Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1893 — A PATRIARCHAL ALLIGATOR. [ARTICLE]

A PATRIARCHAL ALLIGATOR.

The Pet of a Southern Family for Over a Hundred Years. In the bayou flowing through the large sugar plantation of Gabriel Montaigne, lying seven or eight miles south of Thibodeaux, La., there was recently killed, says the Philadelphia Times, an alligator known to be something over 120 years old. In 1773 Mr. Montaigne’s father’s grandfather, immigrated to this country from France, purchased this tract of land from its original Spanish owner, and in an attempt to clear the bayou of the ferocious and aggressive alligators, which tilled it to the number of thousands, succeeded in killing many of them, and among them the mother of several young ones, three of which he killed also, butthe fourth got away, leaving five hr six inches of his tail behind. This one was afterward seen from time to time and always recognized by the missing portion of his anatomy. He grew to be something of a pet with the succeeding generations, but they thought It safest to keep him at a distance despite his friendly advances. It has been a favorite task with the younger Montaignes to go after each meal with tidbits for old Shorty, as he was called because of his deformity. There was much grief therefore a day or two ago when an Eastern visitor, returning from a day’s shooting along the bayou’s banks, came across an enormous ’gator stretched across his path, and, firing on it, buried the contents of his gun in its head. Most of the shot was ineffectual because of the scaly armor of the reptile, but several penetrated the eyes, the vulnerable points, sought the brain and killed the animal. The visitor, who had been some yards in • advance of his host, was just congratulating himself on his prowess in slaying so fero-cious-looking a creature, when Mr. Montaigne, coming up, showed by his consternation that the victory had been at the cost of a loss to the entire family. The assassin of old Shorty was conscious stricken. The dead alligator was buried on the banks of the bayou amid the lamentations of the younger membqrs of the Montaigne family. This age of 120 years is not unparalleled with these animals, many being said to attain the age of 100, though this is difficult of proving, except in cases where the creature is marked in some such way as old Shorty was.