Lake Umbagog
1907
August
  I am inclined to believe that a veritable Cougar was
encountered in November, 1869, less than ten miles to the
southward of Lake Umbagog, by Horatio R. Godwin, former
proprietor of the Lake House, and Stephen Morse, for many
years one of the leading Upton guides. Both men are now
dead. I have heard them tell the story of their
experience which was briefly as follows: - They had penetrated
deep into the uninhabited and then heavily-forested
township of (?) with the intention of setting a line
of traps for Sable and Fisher and were about to
camp, just before sunset, at the head of a brook meadow
when, at the further end of this natural spring and nearly
half a mile away, they saw a rather large, tawny colored
animal moving about among some alders. Believing it
to be a Deer Godwin began a wide detour in the
hope of approaching it closely under cover. But while
he was still buried in the forest it left the alders
and crossed the meadow diagonally over a wide expanse
of snow a foot or more in depth. Although it
passed within long rifle range of Morse he did not
fire at it not caring, as he frankly confessed, to
run the risk of merely wounding so formidable looking
a creature with the single charge in his muzzle-loading
gun. He had a fair view of it, of course, and his
description of it tallied at all points with that of
a full grown Cougar. Godwin saw it only imperfectly,
at a considerable distance, but he examined its tracks
closely and his confident assertion that, while certainly
those of a huge cat, they could not have been made by
a Loupcervier (an animal with which he was perfectly
familiar) has always carried weight with me.