40 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Jan. io, 1914. 
“Bill Long” King of Hunters 
T HE da}' after Long killed the seven bears, 
he took Charlie Southerland, and travelled 
over the same ground that he had been 
over the day before. He heard nothing, how¬ 
ever, during the day but the sigh of the breeze 
or the speech of the brook until near evening, 
when, within about a mile of home, he. saw a 
large buck coming down the hill. He fired and 
wounded the buck, and then motioned to Charlie 
to come up to him while he was loading. Charlie 
came with a large pine log on his back. Long 
asked him what he was doing with that log. 
Southerland replied he wanted it for dry wood. 
Long told him to throw the wood away, and 
made him carry the buck home for food. Long 
then yoked his two dogs up and told Charlie 
to lead them, but soon discovering bear signs, 
told Charlie to let the dogs go. The dogs took 
the trail, and found two bears heading for the 
laurel on the head of the North Fork. Long 
knew the route they would take, and beat them 
to the laurel path. Soon Long heard them com¬ 
ing, the dogs fighting the bears every time the 
bears would cross a log, catching them from 
behind. The bears would then turn around and 
fight the dogs until they could get over the log. 
When the bears came within about thirty yards 
of Long, he shot one through the head and killed 
him. At this time Long only took the pelts, 
which he always carried home, the meat being 
of no account. This same year Long took Char¬ 
lie with him to get some venison by watching a 
lick, and together they climbed a tree and waited. 
In a short time a very large bear came into the 
lick. Long shot it while he and Charlie were up 
the tree. Much to Long’s amusement, Charlie 
was so scared that he fell from the tree to the 
ground, landing on his back. He was, however, 
unhurt, and able to carry home to his cabin the 
pelt and bear oil. The next morning they saw 
a bear, and Long fired, hitting him in the lungs. 
This same fall, on the head of the North Fork, 
Long saw something black in the brush, which, 
on closer inspection, proved to be a large she 
bear. On looking up, he saw three good-sized 
cubs. Long climbed up, and brought the whole 
three of them down, one at a time. He then 
handed them to Charlie, who tied their legs. 
Long put them in his knapsack and carried them 
home. 
Even at this late day Long only took the 
skins and what meat he wanted for his own use. 
This fall Long was not feeling well, and had 
to keep out of the wet. He therefore made Char¬ 
lie carry him across the streams. He also made 
Charlie carry a wolf-skin for him to sit on at 
night, when he was watching a lick. At another 
time Charlie and Long went out on a hunt near 
the head of the North Fork. In lonely solitude 
the dog started a bear, and Long could not shoot 
it for fear of hitting the dog, so he ran up and 
made a stroke at the bear’s head with a toma¬ 
hawk, wounding it but slightly. The bear jumped 
for Long, and the dog came to the rescue of his 
master by catching “the tip of the bear’s tail 
end,’’ and, with the valor and fidelity of a true 
knight, held it firmly, until Long, who had left 
his gun a short distance, ran for it. Charlie 
thought Long was running from the bear, and 
took to his heels as if the “Old Harry” was after 
him. Long tried to stop him, but Charlie only 
looked back, and at this moment his foot caught 
under a root, throwing him about thirty feet 
By DR. W. J. McKNIGHT 
(Concluded from last week.) 
down a hill. Charlie landed on a rock hard 
enough to have burst a shingle-bolt. Long, see¬ 
ing this, ran to the bear with his gun and shot 
him. He then hurried down the hill to see what 
had become of Charlie, calling to him. Charlie 
came out from under a bunch of laurel, saying, 
“God Almighty, Massa Long, I am failed from 
heben to hell! Are you still living? I tot that 
ar bar had done gon for you when I seed him 
come for you with his mouth open. Bless de 
good Lord, you still live, or this nigger would 
never git out of dese woods!” 
Once in this same year, when Long was up 
on the North Fork, he 'shot a deer, and it fell 
apparently dead; but when he went to cut its 
throat it jumped to its feet and made for him, 
and threw him on the ground, with a horn on each 
side of his breast. The stone and gravel stopped 
the horns from going into the ground to any 
great depth. Long then called for Charlie and 
the dogs, but they were slow in coming to his 
aid. Before Charlie got to him Long had let 
go of a horn with one hand, secured his knife, 
made a stroke at the neck of the deer, plunged 
the knife into its throat, and again dexterously 
clinched the loose horn. The blood flowed down 
on him until he was covered with it. When the 
deer commenced to rise Long still held on to both 
its horns until it raised him to his feet. The 
deer then gave a spring, and fell dead. By this 
time Charlie and the dogs came up, and the 
negro was crying. “Oh, massa, am you killed?” 
“No, damn you; where have you been?” “Oh, 
just came as soon as I could. Will I let the 
dogs go?” Long said, “No, the deer is dead.” 
Charlie’s domestic life was not all peace, as 
the following newspaper advertisement will ex¬ 
plain : 
CAUTION 
“Whereas my wife Susey did on the 26th 
day of March last leave my bed and board, and 
took with her two of my sons and some property, 
having no other provocation than ‘that I would 
not consent to my son marrying a white girl, and 
bring her home to live with us.’ Therefore I 
hereby caution all persons against harboring or 
trusting her on my account, as I will pay no 
debts of her contracting. 
“If she will come home I promise to do all 
in my power to make her comfortable, and give 
her an equal share of all my property. 
“Charles Southerland. 
“April 7, 1847.” 
In a copy of the Jeffersonian printed in 1852, 
I find the following: 
“In this day’s paper we record the death of 
Charles Sutherland (colored), who was one of 
the oldest inhabitants of this county. Sutherland 
had arrived at the advanced age of nearly one 
hundred years. He came to what is now Jef¬ 
ferson County upwards of forty years ago, when 
the ground upon which Brookville now stands 
was but a howling wilderness. Many there are 
in this borough who will miss the familiar and 
friendly visits of ‘old Charley,’ who, with hat 
in hand, and his venerable head uncovered, asked 
alms at their hands. No more will they hear 
from him a description of the ‘Father of his 
Country,’ when he, Charley, held his horse at the 
laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol at Wash¬ 
ington City. His breath is hushed, his lips are 
sealed, and his body is wrapped in the cold 
habiliments of the grave. Requiescat in pace.” 
When this wilderness commenced to settle 
up, Long visited Broken Straw Creek, in Warren 
County, on the head of the Allegheny River, to 
see a noted hunter by the name of Cotton, and 
to learn from him his method of hunting young 
wolves. He learned much from this man Cotton, 
and afterward secured many young wolves by 
following his instructions. In the winter of 
1835 Mike and Bill Long went to Boone's Moun¬ 
tain to hunt. This mountain was, in those days, 
a barren region that always looked in winter¬ 
time like 
“Rivers of ice and a sea of snow, 
A wilderness frigid and white.” 
During one season Bill killed one hundred 
and five deer, and Mike one hundred and four, 
and together they killed four bears. At this 
time there was some local demand in Brookville 
and other towns for venison, and in this year the 
Longs sent loads of venison to Harrisburg, mak¬ 
ing a trip to the capital in seven or eight days. 
In 1839, Long moved into Clearfield County, and 
his history in Jefferson County was closed. 
Number of animals killed by Long in his 
lifetime: Bears, 400; deer (in 1835 one white 
one), 3,500; panthers, 50; wolves, 2,000; elks, 
125; foxes, 400; wildcats, 200; catamounts, 500; 
otters, 75. 
In 1824 Bill Long had a thrilling adventure 
with a huge panther in what is now Warsaw 
Township. He, in a hand-to-hand encounter, 
killed the animal near where Bootjack, Jefferson 
County, now stands. 
Long used to catch fawns, mark their ears, 
turn them loose, and kill them when full-grown 
deer. Elks were also easily domesticated, and 
sold as follows: viz., for a living male elk one 
year old, $50; two years old, $75; three years old, 
$100; and for a fawn three months old, $25. 
In 1835 Long had five wolf-dens that he visited 
annually for pups, about the 1st of May. 
In 1834, Bill Long, his brother Mike, and 
Ami Sibley started on a hunt for elk near where 
Portland now is. At the mouth of Bear Creek 
these three hunters came across a drove of about 
forty elks. Bill Long fired into the herd and 
broke the leg of one. This wounded elk began 
to squeal, and then the herd commenced to run 
in a circle around him. Sibley’s gun had the 
wiping-stick fastened in it, and he could not 
use it. Bill and Mike loaded and fired into the 
drove as rapidly as they could, the elks continu¬ 
ing to make the circle, until each had fired about 
twenty-five shots, when the drove became fright¬ 
ened and ran away. On examination, the hunters 
found eight large elks killed. They then made 
a raft, ran the load down to where Raught’s 
mill is now, and hauled the meat, pelts, and horns 
to Brookville. 
In 1836 Bill Long took Henry Dull and 
started on a hunt for a young elk. On the third 
day Long saw a doe elk and fawn. He shot the 
mother, and his dog caught the fawn and held it 
without hurting it. Long removed the udder 
from the mother, carrying it, and giving the 
fawn milk from it until they reached Ridgway, 
where a jug of milk was secured, and by 
artificial means the fawn was nourished until 
Long reached his North Fork home. Dull 
led the little creature by a rope around its neck. 
Mrs. Long raised this elk with her cows, feeding 
it every milking-time, and when the fawn grew 
