Thursday, February 12, 1976
1927 BEAR HUNT
A big Allegheny Mountain sheep killing bear measured eight feet and more from tip to tip, weighing 365 pounds and is thin flesh. Six hundred pounds would be about his right weight had he been fat. He was killed on Beaver Creek by Moses Underwood.
On December 9, this bear’s track was seen by Alfred Dean. The next day Moses Underwood and Winnon Smith jumped him out on Round Knob. He was too sharp for the hunters, and they could not get sight of him. He then went to the Burnside Ridges and there the hunters again routed him out but could not see him. Back to Round Knob he came. It was dark by that time and the hunters went home.
Saturday, it blowed snow until it was impossible to track. The woods were driven twice, and he would not come out and they left him there.
On Monday at noon, Moses Underwood and Henry Burr found the bear’s track on the Big Ridge between Beaver Creek and the North Fork of Anthonys Creek. They tracked him to the Spruce Lick ridges. Mr. Burr thought the bear had gone to the Brushy Ridge.
On the night of Tuesday, December 14, there came a three-inch snow, and the hunt was on again. In the party were Henry Burr, W. S. Smith, Moses Underwood, Alfred Dean, Ernest Burr. They knew the bear had put up in a storm bed, but to find his bed was a considerable of a proposition.
While hunting the bear, Ernest Burr came on one of Ed Scott’s hogs that had gone wild. It had been in the woods for four years. It weighed 300 pounds. Mr. Scott was notified and he came for his meat. He was glad to get it and divided it up with the hunters.
The hunt continued from day to day, but by December 17, the party had dwindled down to Henry Burr, Alfred Dean, Moses Underwood and Joe Burch.
They drove Fork Ridge, Rock Run and the Greenbrier River bluff on hope of jumping the bear out of this storm bed. But all to no purpose.
December 18, they started in the Pyles Run region and hunted there until 11 o’clock, but the bear was not in there. Just one more place where the bear might be and he had been there. The hunters had found where he had left his bed and had come to the Spruce Lick ridges.
Moses Underwood and Ernest Burr went to the stands, and Alfred Dean and Joe Burch made the drive. The bear was lying in his bed about 30 feet from the run and not over 150 feet from the county road. He let the drivers walk by him. He then slipped out and without being seen and started toward the standers. He did not go far until he sidetracked to Lynch Lick Ridge, Middle Ridge, Little Knob to Round Knob.
There the hunters left him until next morning…
The Beaver Creek community had heard that the big bear was on the go, and a lot of people came to get in the chase. It was found that the bear was still on Round Knob and everything was fixed to bag him. But he eluded all the men by slipping through places that old hunters said a bear was never supposed to go. Thence the bear went to Ben’s Ridge through the old Poage place and on to Big Ridge, and he was surrounded again. Dewey Burr and Merritt Kellison were sent in the thick cover to fetch the bear out, and out he came by Moses Underwood and Willie Rogers. They took careful aim, and the first volley laid the old sheep killer low. He did not go over 20 steps after the first bullet hit him…
The old bear certainly was an expensive proposition to the sheep raisers of the Allegheny range…
The following facts and figures by Alfred Dean give an idea of what a scourge this old bear has been:
“Joe Burch was the first man on Beaver Creek to turn his sheep in the woods last spring. This old bear killed six of them before anyone knew he had come back into these woods. I was looking about fire in the woods, and I found the sheep and the bear sign.
“He stayed on Beaver Creek all summer and killed sheep for the following farmers: Joe Burch 6; L. E. Gaylor 5; Alfred Dean 15; C. W. Bond 6; Henry Burr 30; W. S. Smith 20.
“On Beaver Creek there were found 20 head of sheep that this bear killed. They say that he killed around 100 head on Anthonys Creek; North Fork of Anthony Creek 30 head; Douthard Creek 25; Cochran and Meadow Creeks 100 head.
“This totals up to four hundred head of sheep worth around five thousand dollars.”
