that as the panther had been disappointed in getting his prey the night before, it would more than likely come back that night to try again, so they started up the run toward Ice Creek, moving cautiously along. When at or near the base of the hill where the road now ascends and where there are some short turns around low points of hills, they saw at a distance a large panther coming leisurely down an animal path.

They waited, with their dogs by them, until it came within scenting distance and near the ravine; then they let their dogs go, which soon put it up a tree nearby. Both slaves took positions with their guns and fired by signal, both balls passing through the panther’s brain. It fell instantly but had sufficient strength to tear the entrails from one of the dogs and came near killing the other. The slaves then tied the panther’s feet together and swung it on a pole, carried it down to the shanty, measured it, and found it to be eleven feet from tip to tip.

Now, Mr. Campbell, if you or any other person doubts this statement, go up to the old home farm of Charles Hatcher (whom she afterward married), one mile east of Sheridan Coal Works, on Lick Creek, Lawrence County, Ohio, and see the scars yourself on Mrs. Hatcher’s right shoulder and right side of the crown of her head, which it is supposed was made by that panther and which shows as long and plain as your thumb today.

Wm. B. G. Hatcher, Her Son.”