Thursday, December 17, 1964
Bears
Lame Paw
Charles Sheets had saved the story of Lame Paw and asked us to reprint it. After several years we here print the first part of the story of the famous bear hunt of 1924.
Five years ago they got one toe, and last Thursday, June 5, 1924, they went back and collected the remainder of the Scourge of Elk River, a big black bear that has needed killing for a long time.
He may have been a good bear in his time but mutton was his curse, and by the time that he had killed this spring alone fifteen sheep for W. E. Poage, and forbore to leave the vicinity, the neighborhood rose up, took a day off and exterminated Lame Paw, the Outlaw.
Bears have no recorded land titles. They take up a range and hold it as long as they can. They hold it for their own use and benefit, all the sundry nuts, berries, nettles, grubs, worms, ants, honey, fish, flesh, and fowl, and when their holdings lie far back in the woods they have no particular trouble with mankind. But on the edge of the wilderness where the only enemy they fear has cleared and fenced all the delectable lands, they are only taken over by the oldest, boldest, biggest and wisest bears.
These bears become well known and they become the object of the farmers’ wrath, for they develop into sheep stealers and they work at night. Strychnine that accounted for the wolves and the panthers is no good against bears for bears are not carnivorous animals, and strychnine does not greatly discommode them. Either they are able to detect it or they assimilate it without the deadly effect that this poison has on all strictly meat eating animals.
The edges of the forest afford the best range for bears and when one takes to using them he becomes a very unpopular member of the community. In some states the bear is protected by the game laws, and it almost causes the mountain farmer, who is being preyed upon by the cunning old bear, to burst a blood vessel when he reads the foolishness of legislatures that say that they shall not be killed. A bear cannot be indicted and tried for crime, and if he cannot be erased with powder and ball, what becomes of the individual right of the sheep raiser to protect his property? The only way the bear can pay for the damage he has done is with his meat and hide, and in this country sooner or later, the farmer collects.
To be continued…
BIRTHS
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Rex White, of Lynchburg, Virginia, a son, named James Ardnt.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Sickels, of La Mesa, California, a daughter, named Michelle Elizabeth. The mother is the former Sue Rexrode.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Roger McLaughlin, of Arbovale, a daughter, named Sara Jeanine.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Brock, of Hillsboro, a daughter, named Kimberly Dawn.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Donald Sharp, of buckeye, a son, named Marvin Lee.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Larry Hefner, of Marlinton, twin daughters, Cara Lynelle and Carla Lynn.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Johnnie Coleman, of Marlinton, a daughter.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. John Vandevender, of Arbovale, a son.
DEATHS
Herbert H. Morrison, Sr., 71, of Marlinton; born at Eldorado, Kansas; a veteran of World War I. Burial in Mountain View Cemetery.
W. C. Lindsay, 80, of Beverly, formerly of Durbin; a member of the Presbyterian church at Stony Bottom, he operated a general store and service station at Durbin. Burial in the End of the Trail Cemetery in Clintonville.
Robert Hamilton Whitt, 42, formerly of Minnehaha Springs, died in Thermopolis, Wyoming, from a head injury received in a fall. Burial in Mountain View Cemetery.
Shil Nelson Montgomery, 54, of Renick; father of Leslie Montgomery, of Buckeye. burial Masonic Memorial Park at West Union.
Henry Floyd Mitchum,74, of Princewick; father of Mrs. Clara Mae Garretson, of Marlinton. Burial in the Lilly cemetery.
