Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1889 — AM ANTIQUE SNAKE. [ARTICLE]

AM ANTIQUE SNAKE.

Probably the Progenitor of a Fam-, lly of Great Serpents. “I know that den of big black-snakes over in Potter county that Simon Kent talks about in the Sun, but I never knew about the fourteen foot snake that tided to capture the mule, “ said d man from Wellsville to a Hammondsport correspondent of the New York Sun. “I haven’t any doubt of it, though, for a bigger one tried to get away with Charley Wolfling, a blacksmith from Pike Mills, one day last summer, and two others, one ten feet long and the other twelve, waylaid old Mr. Compton and his daughter and were bound to earry them off. That den has been there from time out ol ,mind. It is in the southwestern pari of Potter county, along .the Young Woman’s creek, in a stretch of deep, dark woods known as the Black Forest. A year never goes by that a number ol “immense black-snakes'are not overpowered in that locality, as they are always prowling around looking for unwary te rasters and unsuspecting pedestrians. I don’t suppose there is another spot on this continent where such monstrous black-snakes can be found. I don’t know what it is that makes them grow so big there, but my opinion is that it is heoasisn the jncalitywhere they dwell is so wild and.hard to get at that the snakes have undisturbed opportunity to reach a patriarchal age. and take on their size with •years. I believe black-snakes would get just as big elsewhere if they could, only get the time. “There is no doubt in my mind that some of those Black forest serpents were born long before this country was settled. I have seen them with their faces as wrinkled as a walnut and with long gray hairs on their Upper lips. 1 killed one once down there that had a funny looking lump on its side. I cut down into it four or five inches, and found a flint arrow head at the bottom of the lump. There is Only one explanation for the presence of that arrow (head there. The snake had been 'sh-ol by an Indian sometime, and as there hadn’t been any Indians hunting with bows and arrows in that country for a good many generations of course the Snake must have been a lively native •before the days of the white men, and nobody knows how mauv years before, either. I’ll bet anything on that snake’s being 100 years old at least, and it was as hale and hearty a serpent as I ever saw. I say I killed It, biit that is h irdly true, either, although it owed it 3 death to me,. J: was lumbering along Young Woman’s creek, and had a lot of logs banked ready for rolling down the steep slope into the creek. Accidentally I let a log get away from me in unloading it, and away it wont down the hill. It had gone maybe half way down and had acquired a tremendous momentum when I saw one of tho big black-snakes of that region come tearing out from some place where it had been hiding and rush right out in the way of the flying log. I don’t know what the" snake thought the log wnS, but he was evidently in a state of fury at it, for he stopped and raised his head up and awaited the coming of the log. The log kept right on and struck the snake full force. The crush was a good one, and the log was stopped as still as if ii had brought up against a rook, “ ‘Well,’ I said to myself, that’s pret-' tv good. There’s a snake with a constitution, or there never was one.’ “I went down the hill and found the log canted up against the snake, and if a man unused to that country had come along just then I’d have said to him: “ ‘Just look at that snake and thal log!’ “He’d a looked and then said: “ ‘Which is the snake?’ “But the snake was dead, and ] very foolishly, after cutting into tha lump on his side to satisfy my curiosity, and finding the flint arrowhead, pried him out, and rolled him down 4&toHto~gFSek with the log instffStfbiP measuring him and reporting his death and 9ize. Consequently I can’t tell how long he was. but he was a dandy. But I actually believe that if he could have been seasoned and sawed up he’d have cut up into as nice a •bill of 16-inch boards as any one ever bought. “That Bnake was an exception to the ordinary run of Black forest snakes. I may be wrong, but I believe he was the founder of the black-snake family there. There wasn’t a gray hair on him, though, and his teeth were as sound as a pebble.