TRAPPERS' CLAIMS 



all the old-timers had left the swamps. Furs 

 were getting cheap and hardly worth catching. 

 But a few years later prices began to Co up and 

 then the younger generation took up the trap- 

 ping business. Now as I have gone to the limit 

 of this story or what 1 promised in the begin- 

 ning, The Pioneer Hunters and Trappers, 1 will 

 leave the latter day hunters for the second edi- 

 tion. The reader remembers I said that Essex 

 was a great bee hunter and to my mind he was. 

 But he had many close rivals in hunting for 

 wild honey. Now I will tell you of one of the 

 shrewdest bee hunters that ever operated in the 

 Kankakee Swamps. He said that "there are 

 tricks to all trades" and a stunt that he pulled 

 off and got away with, or rather a "joke" as he 

 called it surely proves the assertion of good or 

 evil repute of past Sawyers or Sawyers yet to 

 grow. Henry B. Sawyer was related to the f\r. 

 Sawyer who many years ago ran the Eatons 

 Ferry and of which 1 will speak later. This young 

 hunter who originated in Kentucky but later at 



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