304 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 17, 1897. 
the right to fish in the creel?: whose Indian name was 
and now known as Dunkard Creek, from the big sugar tree 
which marks the west line of this grant, and Btands on the 
north side of said creek, to that point in the Monongahela 
River at which the waters of the two streams cannot be 
distinguished by the eye; and to draw nets in said Dunkard 
Creek and that part of said river in consideration of cer- 
tain benfits received, and in further consideration of the 
payment to the grantor during his lifetime of the first fish 
taken each year; and further in consideration, that the 
grantor and his descendants may demand as a right from 
the grantee and his descendants forever the right to draw 
one net in the waters covei'ed by tliis grant in any one 
year, and should this right ever be refused them when de- 
manded, this fishing right shall revert to the grantor and 
to his descendants after his death.' This, as nearly as I can 
give it, is the wording of that old grant, which is of record 
in Greene county. 
"But after the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed the 
first act relating to fishing with nets in the waters thereof, 
an attempt was made to break up the Bowers fishing in the 
Dunkard Creek — along in perhaps 1873 this was — and 
Bowers was notified time after time (he was perhaps the 
tbird in direct line from old Bowers, to wbom Elias Blank 
made his grant); but he paid no attention to the notices, 
and he was finally indicted in the Court of Quarter Ses- 
sions of the Peace of Greene county. He employed no 
lawyer, but came to court, and when his case was called 
appeared and said he 'would try his own case and make an 
end of it very quickly.* 
"The judge was familiar with the early history of Greene 
county, and asked him what he had to say. 
"Bowers replied that the Legislature of Pennsylania had 
no authority over him and his fishery; there was his grant 
from Elias Blank, whose grant from Penna was on 
record, and the act of 1779 gave full faith and confir ma- 
tion to both of them, and before any further steps were 
taken be asked the Court to decide, as matter of law, 
whether or not the said grants and the act of 1779 were a 
protection to him, and the fishing right vested in him as 
a descendant of the original grantee of Elias Blank, and 
not in the Commonwealth of Pennsj'lvania. 
"This created a commotion. The judge examined the 
papers and the act, declared that the signatm-e of old Elias 
Blank was well known, the paper genuine, and Bowers's 
right lixed. He directed a verdict of not guilty, at the 
cost of the county, and advised Bowers to have the grant 
from Elias Blank recorded, which was done. This fishery 
is a verj'' valuable one; large fish come up the Mononga- 
hela and are caught as they attempt to pass up the Dun- 
kurd Creek. 
"Old Elias Blank's house was often the stopping place 
of the famous Indian fighters, the Whetzells, of whom we 
all used to read when we were boys. They were Jacob, 
Martin, John and Lewis Whetze'l. All were celebrated 
Indian fighters; but Lewis Whetzell is the one whose fame 
became most widely spread, and mainly on account of his 
having acquired the ability to load his rifle while running 
at full sp eed — a very valuable accomplishment, 
"Old Elias Blank was a Quaker and used 'thee' and 'thou' 
in conversation, which his son Aaron or Een also fre- 
quently did, especially when he wanted to be impressive, 
or when talking to one he didn't like. When Een Blank 
began to thee and thou anyone against whom he had any 
cause of complaint, the latter always cut the colloquy 
short. 
"Old Elias Blank possessed some means, which he never 
divulged, of obtaining knowledge of the movements of the 
hostile Indians, and it was customary to watch for smoke 
rising from the high hill on his tract called 'Delight,' 
which I have mentioned, or for a light at night in the top 
of the big tree on the top of that hill, and when either of 
these signals was given the settlers hurried to the forts 
and block houses, and old Elias was never know:n to make 
a mistake. He was attacked, however, in his own house 
by a band of wandering Indians on one occasion, and find- 
ing no other way of escape killed eight of them with his 
own hand. He never after took part in Quaker meetings, 
believing himself a 'man of blood,' and a saying went 
abroad among the Indians that 'Broadbrim had taken the 
tomahawk and was worse than the man whose gun was 
always loaded' (Lewis Whetzell). 
"After the Eevolutionary War Albert Gallatin founded 
a little town in Fayette county, Pa., on the banks of the 
Monongahela Eiver, which he called New Geneva, and 
just opposite in Greene county old Elias Blank founded a 
little town which after Gen. Greene he called Greensboro. 
Between the two is a ferry, a very valuable piece of prop- 
erty, and the right to which is provided for in tlie grant of 
the Penns to Elias Blank, and it was in operation long be- 
fore either town was laid out. Old Elias established a quit 
rent on the town of Greensboro, which still is in force, one 
of the very few remaining in Pennsylvania. This quit 
rent and the ferry still belong to his descendants, and are 
considered valuable property. 
"I have in my possession a gun made by Ezra Engle, 
from our friend's description last night, I suppose Ezra IV. 
This gun is well authenticated, was made before the Revo- 
lution, and has been in my family ever since; it descends 
to the oldest son. It has the peculiar trigger action 
spoken of, the original flintlock, the copper fore sight set in 
the barrel arid the elevating rear sight. This gun has no 
ornamentation at all, is full-stocked, the thimbles for hold- 
ing the ramrod are made of iron, seemingly, as is the trig- 
ger guard. A peculiarity is that the gun never becomes 
rusty from shooting, and no iron pai-t of it will rust; neither 
can you brighten the iron. The gun shoots a ball of which 
100 weigh exactly lib. I have the old buUet moulds too. 
The barrel is 3tt.'long inside, rifled with four grooves and 
one full turn, very deep. The stock is a curly maple with 
natural bend, but the butt piece is a walnut knot sawed to 
shape, as is the end of stock at the muzzle; but I have 
never been able to determine how they are fastened 
in place. I shoot ofi" the old gun loaded with a bullet 
once every Christmas Day, imless the day falls on Sunday, 
when I fire it the day before, and lay it away to the next 
year. It is a very well-preserved gun, and money could 
not buy it." 
Massachusetts Quail. 
Danvehs, Mass., March 30. — Spring birds have arrived. 
An unusual large flight of woodcock is reported. Snipe 
)iave not made their appearance yet. We had a good winter 
lor quail and many arc left over, with good prospect for an- 
other fall. J. W. B. 
SPORT IN THE NORTHWEST. 
In a few weeks New York city will be deserted, and from 
her miles of streets will have sent forth North, South, East 
and West thousands of men who will keep a fatherly eye on 
tbeir rod and gun cases. To those boimd for Maine and the 
Adirondacks I have no advice to offer. These grounds are 
tolerably well known, and if not quite all that is claimed for 
them they have at least the great advantage of being easily 
got at. and inexpensively too. My fancy, however, takes 
me firrther afield when I wander, and to those of the same 
way of thinking I tender the following brief notes on sport 
in northwestern Canada. 
It is a somewhat serious undertaking this arranging mat- 
ters for a trip into the wilderness— not a wilderness such as 
the Rangeleys and Ai^rondacks, where each camp bed has a 
spring mattress, but a vast stretch of uninhabited country, 
where you must take in what you require or go without it ; 
so that it is perhaps just as well that the season begins late, 
and that, so far as the snortsman is concerned, nothing is to 
be gained by leaving New York before Aug. 1. To those 
that intend traveling merely for the scenery and change of 
climate these remarks do not apply; they will be perfectly 
happy in the Northwest Territories or British Columbia 
after June 15; and at such delightful spots as Banff in 
the Canadian National Park, or at Glacier House in the 
Selkirks, or at North Bend in the Frazer. they will find 
pleasant weather, lovely scenery and good fishing any time 
after .June 15. 
But the man who goes for sport alone should start about 
Aug. 1, and if he can make np a party he will be wise to 
hire a special car, the expense of wbich will not be more 
than f 5 a head per day. This, when money is not an object, 
is to my mind the most delightful way in the world of en- 
joying sport. It beats a club house and preserve because at 
less expent-e you get equal comfort and greater variety. 
Supposing that such a party ha« been made up, the first stop 
might well be made at Jack Fish sta+ion on the Canadian 
Pacific Railroad, on the north shore of Lake Superior. Here 
the superb Steel Eiver enters the lake, and the fishing in it is 
almost too good. Trout, true fontinalu, are often caught 
weighing 61bs., and they take the fly freely in quick water. 
In this neighborhood there are many other streams equally 
good ; for instance, the famoxis Nipigon is but a few miles 
further west; while the Jack Pine, Black River, Gravel 
River, Prairie River, and a host of little-known waters may 
be reached by short journeys east or west along the line. 
Mark my words: This is the coming fishing ground of the 
nation. These streams can never be fished out, as the trout 
have Lake Superior to fall back into, and even were the 
streams ruined there would still remain the unequaled fish- 
ing from the rocks of the lake shore. You can leave the 
cars at any point for 170 miles, put your rod together, and 
within a few yards of the track find all the fly-fishing vou 
desire. To my eye the magnificent sweep of Jack Pish Bay, 
and the lonely beauty of the inlets and i-lands of the north 
shore, are as fine in their way as anything in the Rockies, 
and it is only thirty hours from Montreal. 
For years it has "been nothing but Nipigon; but unless T 
am much astray there are a dozen smaller rivers that will 
give equal sport. Mind, I am not decrying the Nipigon; far 
from ii ; but is it not true that a stream a man can wade, 
easting now right, now left, and catching Iherein a creel full 
of trout weighing from 21bs. to 61bs., is fully as sporting a 
proposition as a large river where you must canoe it all the 
time, wiih a couple of jabbering half-breeds to grate upon 
your enjoyment of the scene and sport ? 
There is more or less trout fishing all the way through to 
Manitoba, but the more becomes less as the prairie is reached. 
Pike, pickerel, dore and whitetish are the more common 
inhabitants of the charming lakes that stud that part of 
western Ontario. It is a better shooting than fishing coun- 
try. The sportsman may shoot mallard by the hundred any 
time after Sept. 1, and after Oct. 1, 1900, he will be able to 
shoot all the moose and earibou any man should wish to 
shoot. I do not understand why the Ontario Government 
prohibited the shooting of those animals in that part of the 
province, as I believe moose are as plentiful to-day within 
fifty miles of Kalmar station a.? anywhere in America short 
of Alaska, There are some deer south and west of the C. P. 
R.R. line, but I do not believe they are particularly abundant, 
and J should recommend the visitor's confining his attention 
to the mallard, chicken and ruffed grouse. Until the rail- 
road was built, sharptail grouse were never seen as far 
east as the present site of Rat Portage; now they have 
worked their way to Peninsular, nearly 500 miles to the 
eastward. The nuinated grouse, on the other hand, have 
pushed up from Uncle Sam's domains and invaded all south- 
ern Manitoba, edging out the shyer sharptail. The avifauna 
of a land often changes, thanks to man's advent. 
Supposing the adventurous sportsman to have penetrated 
as far into the northwest as Rat Portage, ],300 miles from 
Montreal, he will have to decide whether he will stay where 
he is, move on, or return homeward. Should he elect to go 
further, he will certainly not fare worse; though, until the 
antelope country bordering the south branch of the Sas- 
katchewan is reached, there will be no change in the game 
found. Every slough and pond hole will contain young, 
unsophisticated mallard and teal, and the prairies swarm 
with sharptail. 
The car may be sidetracked anywhere, and yet it will 
afford a base from which good shooting may be had. One 
piece of advice: be moderate; don't kill more than you can 
iise. Some have done it, and their names are a stench in the 
nostrils of all good sportsmen. The northwest is big, and 
feathered game yet abundant; but should the game hog 
malse it his playground, in time even that fine sporting re- 
gion must fail. 
From the Atlantic to the Rockies there is a familiar ap- 
pearance about the vegetation and game; but once in the 
range and a new world is opened up. Trees, animals, birds, 
fish, all differ from those to which the Easterner has been 
accustomed. Nay, more, even the climate, with its soft, 
sensual air«, and mellow afternoon sun, is more like Asia 
than America. Although British Columbia is but 500 miles 
wide at the boundary line, there is a great diversity of 
scenery and climate, where, as in the 900 miles between 
Winnipeg and Banff, monotony is the keynote of it aU; but 
a monotony of mallard and sharptaU is not unendurable, 
after all, for some of us. 
Let's "make believe" (as the little girls say when they're 
telling fairy stories) that our car has been dumped at 
Qa'Appelle or some such prairie station, and that we have 
had our fill of chicken and duck shooting, just as a month 
earlier we were surfeited with Lake Superior trout fiahing. 
The date is Sept. 25, and a council of war is held in the 
smoking room of the car, or more likely out on the sun- 
dried prairie, with the grasshoppers 'oppin' around, and the 
little gophers watching us from the mouths of their burrows. 
To go on or to go back? The question is discussed pro and 
con until, being put to the vote, the "go ons" have it; and 
after seeing two malcontents off by the Eastern express at 
20:30 that evemng (i. e., 8:30 P. M. civilized time) the car 
is hitched to the westward bound train at 6 o'clock next 
morning, and exactly twenty-four hours later is sidetracked 
at Banff. Everybody traveling over the C. P. R.R. stops at 
this famed spot, and many people become so enamored of 
the beauties of the place that they return year after year. 
Last summer I met several Indian oiHcers and their families 
that had gone there in preference to spending their furloughs 
(leave) in England. It is a capital headquarters for informa- 
tion, as so many hunters of big game are coming and going 
that lots of points may be picked up as to where game is or 
is not at that particular time. Once in the mountains, big 
game may be got almost anywhere by hard work. No one 
fives there; it is still a lone land; and once over the ridge 
that separates the gorge down which the railroad runs from^ 
the next valley, you are as likely to find grizzlies, goats, 
sheep and deer as if you went lOO miles further into the 
unexplored. There are few elk and still fewer moose in the 
country between Banff and the boundary line; but goats, 
sheep and deer abound. Winter comes on early in the 
Rockies, and on account of the longer op°n season in the 
coast range 1 should advise the party whose fortunes we are 
supposed to be following to push on to Lytton on the Fraser, 
and hire an outfit for the Bridge River country. After 
three weeks in that region they ought to have some heads to 
show, and be ready to start for home and get to work again ; 
but, of course, a visit to the coast and Pueet Sound should 
be made before returning, or it will be a source of everlast- 
ing regret. 
Those who make such a trip as I have outlined ai-e almost 
certain to repeat it every year. I met last autumn several 
carloads of healthy, happy gunners and fishermen, who had 
been there before and intended returning in 1897, if all went 
well with them in the meantime. Chakles A. Bramblb 
FLORIDA PLUME BIRDS. 
St. Adgtjstine, Fla., April 3. — Edi tor Forest and Strenm; 
It is a hackneyed subject, but the only way to accomplish 
anything is to hammer away. A man who has just re- 
turned from a surveying trip across the Everglades informs 
me that a shameful state of things exists throughout that re- 
gion, and that there is nothing to base a hope upon that the 
barbarous practices will be stopped until the race of plu- 
maged birds is so nearly exterminated as to make the business 
unprofitable. He says that brutes with the semblance of 
white men make it their regular business to collect bird 
skins, and that laws are of no more consequence to them 
than to alligators. Before they took up the exterminating 
business the Indians were sensible enough to make and re- 
spect certain laws to prevent a decrease of birds, among 
which was an inviolable rule never to disturb them at their 
rookeries or roosts, and never to shoot them out of season. 
But the white men who have taken up the business lie in 
wait for them at the roosts, and when they are all in for the 
night they fire into the crowd, killing dozens atashot. Then 
they look over the lot and probab'y select one out of five or 
ten and leave the rest of the dead to rot, and the wounded 
to flutter off and starve. This is in evidence that the differ- 
ence between the poor Indian and the low-bred white is as 
great as between the edible qualities of a turkey and a buz- 
zard. The Indians know that one of their sources of income 
is being destroyed, but what can thpy do to prevent if? In 
years gone by Florida was swarming with flamingoes, spoon- 
bills, egrets and other beautiful plumaged birds, but they 
are nearly all numbered with the things that were. 
Now the great question is in regard to the way by which 
this brutal bird butchery can be stopped. My own opinion 
is that the only way by which it can be done is through the 
enactment of a general law, with heavy penalties, to prevent 
all traflic in skins. These fellows work in a wild, unsettled 
region, where they can violate the laws without the slightest 
danger of detection; but with proper laws against the sale of 
skins their business would be ended , and these laws should 
also cover Brazilian and other foreign importations of birds 
for millinery purposes. 
If women (who ought to be humane and tender-hearted) 
would give a thought to the fact that millions of the beauti- 
ful creatures are slaughtered every year, while other millions 
are left to starve in the nests, they certainly would be wdling 
to sacrifice a little decoration for humanity's sake! The 
Brazihan Government derives a very large amount from ex- 
port duty on bird skins, and the slaughter gives employment 
to hundreds of men who ought to be in better business. 
If our legislators could only be waked up to face the fact 
that there is something in the world besides politics that is 
worth considering, we might hope that something would be 
done, but I confess that the case locks hopeless. 
DXDYMUS. 
ADIRONDACK WOLVES. 
Big Moose Lake, N. Y., April 5 —Editor Forest and 
SlTemn- I see under date of April 3 you publish a clipping 
from a Watertown paper relating a thrilling adventure of 
one Charles Adams with a dozen wolves. That story may 
sound all right to pf^ople who know little or nothing about 
the Adirondacks, but those who have spent their lives in the 
Adirondacks know that it is not true. I live within a few 
miles of Woodhull Lake, where the encounter is said to have 
taken place, and we are connected with Woodhull Lake by 
telephone, and I have not heard of the encounter. 
Such a thing might have happened thirty or thirty-five 
years ago, when I first began hunting and trapping in this 
section. In those days it was nothing unusual to hear 
wolves howl every day, for they were plenty, and occasion- 
ally see a band of them in winter on the ice on some lake, for 
the deer when pm-sued by wolves would run out on the ice 
to get away from the wolves, That part of the Adams story 
looks quite reasonable I have known as high as a dozen 
wolves to be out in one band on a lake, although I have 
never seen but three together, even in the early days, when 
wolves were plenty. 
I h-ave often talked with old guides, who had remarked 
the same thing that 1 have, *. e., the wolves almost invariably 
catch the deer within a few rods from the shore after he 
starts out on the ice, even when it was more favorable run- 
ning for the deer than for the wolves. It puzzled me for a 
