77^ 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 15, 1909. 
Reelfoot Lake Preserve. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Another chapter has been added to the 
story of Reelfoot Lake. The Tennessee Legis¬ 
lature has appropriated money for the pur¬ 
chase of the claims of the various holders of 
titles and has decreed that the lake be made a 
public preserve for fish and game. This move 
will doubtless end the long and bitter dispute 
^between private preserve makers and hunters 
and fishermen. 
The story of the lake has been frequently 
told. It was first formed by the New Madrid 
earthquakes of 1811-13. Trappers had found 
the region of the lake very beautiful before the 
earthquakes. Game was extraordinarily plenti¬ 
ful, and the land seemed to be common bot¬ 
toms. It was part of a soldiers’ grant, and 
would in due course have been cleared for culti¬ 
vation. The earthquake either sank the land, 
or raised a ridge across the outlets, and hunters 
and trappers after the shakes found the woods 
■“full of water.” The forest was drowned, and 
the dead wilderness which makes Reelfoot Lake 
■one of the most melancholy spectacles in the 
country, resulted. 
When the law came into the bottoms, the 
dense tangle of wilderness around Reelfoot was 
the shelter of many bad men. Previous to 
the Civil War river pirates were numerous and 
bold down the Mississippi. Their hang-outs 
were the despair of the river trippers. On his 
trip down the Mississippi in a whisky-boat, 
Abraham Lincoln is said to have had a fight 
with negro pirates. The dead forest gave ex- 
■cellent cover for shanties built on rafts in the 
narrow arms of the lakes. 
When piracy was killed off to some extent, 
'the whisky stills came to the bottoms, and at 
least one of these became famous in river 
annals. It was built on the shores of Reelfoot 
Lake, and the owner grew wealthy. The whisky 
was barreled and rolled into the lake to ripen, 
as well as to hide it. In due course, the Gov¬ 
ernment came in and the owner of the still was 
compelled to flee. Pie was gone ten years. 
Then he was permitted to settle by cash pay¬ 
ment. 
From the viewpoint of sportsmen, the story 
of the lake is melancholy, for there thousands 
of birds were killed by the market and feather 
hunters. It was a splendid shelter for wildfowl, 
food was plenty and in the early days there was 
peace for th'e migrants. But the feather and 
market hunters came. They reaped a harvest 
and destroyed the flocks. Probably more wood 
ducks were killed on Reelfoot Lake than in 
any two other States in the country. To this 
day they are probably more plentiful there than 
at any other place. 
Beaver are still caught in the Scatters along 
the meandering outlet of the lake, which is 
filled with fallen trees and tangled with brush. 
The Obion River — Davy Crockett’s river— 
flows along one edge of the Scatters, and it is 
a favorite shanty-boat fisherman and trapper 
stream. 
The spawning season brings vast quantities 
of fish out of the Mississippi into the rivers of 
the overflow. They ascend the St. Francis 
River into St. Francis Lake, and spread out 
over the great sheets of sand which were 
■"boiled up” in the earthquakes. Fishermen 
string their fences of net from tree to tree for 
hundreds of yards to guide the fish into hoops 
and pounds. In the lake the fish find acres of 
spawning beds. Black bass in thousands were 
netted and sent to market by steamer and rail¬ 
road. 
The first trouble between fishermen and land¬ 
holders came when a ditch was started to drain 
the lake. The fishermen fought that through 
the courts and finally checkmated a drainage 
scheme in the Legislature. 
In the attempt to convert the lake into a 
private preserve, it was estimated that the 
profit from selling the fish alone would be 
$70,000 a year, while birds killed by market 
hunters and sportsmen hiring the right to shoot 
would amount to large sums. Claims to the 
land were purchased for a few dollars, except 
some which independent hunters and fishermen 
took up. Influence was brought to bear on the 
State authorities and a resident game warden 
secured. Litigation was commenced against 
game and fish buyers and injunctions were 
served on the fishermen. The fishermen fought 
back as best they could, but the process of 
making a private preserve of the lake con¬ 
tinued. If the lake were made into a preserve, 
there would be no preventing the development 
of the lake shores into cotton land, for a levee 
would keep out the Mississippi overflow. The 
Government has been building such a levee. 
Unable to cope with the makers of the 
private preserve, the fishermen grew desper¬ 
ate. They laid their defeat on the attor¬ 
neys engaged to fight the case in the courts. 
Two of these were Col. Zac Taylor and Capt. 
Rankin. Col. Taylor has thousands of friends 
up and down the Mississippi valley, and when 
the fishermen in their desperation over what 
they called robbing them of their right to fish 
and get their living, at last organized a night- 
rider band and captured both Rankin and 
Taylor, Taylor’s kindly heart, as shown in the 
past, saved his life. Rankin, a high-spirited, 
law-making, fighting, determined man, was 
lynched. 
The night-riders had been defeated as fisher¬ 
men in all courts, and they went back to what 
they call “first principles.” They did murder 
for the sake of having Reelfoot Lake open to 
the public. Eight were captured, tried and 
sentenced to be hanged. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
As to Biting Dogs. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., May 2.-~Editor Forest and 
Stream: In suits for damages in the English 
courts, against owners of vicious dogs which 
have injured persons, the point of law is fre¬ 
quently raised as a defense that a dog is en¬ 
titled to one bite of a person before he can be 
considered vicious. This to me always seemed 
an outrageously fallacious concession. The mere 
fact that a dog has bitten a person should be quite 
sufficient to establish the fact that he is vicious, 
assuming of course that he was not provoked 
in such a way as to justify the assault. 
That the English viewpoint does not obtain 
in this country is shown by the result of the 
second trial of the suit brought by Mary L. 
Buckley, guardian of 'Willie King, who, it was 
alleged, was bitten by the bulldog of William 
Muldoon, while passing near the famous train¬ 
ing establishment at White Plains, N. Y. Dam¬ 
ages were placed at $1,000, and the two trials 
resulted in a verdict favorable to the plaintiff. 
The first trial was held before Justice Mor- 
schauser in the Supreme Court at White Plains 
about a year ago, and from the unfavorable 
verdict and judgment Muldoon appealed. The 
appeal was recently decided by the Appellate 
Division of the Supreme Court again in the 
plaintiff’s favor as above mentioned. 
There seems to have been a question as to 
whether it was or was not Muldoon’s dog which 
caused the damage. Hence, in this country, be¬ 
side the hostility to concede a first bite to the 
dog before he is considered vicious, there is a 
disposition to give credence to the testimony of 
the plaintiff in respect to the identity of the dog, 
all of which are precedents of grave import 
which owners of irritable dogs, or vicious dogs, 
would do well to heed. Dog Owner. 
Bitten by a Bear. 
A THRILLING bear story is contained in a re¬ 
port received at the Navy Department from 
Passed Assistant Surgeon C. C. Grieve, in 
charge of the naval hospital at Sitka, Alaska, 
says the Washington Star. 
The captain of a fishing sloop was brought 
to the hospital for treatment. An examination 
showed that he had been bitten no less than 
sixty-four times by a female brown bear and 
had received in addition many deep scratches. 
The fishing captain landed one day on the 
shore of Rodman Bay to hunt for deer. On his 
return at night he stumbled on the bear with 
her two young cubs. Before he could use his 
rifle the bear was upon him. In the struggle 
that ensued the man was bitten in all parts of 
the body. 
Eor three days he lay where he had fallen, 
without food or drink except a few berries he 
was able to gather and the moisture he could 
get from leaves. Fie began his trip down the 
mountain, crawling inch by inch, and reached 
the beach on the evening of the seventh day. 
He was pestered by mosquitoes, which at that 
time of year in Alaska are frightful. The 
wounded and almost naked man was compelled 
to burrow in the leaves and moss. 
His companions went in search of him, but 
they did not find him until he reached the beach. 
He was taken at once to the Sitka hospital, 
where he was found to be delirious and emaci¬ 
ated. Treatment was administered, although 
there seemed little chance that he would re¬ 
cover. He was put of the hospital, however, 
within thirty-seven days. Surgeon Grieve in 
sending the report, which is in the simple 
language of an official communication, says: 
“This case is interesting in that it shows the 
remarkable nerve of the man, his powers of 
endurance and the resistance of his system to 
infection. It also serves to disprove the time- 
honored fallacy originating in the claim of old 
hunters tliat bears never bite man.” 
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