On one of these trips, accompanied by his son, Joseph B. Cheshire, Jr., he was fishing in the Watauga River. When they came to a ford, the Bishop recalled that he had an old friend, Bill Holler, living a short distance away, whom he would like very much to see. Accordingly, they walked up the road about a half mile. Pausing at the foot of a mountainside, the Bishop asked his son to climb up and tell Mr. Holler that an old friend wanted to see him, but not to mention his name. Shortly afterwards, his son returned accompanied by a little old man, with long white hair and beard and a pleasant, wrinkled face. As soon as the old man saw his visitor, his face lit up with a smile, he threw open his arms, rushed up to the Bishop, and embraced him, crying: "Lord! It's the old Bishop, the old Bishop, the old Bishop!"
The Bishop's fondness for hunting was almost as great as that for fishing. He began hunting in early boyhood but, according to his own statement, he never became a good shot. Many of his hunting companions, however, would undoubtedly contest the point. Among the people of his Diocese he was famous for his skill in wild turkey hunting. Strange as it may seem, he did not kill a wild turkey until he was sixty-four years old. Up to that time he had hunted partridges a great deal, but as he grew older, he had to give it up because it required so much walking. Hunting wild turkeys, although strenuous enough, was better suited to his years. After his first kill, scarcely a season passed that he did not bag at least one turkey. As the Bishop's enthusiasm for this sport grew, he made an interesting collection of turkey calls. They ranged from several varieties made from the wing bone of the turkey to the box type, which was usually made of cedar.
Bishop Cheshire fishing in the French Broad River, September, 1912.
Photograph by Bayard Wootten
The Parker-Cheshire House in Tarboro, birthplace of Bishop Cheshire.
The house was built by Theophilus Parker, the Bishop's grandfather.
Less than a month before his death Bishop Cheshire went turkey hunting in the Roanoke River swamp, near Scotland Neck. On this occasion, at the age of eighty-two, he killed a fine gobbler. About a week later he was to go to St. Stephen's Church, Oxford, for a visitation and planned while there to go turkey shooting with his friend, Rev. Reuben Meredith, rector of the church. His son Godfrey was to join them for the hunt on Monday. A few days before leaving home, however, he did not feel at all well and, after consulting his physician, informed his daughter, Miss Sarah Cheshire, he would give up the hunt. But by Saturday the Bishop was feeling so much better that on his way to Oxford he wrote his daughter the following letter:
"Dear Sarah:
When Godfrey comes to Oxford tomorrow have him bring my gun and the bag in which I keep my hunting clothes and turkey calls. I am going turkey hunting on Monday.
'When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be,
When the devil was well the devil a monk was he.'