It was 1919. The great war had ended, and a time of peace and prosperity enveloped the United States. It was a more innocent time, a simpler time.
Jesse was a young man in his early 20s, a bit high strung in nature but over all a very eager and passionate fellow who was always up for a good time. His friends Hiram and Mathias were of similar spirits, and as such they often found themselves in many a mischievous adventure.
Mathias and Hiram were brothers, Jesse a distant cousin, but in those days, family consisted of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the whole array of relations going up and down the family tree. Hiram, Mathias, and Jesse had grown up together, got in trouble together, and had a lot of fun back in the old days, so much so that their stories live on down through the generations of their families.
What an adventure it was on a nice crisp fall evening when our little trio found themselves piled into an old truck, traveling the lesser-known roads (lesser known to the “city folk” of Waynesburg, at least) to find spots to let their dogs loose and tree a raccoon.
They were headed north from their homes near Pine Bank, headed generally in the direction of Waynesburg, and ultimately finding their way out on to Wisecarver Run (what we now know as Water Dam Road, at the site of the Future Wisecarver Recreation Area). Hiram knew some of the old farmers out in that country and had permission to hunt on their land.
Hiram was one of those people that knew everyone, had a friend everywhere he went, and was always the one who found the group places to hunt. The boys had only one hound with them that night, a very respectable hound known as Grizzly. Grizzly, was a Treeing Walker Coonhound, belonging to an old fella the young men had befriended some years before. He was big and mean, and very loud – Grizzly that is, not his owner, though some might have made such a comparison between man and hound.
Mathias especially was fond of his hound, and was known to hunt him very frequently, and they had a very good relationship with one another. Grizzly did have a reputation for being mean, and ol’ Mathias was one of the few guys around who knew how to handle the dog without getting eaten up in the process. Hiram and Jesse were just along for the ride, neither of them were brave enough to handle the hound.
“Boys, it’s gonna be an interesting night,” Jesse said to the others, knowing that anything could happen on a night out in the woods with Grizzly. Mathias responded in agreement while Hiram just drove on to their destination. Hiram found a spot to pull over, and the boys all got out of the truck and stretched their legs. They carried lanterns with them to find their way around in the dark woods; Jesse prepared them while Mathias got ole Grizzly ready.
Jesse lit a waiting lantern for each of the three young men, handed one to Hiram, kept hold of the other two, and told Mathias it was time to cut ol’ Grizzly loose. Grizzly ran into the woods, and Jesse, Hiram and Mathias got comfortable hanging around their truck while waiting for Grizzly to strike a track.
It wasn’t long before a deep bellowing howl arose from the woods. Some distance out ahead of the men, Grizzly had found a trail to follow. It sounded like a tough track: long periods of silence were interspersed with fast running and lots of track barks from ol’ Grizzly. The men stood around the truck, waiting for Grizzly to tree, and pondering what might be causing the odd run of the track.
Jesse and his friends weren’t very familiar with these woods, and were unaware of any of the geography or obstacles that Grizzly may be confronting. “It’s an old ghost coon,” Jesse muttered, thinking it might have been a wily old coon who had been chased by more than his fair share of hounds and knew the tricks to lose a hound.
Soon, however, a great roaring sound echoed through the treetops, and one might have thought it was an impending apocalypse. But it was just Grizzly barking on tree, having found the end of an old coon’s track.
Hiram stayed at the truck in case Mathias and Jesse might find themselves walking further than they realized and ending up on another road. Grizzly, it seemed, was out deep in the woods and probably down in a ravine based on the echo that the boys were hearing.
On they went. It was flat for a while, and eventually the ground gave way to hillside. As, Mathias and Jesse went further and further, they realized that Grizzly must be somewhere at the bottom of the hill, but as they got halfway down the hillside, Grizzly went silent.
“That’s strange,” Jesse said to Mathias. “Why would he just go silent like that?”
Mathias didn’t have much of an answer. They had a few hundred yards to go before they reached the bottom of the hill, and as they drew near, they could hear an odd rustling, but still no howls from Grizzly.
“He’s in a hole down there on that flat!” Mathias exclaimed. Jesse considered the thought for a while and agreed.
They got down to the flat at the bottom of the hill, and they could hear the rustling more clearly. It was a clearing, no trees, but several small bushes dotted the flat spot on which the two men found themselves. Jesse and Mathias searched all the bushes, expecting to find Grizzly in a hole, but their search was unsuccessful.
“Where on earth is he?” Jesse said, as he stood up from a bush, stretched his arms and looked towards the sky.
“Oh… Oh! Mathias, get over here now,” Jesse yelled. Mathias ran over, and Jesse directed his attention upwards.
A limb from a big tree stretched over the clearing, and there was Grizzly, standing on that limb having found himself very stuck, with a raccoon about 10 feet out ahead of him. The two animals were both scared out of their minds. The raccoon was trying to get away from Grizzly, and Grizzly, having realized the seriousness of his predicament was trying to get out of the tree.
“How ever did that dog get up there?” Mathias asked. Jesse pointed towards the hillside to a tree that had fallen over and landed in the tree that Grizzly was in. Grizzly had simply walked out the fallen tree and out on a limb but couldn’t get himself turned around to get back out. Now the young men had to figure out how to safely get Grizzly down .
They always kept an old blanket or two behind the seat of the truck, so Jesse had the brilliant idea of running up the hill to the truck, bringing the blanket down, and sending Hiram with the truck to a road below them, so they didn’t have to walk back up the hill after their rescue.
Jesse thought that Mathias, being the dog’s designated handler, could climb up the tree and get out on the limb to shake Grizzly out, while Jesse stood below holding the blanket in his outstretched arms to catch the dog. And that is exactly what they did. Mathias got up that tree, climbed out the limb just enough so he could shake it with his body weight, and after a great amount of shaking Grizzly fell.
Down below, Jesse was ready, but had misaligned himself. When Grizzly fell, he didn’t land in the blanket as Jesse had hoped but fell right on Jesse’s head. Both man and dog hit the ground like a ton of bricks, laid there for a second, and got up seeming somewhat stunned by the event. Mathias, still in the tree, laughed hysterically, knowing that both were all right. Mathias climbed his way out of the tree and met Jesse and Grizzly down below and put the dog on his ,leather lead.
“That coon gets to live another day” Mathias said, as he and Jesse both looked back up into the tree and saw it still sitting on a branch, having held on for dear life while Grizzly was getting shaken out of the tree. Mathias and the still stunned pair walked down the hill and met Hiram on the road below. Another adventure had come to an end. They decided to call it a night and Hiram drove the boys on home.
No doubt all three had lots of laughs on that drive, and it was a story none of them would ever forget.