222 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|Mabch 10, 1S92, 



WINTER SPORTS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



LETTER VI. 

 Hunting in the Po-co-son. 



ABOUT midway of the Antiquated & No Account Rail- 

 road (A. & N. C. E. R.) which stretches its iron length 

 from Newoern to Morehead City, lies the little hamlet of 

 Havelock, just on the perimeter of the Pocoson. The 

 distance is eighteen miles, and if the traveler be in met 

 he may do it inside of two hours and a half by rail. 

 Thence a three-mile wagon drive brings him to the 

 central farm station, located amid an omnium gatherum 

 of barns, fences, high gates and outbuildings, such as are 

 properly attached to a well equipped plantation of 1,000 

 acres. Verily, it is a princely domain, even now, fairly 

 well cultivated and reasonably productive. Yet it is not 

 what it used to be in the old days when labor was system- 

 atized and the big bell swung statedly and alternately for 

 the labor and dinner calls. Fully a hundred years ago 

 this land was under cultivation, and its futility seems in 

 no wise impaired or diminished at the present time. A 

 wealth of marl underlies large portions of it, and ex- 

 posures of it can be seen in many places where deposits 

 have been opened and utilized as fertilizers. Fifty years 

 ago Dr. Donald, a Scotchman of the old school, occupied 

 it, and expended a small fortune in miles of ditches, 

 which traverse the farm with frequent intersections 

 for the purpose of drainage; and traces of a more recent 

 occupation are conspicuous in the presence of ricketty 

 buildings which once swarmed with tenants— the ser- 

 vants' quarters, the gin houee, a sawmill and the black- 

 smith bttop, all now empty. One cannot contemplate 

 these bygones without some of that sentimental regret 

 which always attaches to old ruins like clinging vines, 

 and I insensibly find myself wandering about the de- 

 serted stock yards and peering into the long stables 

 which used to quarter a hundred mules, and sometimes, 

 in rummaging about the accumulated rubbish, I discover 

 an old brogan or a plantation hoe weighing a couple of 

 pounds, such as were in vogue before the days of modern 

 equipment. More satisfactory than all it is to draw cold 

 water from an antiquated well with a sweep, like one of 

 those which still make the New England hills pictur- 

 esque; and I may say here that it pleases me "mightily" 

 to rind so many points of decided resemblance between 

 the farm people of North Carolina and northwestern 

 Massachusetts, as well as similarity in their household 

 belongings — the big chimney, the andirons, the backlog, 

 the pewter candlesticks, and the dear old well sweep. It 

 shows that we are kin with a common ancestry. There 

 is no other State in the Union so purely native American 

 for several generations back as the old North Stat* 1 . I 

 am told that the census shows not more than 3,00u of 

 foreign birth out of a population of a million and more. 

 Taliy one for the Tar Heel! 



It was a pretty dark night in December when Mr. Ed- 

 ward Jack, of Fredericton, Canada, and I rode up to the 

 superintendent's house with the county surveyor, four 

 guides and a hound. 



We couldn't see much by the light of the lantern, but 

 while we were fumbling at the gate latch a namesake of 

 Jack brayed a graceful recognition from an adjoining 

 stable and the front door of the manor opened wide, ex- 

 posing a cheerful blaze from the hearth, for the evening 

 air was chilly and the frost was playing sharply about 

 the lower clef of the thermometer which hung in the 

 porch. There is nothing like an eight-foot fireplace and 

 a pitch-pine welcome on a cold night. With a big back- 

 log and plenty of lightwood, one can sit in the chimney 

 corner and smoke and thaw himself into the most envi- 

 able good humor. Thus we all sat until we dozed, half 

 stupefied by the unconscionable hunting yarns which 

 were drawled out in the quaint vernacular of the country. 

 Then we turned into bed for good and all. 



Meanwhile Mr. Jack and his surveyor, Mr. Brown, had 

 determined to start for the Pocoson 'early in the morn- 

 ing: and by the time that Cesar, who was master of 

 transportation, had the wagons in line quite a considera- 

 ble cavalcade was formed. Jack and Brown led with a 

 buggy, then came an ox team drawing a large boat on a 

 wagon, and next myself with Lackey and his boy in a 

 two -wheeled cart drawn by a steer in harness, after the 

 fashion of the country people. By sitting on some corn- 

 shucks, which were brought along for fodder, I managed 

 to spread myself pretty well over the bottom and occupy 

 the whole conveyance. Mundine, a noted hunter, fol- 

 lowed with his black man Friday, and Brutus, the hound, 

 brought up the rear. Cesar first and Brutus after him, 

 as was befitting to history and the occasion. 



A broad, level, graded road led. straight away to the 

 border of Lake Ellis, two miles distant, flanked some- 

 times by forests of virgin pine, sometimes by variegated 

 foliage, and again on one side or both by broad tilled 

 fields, now resting for the winter season. Assemblies of 

 doves rose betimes out of the corn patches and pea fields, 

 and twice a covey of partridges was started. Hosts of 

 larks flew out of the clearings. A canal eight feet wide 

 and four feet deep followed the road the entire distance, 

 and an occasional mallard rose out of it. Originally the 

 canal was cut from Lake Ellis for mill power at Have- 

 lock, there being about a seven-foot grade to the mile, 

 and later on it was deepened to drain the lake, whose 

 bottom was planted with rice. Before it was drained it 

 was filled with black bass and yellow perch, and as the 

 water passed off the country people carried away cart- 

 loads of the fish, which were left floundering. 



Jack was hunting timber land and I was fixed for bear 

 or partridge, it made no difference which. Alligators 

 and moccasins happily did not come into my category, 

 for the temperature was cold enough to keep them torpid. 

 One great comf ort of winter hunting in these parts is that 

 none are seen. Northern men are always apprehensive 

 of snakes, though the native Tar Heel often goes bare- 

 footed, and don't eeem to mind them any more than a 

 pine root hog. 



Now. I dare say that very few persons outside of North 

 Carolina ever heard of a Pocoson. The nomenclature of 

 the Eastern Counties is peculiar anyway. Webster's 

 Unabridged laconically defines it to be "a swamp, a 

 marsh." but this is only half the story. Besides, swamp 

 and. marsh are two entirely different things. In eotne 

 minis swamps are inevitably associated with bogs and 

 f«ire : whores Carolina swamps jnyariabjy reft on $ sub- 



stratum of white sea sand or shell rock. A marsh is a 

 grass meadow or wet savanna bordering the creeks and 

 sounds, with few, if any, trees upon it, while a swamp 

 indicates always a heavy growth of timber, and is not 

 necessai-ily wet. Pocosons are elevated swamps with the 

 natural growth of swamps. They are not alluvial nor 

 subject to overflow, and they comprise not only swamp 

 and marsh, but large areas of arable -land as iwell, often 

 interspersed with ponds and catch-basins. The soil is a 

 rich vegetable mould, and is practically inexhaustible, 

 as a century of continued cultivation proves. If the 

 reader will refer to my "Sportsman's Gazetteer and Gen- 

 eral Guide," edition of 1877, he will read what follows 

 about this particular tract: 



"To go to the lake region [of Craven county] take the cars 

 at Newbern, on the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad, 18 

 miles distant. In the vicinity of Hancock is a heavily- 

 wooded country, consisting of vast pine uplands and swamp's, 

 where gum, maple, and other trees grow in dense profusion. 

 Five miles from the station is Lake Ellis, a round lake of 

 about three miles in diameter, and nearly connected with it 

 are four or five other sheets of water. Some of these lakes 

 are open water, other3 are grownup with grass, like Lake. 

 Ellis, through which a punt can be easily pushed. These 

 lakes are the resort of thousands of wild geese, black ducks 

 and mallards, very few of any other kind being found there. 

 The dry swamp, known as Long Lake, to the south and east 

 of the above chain of ponds, is an excellent place to hunt for 

 bears, wildcats and panthers. The pine ridges in that 

 vicinity offer excellent deer hunting." 



The foregoing is a very fair description of a Pocoson 

 in a general way, and it also very nearly represents the 

 present condition of the tract as it appears to day. There 

 has been very little change since 1877, though many old 

 fields which were under cultivation have reverted to 

 jungle or loblolly, and large portions of Lake Ellis which 

 were once sown to rice are now permanently under water 

 and overgrown with crab grass— conditions which have 

 certainly diminished the number of wildfowl, deer and 

 other game which used to resort there to feed. However, 

 the owner, Mr. James A. Bryan, who is president of the 

 First National Bank of Newbern, promises to sow five 

 hundred acres to rice the present year, in the hope of 

 restoring the old prestige. At present there is very little 

 hunting in the forest or open except by permit. Survey 

 lines show that the main tract comprises 57,450 acres, 

 exclusive of water areas; and taken all in all, for accessi- 

 bility, proximity to creature comforts, and variety and 

 quantity of game, it affords one of the finest sporting 

 grounds in the entire State. That portion of it included 

 in its hydrographic basin and comprising four lakes and 

 1,800 acres of land, is admirably adapted for a club, re- 

 quiring not a tithe of what has been spent upon Bloom- 

 ing Grove Park in Pennsylvania to make it equally de- 

 sirable; and it can be bought for about the same price 

 per acre originally paid by the Park Association. Since 

 its earlier cultivation over $25,000 have been expended 

 in canals and ditches alone, which cross the tract at 

 frequent intervals; and wherever earth has been thrown 

 out rank growths of brambles and briers spring up, 

 which afford an iron-clad shelter for quail. 



During a couple of days in January Mr. J. H. Shot- 

 well's party, from Stroudsburg, Pa., bagged 40 quail, 30 

 woodcock, a deer, and plenty of robins, doves, meadow 

 larks and gray, black and fox squirrels. Larks and doves 

 fly in flocks of hundreds, and are a nuisance on the pea 

 patches in planting time. While Mr. Jack's party was 

 out we picked up enough mallards to keep the pot agoing 

 during the entire week's outing. Dr. Fox, of Philadel- 

 phia, has had a snug shooting box on the northern border 

 of Little Lake for three years past, and has always man- 

 aged, in a happy-go-lucky sort of way, to keep his camp 

 supplied for weeks at a time with venison and ducks, to 

 say nothing of quantities of fine large terrapin, which he 

 picks off the boLtom of the lake near its margin. Crop- 

 pies, black bass, blue and yellow perch and blue catfish 

 are found in Great Lake and Little Lake, and the Doctor 

 always kept several in corral to meet emergencies. 



One distinguished feature of a Pocoson, though not 

 always present, is a shallow lake, or lakes, occupying 

 depressions on the summit of the elevation or watershed, 

 and having no natural outlets. Great Lake, for instance, 

 is 138ft. above the sea level, and its sister lakes are 1 and 

 2ft. lower, respectively. They are all connected bj 

 canals, some of them now dry. 



Our course took us straight across the bed of Lake 

 Ellis, which we waded in about 1ft. of water thickly 

 grown up with grass, flanking largo open spaces which 

 even now sometimes swarm with mallards; then there 

 was a short haul of a third of a mile to Great Lake, and 

 "the boat was launched on an ideal expanse. Its water is 

 pure and transparent, and its bottom of hard white sand. 

 AH its indented shores are cinctured with a heavy growth 

 of pine and cypress, and embosomed in bright-leaved 

 evergreens in great variety. Such a display of winter 

 foliage was hardly ever seen in an arboretum or botanical 

 garden. There were live oaks and stately magnolias of 

 eight varieties, three kinds of holly brilliant with red 

 berries, red bay, yopon, olive, laurel, yellow jasmine, 

 cherokee rose, three kinds of bamboo vine, gall oerry in 

 blue spangles, cranberry, ivy, fetter foot, creeping 

 huckleberry, woodbine, honeysuckle, rhododendron, 

 sand myrtle, wintergreen, flowering moas, mock orange, 

 sarsaparilla and parasitic moss and pendent mistletoe 

 clinging to the branches, all of them evergreens, simulat- 

 ing summer in midwinter in the most captivating man- 

 ner. Everywhere the shore of the lake is indented by 

 little coves which reach back under the overhanging 

 foliage where the ducks gather to feed, and here the 

 hunter, silently and covertly paddling his skiff along the 

 margin, with one barrel puts them' to flight, and with 

 the other shoots them on the wing. It seems unfair to 

 disturb them in their seclusion and take them unawares, 

 and sad indeed it is that bowers so fragrant and fair to 

 behold should be so fateful to tbe feathered race. As 

 brother Jack apostrophized in an unguarded moment 

 without respect to Cowper: 



"Ob, happy shades! to ma unblessed! 



Friendly to peace, but not to me; 

 How ill the shades that offer rest, 



And ducks that cannot rest, agree!" 



I would dwell in that lonely hermitage as trustfully as 

 a duck, with no other occupation than to study and 

 enumerate its lovely flora, of which it is said that no less 

 than 1,800 varieties (of trees, plants and shrub3) bloom 

 here iu March, April and May. A natural growth of such 

 a fipm polite character, many of them bearing berries, 



pods and burrs which remain on all winter, would tend 

 to foster game in great abundance and variety, and 

 certainly there is every indication of its presence. 

 Trails, tracks and paths traverse the woods, the margins 

 of lakes and open savannas in all directions. Roosting 

 places and nests of wildfowl are seen on every hand, and 

 along the water sides are otter slides and muskrat homes, 

 mink burrows and alligator holes. And if such testimony 

 be not sufficient, there is an up-country journal which 

 has just happened to mention that a certain firm in 

 Goldsboro recently shipped 10,000 rabbit skins in two 

 days, besides having in stock 8,000 opossum, beaver, 

 mink, raccoon and muskrat skins. 



Cormorants, ospreys, hawks and eagles nest all around 

 Great Lake in large numbers, as many as twenty nests 

 being observed together. Kingfishers and herons make 

 it their chosen homes. Turkeys range throughout tbe 

 swamps. Bruin has his lair in their densest recesses. Deer 

 are numerous on the pine ridges between Little Lake and 

 Long Lake, and here and there, on eligible places, hunters 

 put up ladders, where they can sit in wait and shoot them 

 as they pass to and fro. It seems to be easy to start 

 a deer at any time in any part of the Pocoson, and a 

 hound is no sooner put down than he begins to give tongue. 

 Several deer were killed while we were on the premises. 

 Once Mundine was out after ducks. The moon had gone 

 down, and he descended from his perch in the tuft of a 

 pine and started for home. No sooner had he got fairly 

 under way than he heard stealthy rustling noises behind 

 him. More than once he felt a slight twitch upon his arm. 

 It seems he had forgotten to untie the long rope which he 

 had fastened to his gun to haul it up with to his perch, 

 but he didn't know it at the time, and his apprehensions 

 became living dread realities. He broke for the shallow 

 water along the margin of the lake, but the varmint still 

 pursued him. He took to the woods, and the evil presence 

 was there. Finally he dropped his gun in dismay, and 

 reaching his skiff paddLd desperately for home, where he 

 arrived duly, much disconcerted and torn. The next day, 

 while looking for his abandoned gun, tbe tell-tale rope 

 gave the "snap" away, and that is how Mundine came to 

 tell us this thrilling story, of the Pocoson, but it took him 

 longer than it has taken me to write it. 



Charles Hallock. 



SPORTSMEN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 



A FEW days since while cleaning my gun I looked 

 through the polished barrels to see whether they 

 had became pitted by recent use, and unconsciously laid 

 them down and wondered what was the condition of the 

 barrels of some of my old muzzleloaders. I thought of 

 how long it used to take me to remove the nipples, wash 

 the barrels with hot water, wipe dry until the last rag 

 came out without a stain, and putting on the old green 

 baiza covers lay them away for the next hunt. From my 

 guns my mind naturally reverted to my old dogs; and 

 Dash, Sport, Snap, Miio, Juno and many others appeared 

 to my vision as in a panorama. Their many fine points 

 and good qualities loomed up a3 if it were but yesterday; 

 and caused the blood to course through my veins with 

 unusual vigor. Continuing my reverie, I thought of the 

 old-time gentlemen who used to instruct and caution me 

 as to how my gun should be carried, how to load and to 

 get over fences, with many other directions equally per- 

 tinent. I thought of the genial and kind-hearted old 

 Commodore Jones, who resides about twelve miles from 

 Washington, in Fairfax county., Va. His farm was in a 

 good game country and the Commodore frequently added 

 to his table by his gun such game as was in season. He 

 had a receipt for cooking a ham, which as nearly as I 

 can remember is as follows: Soak for two days, scrape 

 well, wrap and tie up in a crash towel, simmer for twelve 

 hours, remove grease, and just before taking from fire 

 add some sherry wine and some good cider; let it remain 

 in the liquor until next day; unwrap and serve cold, with 

 a spoon beginning at the butt. His whisky he aged by- 

 taking to sea with him on his many voyages. 



W. W. Seaton, a former mayor of Washington, and 

 one of the editors of the old National Intelligencer, was 

 fond of shooting, and being of noble English descent 

 used to make occasional trips to Europe for the sport, and 

 would bring on his return some fine dogs. He alao did 

 much shooting in Maryland and Virginia. "Seaton's 

 Garden" was a Equare of ground situated in the northern 

 section of this city, and it was there that he raised his 

 dogs. Getting an order from him for a pup, once I dis- 

 gusted his old gardener by taking the best one in the lot. 



John F. Webb, father of ex Commissioner Webb, hav- 

 ing been raised in the South was very fond of his gun 

 and dogs, and it was he who gave me my first dog. It 

 was under peculiar circumstances. My father had pur- 

 chased me a gun, and as we were going home, stopped at 

 Odd Fellows, Hall, Mr. Webb's place of business. While 

 there the body of a young man was carried by, he having 

 killed himself accidentally while hunting. My father 

 immediately ordered me to take the gun back, but Mr. 

 Webb plead hard for me and clinched the matter by say- 

 ing "Let the boy have his gun and I will give him a 

 dog." This he did, and thus I got both gun and dog. 



James H. Marr, a former chief clerk in the Post Office 

 Department, and who was pensioned by act of Congress, 

 was an enthusiastic sportsman and did not give up his 

 hunting until compelled by age. He was a kind-hearted 

 gentleman and was fond of a joke. This is told of him: 

 A certain postmaster-general was much annoyed by a 

 persistent applicant for office, and turned him over to 

 his first assistant, who referred him to Mr. Marr. Mr. 

 Marr told him there was no vacancy, and the applicant 

 was put off from time to time by this plea. One day he 

 rushed hurriedly into Mr. Marr's room saying, "Now, 

 Mr. Marr, there is a vacancy, for the body of one of your 

 clerks has just been dragged out of the canal down by 

 the market. I saw the body when they pulled it out." 

 "My dear sir," gravely responded Mr. Marr, "I am sorry, 

 but the place has been already filled by the man who saw 

 him fall in." 



Judge Bibb, a former Secretary of tbe Treasury, was an 

 inveterate fisherman and a good rifle shot. Many old 

 residents will remember him for his peculiarities, one of 

 which was his wearing the old style of knee breeches and 

 silk stockings. He resided in Georgetown just below the 

 convent, and at his death he was possessed of several 

 hundred dollars worth of fining tackle, in which he took 

 much pride. It is related of him that while he was 

 secretary? his messenger, a man uamed Pettifc, used ia 

 favor an applicant for bfhYe by admitting hiin to %. 



