258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIOIi^AL, MUSEUM vol.86 



in what is now Monroe County, Tenn. While enroute to this place, 

 Needham, as reported by Wood (Williams, 1928, p. 27), saw bears 

 along the Holston River in the vicinity of Bays Mountains [ ? Haw- 

 kins County]. Dr. Thomas Walker (Williams, 1928, p. 172) relates 

 that he had killed a male bear in Hawkins County on his trip in 

 April 1750 to save his dog from further injury. In the valley of 

 Boones Creek, a tributary of the Watauga River, near the old stage 

 road between Jonesboro, Washington County, and Blountville, Sulli- 

 van County, there stood for many years a beech tree on which Daniel 

 Boone in 1760 carved a notice that he had killed a bear there 

 (Ramsey, 1853, p. 67). Lt. Henry Timberlake, on his trip down 

 the Holston River during December 1761 from Kingsport, Sullivan 

 County, to a large cave below the present site of Three Springs Ford, 

 Hamblen County, commented on the amazing number of bears that 

 he had seen (Williams, 1927, pp. 45, 47). The same traveler reported 

 an abundance of bears in 1762 along the Little Tennessee River near 

 the mouth of Tellico River (Williams, 1927, p. 71). Local residents 

 reported that a bear was seen near Shady Valley, Johnson County, 

 in 1936. Perrygo and Lingebach saw a black bear on June 25, 1937, 

 and also on the following day at an altitude of 5,200 to 5,700 feet 

 on Inadu Knob, Cocke County. Komarek and Komarek (1938, p. 

 148) report that a female and a large male black bear were taken 

 above Greenbrier and another male along Ramsey Fort of Little 

 Pigeon River in Sevier County. The visible bear "sign" noted by 

 members of the field parties of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 

 indicates that black bears are increasing in numbers since the estab- 

 lishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 



Bears at one time were plentiful in the vicinity of the Cumber- 

 land settlements at Nashville, and many were killed for food by the 

 early settlers. A hunter, Thomas Sharp Spencer, who was well 

 known to the French and the Indians as the giant with "the big feet," 

 hunted bears as early as 1775 a few miles southeast of Castalian 

 Springs, Sumner County. Ramsey (1853, p. 450) states that a party 

 of 20 hunters from Batons Station [Nashville] traveled up the Cum- 

 berland River to the region between Caney Fork and Flynns Lick 

 Creek [Smith, Putnam, and Jackson Counties], where they killed 

 105 bears during the winter of 1782. Putnam (1859, p. 296) writes 

 that "bears and wolves were found in great numbers for a half-a- 

 dozen years after the first settlements in the Harpeth Hills," 10 or 

 12 miles south of Nashville. During one winter Capt. John Rains 

 "killed 32 bears within 7 miles of the Bluff, mostly in Harpeth Knobs, 

 South of Nashville" (Putnam, 1859, p. 122). William Neelly, who 

 had established a station for making salt at Neellys Bend of the Cum- 

 berland River, was killed by the Indians in 1788 on the night he 



