Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1914 
VOL. LXXXII.—No. 1. 
22 Thames St., New York. 
“Bill Long,” King of Hunters 
By DR. W. J. McKNIGHT 
W ILLIAM LONG, a son of Louis Long, 
was born near Reading, Berks County, 
Pennsylvania, in 1794. His father and 
mother were Germans. In the summer of 1803, 
Louis Long, with his family, moved into the 
wilderness and settled in what is now Jefferson 
County, Pennsylvania. Louis Long’s family con¬ 
sisted of himself, wife, and eleven children—nine 
sons and two daughters—William, the subject of 
this sketch, being the second child. The Barnetts 
were the only neighbors of the Longs. Louis 
Long brought with him a small “still” and six 
flint-lock guns, the only kind in use at that time. 
As soon as Long had raised some grain he com¬ 
menced to operate his “still” and manufacture 
whiskey, this being the first manufactured west 
of the mountains and east of the Allegheny River. 
This part of Pennsylvania was then the 
hunting grounds of the Seneca Indians—Corn- 
planter tribe. The still-house of Long soon be¬ 
came the resort for these Indians. Pittsburgh 
was the nearest market for pelts, furs, etc., and 
the only place to secure flour and other neces¬ 
saries. From the mouth of Red Bank Creek 
these goods had to be poled up in canoes. By 
scooping the channel, wading, and poking, a 
round trip to the mouth could be made in from 
one to two weeks. Although the woods swarmed 
with Seneca Indians, as a rule, they never com¬ 
mitted any depredations. 
In the summer of 1804, when William was 
ten years old, he killed his first deer. One morn¬ 
ing his father sent him into the woods for the 
cows. William carried with him a flint-lock gun, 
and when a short distance from the house, he 
found the cows, and a deer feeding with them. 
This was William’s opportunity. He shot and 
killed the deer, and, as a reward for merit, his 
father gave him a flint-lock gun as a present. 
This circumstance determined his course in life, 
for from that day until his death it was his de¬ 
light to roam in the forest and pursue wild ani¬ 
mals, and hunting became his only business. He 
was a “professional hunter,” a “still hunter,” or 
a man who hunted alone. 
In the summer of 1804 William went with his 
mother to Ligonier, in Westmoreland County, to 
get some provisions. The only road was an In¬ 
dian path, the distance sixty miles. They rode 
through the brush on a horse, and made the trip 
in about five days. 
The Indians soon became civilized, as far 
as drinking whiskey and getting drunk was an 
evidence. They visited the still-house for de¬ 
bauchery and drunken carnivals. As a safeguard 
to himself and family, Louis Long had a strong 
box made to keep the guns and knives of these 
Indians in while these orgies were occurring. 
The Indians desired him to do this. Long never 
charged the Indians for this whiskey, although 
they always offered pelts and furs when they 
sobered up. In consideration of this generosity, 
the Indians, in broken English, always called 
Louis Long, “Good man; give Indian whiskey. 
Indian fight pale-face; Indian come one hundred 
miles to give ‘good man’ warning.” 
Louis Long kept his boys busy in the sum¬ 
mer months clearing land,, farming, etc. The 
boys had their own time in winter. Then Will¬ 
iam, with his gun and traps, traversed the forest, 
with no inlet or outlet but winding paths used by 
the deer when he wished to slake his thirst in 
the clear, sparkling water of the North Fork. 
The boy hunter, to keep from being lost 
while on the trail, followed up one side of this 
creek and always came down on the opposite. 
When he grew older he ventured farther and far¬ 
ther into the wilderness. 
In his boyhood he frequently met and hunted 
in company with Indians. The Indians were 
friendly to him on account of his father’s rela¬ 
tions to them, and it was these Indians that gave 
William his first lessons in the art of hunting. 
Young William learned the trick of calling wolves 
in this way. One day his father and he went out 
for a deer. William soon shot a large one, and 
while skinning this deer they heard a pack of 
wolves howl. William told his father to lie down 
and be ready to shoot, and he would try the 
Indian method of “howling” or calling wolves. 
His father consented, and William howled and 
the wolves answered. William kept up the howls 
and the wolves answered, coming closer and 
closer, until his father became scared; but Wil¬ 
liam wouldn’t stop until the wolves got so close 
that he and his father had to fire on the pack, 
killing two, when the others took fright and ran 
away. The bounty for killing wolves then was 
eight dollars apiece. 
A short time after this William and his 
father went up Sandy to watch an elk-lick, and 
at this point they killed an elk and started for 
home. On the way home they found where a 
pack of about twenty wolves had crossed their 
path, near where the town of Reynoldsville now 
is. Looking up the hill on the right side of Sandy 
they espied the whole pack, and, both father and 
son fired into the pack, killing two wolves. Wil¬ 
liam then commenced to “howl,” and one old wolf 
through curiosity came to the top of the hill, 
looking down at the' hunters. For his bravery 
William shot him through the head. On their 
return home that day Joseph Barnett treated 
them both to whiskey and “tansy,” for, said he, 
“The wolves this day have killed one of my 
cows.” When Long was still a young man, one 
day he went up the North Fork to hunt. About 
sundown he shot a deer, and when he had it 
dressed there came up a heavy rain. Being forced 
to stay all night, he took the pelt and covered 
himself with it, and lay down under the bank to 
sleep. After midnight he awoke, and found him¬ 
self covered with sticks and leaves. He knew at 
once this was the work of a panther hunting food 
for her cubs, and that she would soon return. He 
therefore prepared a pitch-pine fagot, lit it, and 
hid the burning fagot under the bank and await¬ 
ed the coming of the panther. In a short time 
after this preparation was completed the animal 
returned with her cubs, and when she was with¬ 
in about thirty feet of him, Long thrust his torch 
up and out, and when it blazed up brightly, the 
panther gave a yell and ran away. 
John Long and William started out one 
morning to have a bear-hunt, taking with them 
nine dogs. William had been sent out the day be¬ 
fore with two dogs, and had a skirmish with a 
bear. The two brothers went to this point and 
found the track, and chased the bear across the 
creek at Rocky Bend, the bear making for a 
windfall; but the dogs stopped him before he 
reached the windfall and commenced to fight. 
They soon heard some of the. dogs giving death- 
yells. They both hurried to the scene of conflict, 
and the sight they beheld was three favorite dogs 
stretched out dead and the balance fighting. Wil¬ 
liam ran in and placed the muzzle of his gun 
against bruin’s breast and fired. The bear then 
backed up to the root of a large hemlock, sitting 
upright and grabbing for dogs. John and Wil¬ 
liam then fired, and both balls entered bruin’s 
head, not more than an inch apart. In this melee 
three dogs were killed and the other six badly 
wounded. 
When William was still a boy he went up the 
North Fork and killed five deer in one day. On 
his way home about dark he noticed a pole stick¬ 
ing in the hollow of a tree, and carelessly gave 
this pole a jerk, when he heard a noise in the 
hole. The moon being up, he saw a bear emerge 
from his tree some distance up. Young Long shot 
and killed it before it reached the earth. In that 
same fall, William killed in one day, on Mill 
Creek, nine deer, the largest number he ever 
killed in that space of time. At that time he kept 
nothing but the pelts, and carried them home on 
his back. Panthers often came around Louis 
Long’s home at night, screaming and yelling. So 
one morning, after three had been prowling 
around the house all night, William induced his 
brother John to join him in a hunt for them. 
There was snow on the ground, and they took 
three dogs with them. The dogs soon found the 
“tracks.” Keeping the dogs back, they soon found 
three deer killed by the brutes, and then they let 
the dogs go. The dogs soon caught these three 
panthers feasting on a fourth deer and treed two 
of them. John shot one and Billy the 
other. The third escaped. The hunters then 
camped for the night, dining on deer and pan¬ 
ther-meat roasted, and each concluded the pan¬ 
ther-meat was the sweetest and the best. 
In the morning they pursued the third pan¬ 
ther, treed it, and killed it. These were the first 
panthers the Long boys ever killed. This stimu¬ 
lated young William, so he took one of the Vast- 
binder boys and started out again, taking two 
dogs. They soon found a panther, the dogs at¬ 
tacking it. Young Vastbinder fired, but missed. 
The panther sprang for Long, but the dogs 
caught him by the hams and that saved young 
Long. The panther broke loose from the dogs 
