I will state that I began my career as a trapper and hunter at a very early age. The woods extended to the very door of my father's house and deer were more numerous than sheep in the fields at the present day. Bear were also quite plentiful and wolves were to be found in considerable numbers in certain localities. Panthers were much talked of and occasionally one would be killed by some hunter or trapper of which I will speak later.
It was not long before I found my way further up the stream into the woods where mink and coon tracks were in real paths, and here was where father taught me how to make the deadfall, which was the trap principally used in those days.
The guns that father had were one double barrel shotgun and a single barrel rifle, both flintlocks, and with much anxiety I watched those guns and begged of the older members of the family to let me shoot the gun but mother was ever on the watch to see that I was not allowed to handle the guns.
About this time a man moved into the place by the name of Abbott from Schuylkill County, Pa., who brought two guns with him, a double barrel shotgun and a double barrel rifle. After doing some hard begging Mr. Abbott said that I could take the shotgun but that he could not furnish the ammunition. I later thought that Mr. Abbott thought that the problem of getting ammunition would put me up the tree. But again the will was good and I soon found a way. I began to watch the hen's nests pretty close and hide away the eggs and mother began to complain that the hens were not laying as many eggs as usual. Well, three dozen of eggs would get a pound of shot, a fourth of a pound of powder and a box of G. D. gun caps.
I had some fine times out with the gun and I always gave Mr. Abbott whatever game I killed. I did not dare to take it home fearing that I would be compelled to explain how I came by the game. One day I had been out after wild pigeons and had got quite a number or more than I liked to give away and go without ourselves. I thought I would resort to one of those white lies that we have all heard tell of. I told my parents that Mr. Abbott gave me the pigeons but the plan did not work, although it was the making of me so far as a gun is concerned.
When father inquired of Mr. Abbott as to how I got the pigeons it brought out the whole thing as to the gun business and also why the egg basket had not filled up as usual. The result was that father and mother held a council of war and decided that if I was to have a gun the better way was to let me have one of my own. Father told me that I must not borrow a gun any more but take one of our own guns and that he (father) would take the gun to the gunsmith and have the locks changed from a flint lock to a cap lock.
You may be sure that this was the best news that this kid ever heard. I picked up double the usual stone piles that day and went and got the cows without being told a half dozen times.
Well, as every hunter and trapper who is born and not made is always looking for taller timber and trying to get farther and farther from the ting-tong of the cow bells, so it was in my case. I had seen some whelp wolves that friends of ours (Harris and Leroy Lyman, who were noted hunters) had got. They had gone onto the waters of the Sinnemahoning and taken five pup wolves not much larger than kittens, from their den. The puppies were brought out alive but they killed the old mother wolf. On their way home they stopped at our house so that we could see the young wolves.
I heard these hunters tell how they discovered the wolf den; how they had howled in imitation of a wolf to call the old wolves up; how they had shot the old female and had then taken the young wolves from the den; heard them tell of the money that the bounty on wolves would bring them (there was $25 bounty on all wolves then, the same as now). All of this made me long for the day when I would be old enough to do as these noted hunters had done.
I had already found a den of young foxes and had kept five of them alive, which father finally killed all but one because he said they were a nuisance. I had seen some Indians bring a live elk in with ropes, dogs and horses, which they had roped in, after the dogs had brought it to bay, on a large rock on Tombs Run (Waters of Pine Creek).