I first saw this old family photograph in the 1990s when visiting Terry and Jane Cole at their log cabin home on Hoovers Run. We spent hours looking at photos and reliving the family history Terry has cobbled together from stories told by relatives, family treasures found in the attic and at auctions when another old farm gets sold.
Now I’m back to find those coon hunters I remember so well, to use them to compare how hunters went about their business then and now. They stare out of the photo, holding tools of the hunt that their forefathers used, long before headlamps, electronic collars and GPS on your smart phone became the order of the day.
Their names are hand lettered in order at the bottom of the photograph – Earl, Justus, Joe and Jacob Tustin. Terry notes that it was taken at the Tustin homestead on Tustin Run, Wayne Township in the 1930s. They are the sons of Abraham Tustin and Justin is “my Grandpap’s uncle. That’s a 410 shotgun, That’s a blue tick hound.”
Youngest son Earl is wearing bandoliers – a World War I issue cloth ammunition belt and Jacob is carrying a kerosene lantern for the night hunt. But what’s with the axe? To cut down the tree, Terry says.
Back then, raccoons were valued for their fur and brought good money, as did fox, beaver, muskrat, rabbit and opossum. As fur fell out of fashion, the reason to hunt with coon hounds and beagles reverted to the heart of the matter – not to kill the prey but for the pleasure of working with dogs, of being in fields and forests with those who share a love of nature, where time stands still and the spirit of the frontier comes alive.
Terry hands me another photograph that moves the time machine forward to the 1950s when hunters took to wearing Woolrich plaid and lacing up their boots. No fluorescent to be seen here – that was not yet the norm. Terry’s grandfather William Henry Cole is on the left, hunting foxes with second cousin Minor Cole and Minor’s youngest son Bob, on Silo Road, Wayne Township. The returning of the forests had begun and small game is what those private lands had to offer. It won’t be until the 1970s when the Commonwealth begins purchasing old farms and creating game lands that white tail deer will be reintroduced to Greene County and begin the repopulation that makes them the game hunters come for today.
It’s archery season now and a family who has been hunting the hills around Hoovers Run since 1987 are back at Coles Greene Acre Farm. Manager Shane Cole sends me a photo of Ty Kennedy, a “third generation Pfeilstucker on his mother’s side” who took his first deer with a bow on November 10 and a second the following day.
Now we see how this bow hunter hits the woods, 21st century style – Field & Stream camouflage, face paint and a trusty quad to bring the harvest home.
But what still gets coon hunters into the woods, now that the reward of selling the pelt is gone? Turns out they grab their headlights and their dogs for a different reason than their great greats might have done. But in retrospect, maybe not. I’ve done some hunting myself for this story, tracking down a new generation of boys to men who learned to hunt from fathers and older friends and now are the fresh faces at hunting competitions held at area and regional hunt clubs. There are prizes of electronic collars and bags of Purina Pro to be won and, of course, bragging rights. Some hunt rabbits with beagles by day in tall grasses and underbrush. Some raise red and blue tick hounds and learn the sound of their voices as they work the night forest for the scent of a raccoon.
I find Delbert Calvert through his friend Braydon Kidd, who accumulated enough points with his beagle Angel in 2017 to make him the top Youth First Strike Handler in the nation at age 16. “I’m working with him with beagles,” Braydon tells me.
I ask Delbert for a photo and something about why he hunts. He sends me a night shot taken by his friend Joe Straight. He and his dog Buddy, an English red tick, are checking a tree for a raccoon, a tree that would have withstood any attack by Jacob Tustin’s axe. His modern hunting gear includes leg gaiters to protect from deep underbrush and a vest with plenty of pockets. But his words sum up something universal for those who love the hunt: “I’m at peace hearing the dog barking on the trail of the coon. It makes me forget the problems of this crazy old world.”