Copyright © 1997 Property of Deborah K. Fletcher for Zoa Townsend Fletcher. All rights reserved.
We used to love to hear Gramp tell his bear story. It usually began with his not being able to find thirteen of the steer in the back pasture. So he and Ed Sylvester set out before daylight one day from Townsend Hill over Beaver Meadsows towards Michigan in search of the cattle. It was late fall, and the first snow had fallen leaving six inches. They had travelled for hours when, as they looked down from the top of a hill through the hardwood timber, Dad saw two black objects against the white snow; he called this to Ed's attention. The men walked silently down the snow covered mountain and sure enough, they could make out two yearling bears, one with its head way in the snow digging for beech nuts; the other was scratching the bark on the tree. Their backs were towards the men and because the wind was in the men's faces, the bears were unable to pick up their scent, and they had not heard their approach.
Father grabbed his hat and ran toward the bears, waving his hat in the air, yelling and hollering. The bears shot up the tree like lightning, having been taken completely by surprise.
Gramp yelled and slapped and slashed the tree with his hat, and the bears at first went round and round the tree. He could just barely hit the hind leg of one of the bears with his hat. The bears made a sort of a hissing sound as Gramp slapped past them, and he could see their red mouths as they showed their teeth.
Gramp didn't even have a jack knife with him. He borrowed Ed's and cut down a young moose wood tree, and with this he went at the bears in earnest, driving them further up the large beech tree. Gramp and Ed then held a conference. Gramp wanted Ed to go back and get a gun, but Ed didn't want to, and neither did he want to stay, for fear that the bears would drop down onto him, or that the old mother bear might return, while Gramp went for a gun. Ed also feared that he might not be able to find his way back over the mountain. Gramp then insisted on Ed's taking his choice, and with this Ed decided to return for the gun. In trying to take a short cut, he did get lost, and it was quite late when he reached the Severon farm. He related the story to Mr. Severon, and Mr. Severon sent his two boys further on to Townsend Hill for the gun. Then the two men took axes and started back to find Gramp.
When the two boys reached the house, they found the gun, but they could not find any bullets. They grabbed lead pipe and a skillet to run the bullets, and with caps and powder, they started on the run and caught up with Ed and Mr. Severon.
When they found Gramp again, the bears were way up near the top of the tall beech tree, and they had crawled out onto big limbs. Their bodies were stretched out so long that they looked all neck as they occasionally peered over the branch to look down below.
Gramp had spent four or five hours alone with the two bears. He said at first they were just out of reach of the small tree when he slapped and lashed it on the beech tree, but after a while the bears went clear to the top. Gramp said a man walking through he woods would never have noticed them.
With caps and powder, the men ran the bullets. The lead pipe was cut in two inch chunks with the axe, and they folded it over, pounded it together and wound the slugs with cloth and rammed it down the barrel. They shot each bear twice. The bears clung to the branches for what seemed a long time after they were shot, even hanging by one paw before they fell to the ground. One of the bears made a little sniffing noise as he came down.
The men snaked the bears home. The heaviest one weighed 110 pounds; both were very thin. The bullets had gone nearly through the animals' bodies, and had lodged in the hide on the other side where the lead bullet was found all flattened out.
Later Gramp said that while he had been keeping the bears up in the tree, he had heard noises off in the woods, but at the time he thought it was snow falling from the trees. The next day, some old hunters, Ame Johnson, and Colton with dogs and guns, went with Gramp back to the place where the bears had been treed and shot; they found nearby tracks that a large bear had made as it travelled round and round in a big circle!
They followed the tracks the bear had made; these led the men over the mountain toward Chittenden, but they never found the big bear.
Gramp received $30 bounty for the bears.
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