May 19, 2021 • 56 mins
On this episode of The Bear Grease Podcast, we’re exploring the gruesome death of Erskine, an Ozark Mountain bear hunter killed by his quarry in the 1840s. You’ll hear the firsthand account of the incident from his comrade, Frederick Gerstacker. We'll also interview the leading historian of Ozarks (Dr. Brooks Blevins), hear from the man who found the only clue leading to Erskine’s grave, and go in search of the grave ourselves. This is one of my favorite stories of all time and its contents have affected my family and me for the last decade. I want to explore how stories impact us and why.
Connect with Clay and MeatEater
Clay on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop Bear Grease Merch
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M. What you're dealing with, especially with ger Sticker, is
a young man who is really really influenced by romanticism,
the sort of dark unknown out there. This week on
the Bear Grease Podcasts, we're going to explore the tragic
(00:20):
death of a bear hunter and hear the account firsthand
from the guide that was standing there when it happened.
Then we're going to search for his hundred and eighty
year old grave. In the process will look into the
adventurous life of the comrade of the deceased, Frederick Gerstalker.
We're gonna talk with the national expert on the Ozark region,
(00:43):
and we'll hear from the man who held one of
the keys in trying to find the old grave, and
then we'll go on a search for the grave ourselves.
You're not gonna want to miss this one. M. My
(01:07):
name is Clay Nukelem, and this is the Bear Grease
Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for
insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story
of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
(01:31):
I want to tell you a story, or really I
want the story to tell itself. If we think about
the now of time as the front edge of a
wave that we're writing Like a surfer. We can't get
back anything that's behind us. The wave no longer exists.
(01:51):
All we have is the remembrance of the imagery sight,
sounds in the context of the moment on the waves
stored in our giant human brain. But humans don't just
have brains. I'm quite certain that we have spirits which
also collect data that informs us of a deeper and
more meaningful connection to the events of our lives and
(02:13):
the lives of others. But it's more than just stored
data like temperature or the color of the sky or
what was said. The spirit can see the thing behind
the thing. Spirits are made of flesh and bone, and
you can't find it like an organ in the body.
But the spirit is the conduit that connects our lives
(02:34):
to something much bigger. It's what makes our lives more
than just a biological record of a human eating and
drinking and producing offspring. The spirit is what makes us human.
There's some stories that just impact us in more significant
ways than others. The story you're about to hear for
(02:54):
me is one of those stories that has shaped my
life in a significant way, and it's hard for me
to even explain why. The question I'm trying to answer
is this, What is the mechanism that can make someone
else's story so meaningful in our lives. When I was
(03:17):
in college, I had a professor that knew I was
interested in Arkansas black bears in passing. One day, he
suggested I read a book called Wild Sports by Frederick Gerstacker.
His sales pitch was weak. It's about an old German
guy that has some Arkansas bear hunting stories in it.
He said. The pitch was so weak that it would
be five years before I had ever read the book.
(03:40):
I mean, I guess I can't blame him for poor marketing,
but I thought, what's a German guy got to do
with Arkansas bear hunting? When I finally read the pages
of the book, I was mesmerized by the words of
the adventurous young German. I was mesmerized by his life.
He was witty, he was an incredible right, he was
(04:00):
tough as alligator leather, and fearless, and maybe most of all,
much of his adventure took place within twenty miles of
where I live. But even more, he was insightful into
human life. He valued people, and he even recognized the
wasteful and unsustainable ways of the market hunting culture of
(04:22):
his time, of which he even participated in. Frederick Gerstoker.
Some people say gersh Sticker was a well educated, middle
class German that came to the United States in search
of white tailed deer and black bear. Doesn't sound like
that bad of a guy. He came over on a
(04:44):
ship called the Constitution and arrived in New York and
July eighteen thirty seven. He embarked on a six year
long adventure that would take him through seven states and
one Canadian province. He kept detailed journals of his writing,
and at times he would send him back to his
mom in Germany. Six years later in eighteen forty three,
(05:04):
when he arrived back in Germany, he found himself an
acclaimed writer and national hero. His mother had been submitting
his articles to a local German publication. In the word
of his adventures spread like wildfire. There are too many
of ger Stalker's incredible stories to tell on this podcast,
(05:26):
but I want to tell you one that cut me
to the quick when I first read it. It involved
a man being killed by a bear in a Creek
drainage less than twenty miles from where I live. I
was shocked and slightly offended that nobody ever told me
this story. I want you to hear the first hand
account from Gerstalker of the death of his friend Erskine.
(05:50):
This is an excerpt from the book Wild Sports, published
in eighteen fifty four. This story is taken out of context,
so there are some characters you'll need to know. Conwell
as Gerstalker's older American hunting partner and friend with hair
(06:11):
as white as snow, he said. Conwell lived in Arkansas.
Wachiga is a Cherokee that became a trusted friend and
hunting partner of ger Stalker. And you'll be introduced to
young Erskine, who Gerstalker had met some years before in
the back country. So we were off again before noon
(06:35):
and gained the source of the hurricane. Rode across the
devil's stepping path, a narrow rock with a precipice on
each side, left the pilot rock on our left, and
came towards evening into the pine forest, where we were
sure of finding kindlers. Descending the steep side of a mountain,
we observed a thin column of blue smoke by the
(06:56):
side of the stream, showing that some hunters were in
camp there. We went straight towards it and found it
to be an Indian camp, and our former acquaintance, young Erskine,
among them there were Cherokees with three young choptaws, these
two tribes being on good terms like ourselves, they were
out bear hunting, but it had better luck. A quantity
(07:18):
of bear meat was hanging about the camp, and even
the dogs would eat no more. Casting ourselves down by
the fire, one of the squalls, for there were several
women in the camp, immediately cooked for us some bear,
which we duly regaled ourselves. M Night came on, and
soon we were all sunk in deep repose. Early in
(07:42):
the morning we began to move, dividing into two parties
for the better chance of finding game. Conwell went with
some of the Indians, amongst whom he had found an
old acquaintance, to make a circuit around the Pilot Rock,
while Erskine and I, with three Cherokees, proceeded to the
sources of the Frog Bayou. Night found us far from
our camp, so we made one for ourselves. Where we
(08:03):
were on the morning of February one. We had hardly
started ere we heard the dogs, which he could, declared
instantly that they were his brothers, and disappeared behind the
rocks without another word. As we stood listening, the sound
seemed to take a different direction. We ascended the mountain
as fast as we could to cut off the chase,
but found that we must have been mistaken, for in
(08:24):
a few minutes all was as silent as a grave.
Once we thought we heard a shot, but we couldn't
be certain. We ascended to the highest terrace and walked
slowly on, looking out for fresh signs, and listening to
catch the sound of the dog below. Amongst the broken
masses of rock, they might be near without being heard.
Along the mountaintops, they're audible at a great distance. It
(08:48):
may have been too in the afternoon, and we had
seen nothing when bears Grease raised his nose in the air,
remained for an instant or two in a fixed position, then,
given a short smothered how rashed down the mountain side.
Listening attentively, we heard the chase coming down the Hurricane river.
Erskine called out triumphantly, we shall have plenty of bear
(09:09):
this evening, and dashed after the dog. I was soon
by his side. I must observe by the way that
we were both very hungry. Presently, a bear broke through
the bushes of projecting rocks, stopped him for an instant.
When Erskine saluted him with a ball, he received mine.
As he rushed past and disappeared. The dogs, encouraged to
greater efforts by our shots and the stronger scent, followed
(09:33):
him out bears Greece, who was quite fresh leading the van.
Soon they came upon him and stopped him. We rushed
to the spot, without waiting to reload, and arriving in
time to see the beast, excited to the greatest fury,
kill four of our best dogs with as many blows
of his paws. But the others threw themselves on him
with greater animosity, and if our rifles had been loaded,
(09:55):
we could not have used them. Just as a large,
powerful brown dog, which had curiously attacked the bear, was
knocked over, bleeding and howling. Erskine called out, oh, save
the dogs, threw down his rifle and rushed on with
his knife among the furious group. I followed on the
instant when the bear sauce coming, he exerted still more
(10:16):
force to beat off the dogs and meet us. Seizing
his opportunity, my comrade ran his steel into his side.
The bear turned on him like lightning and seized him,
and he uttered a shrill, piercing shriek. Driven to desperation
by the sight, I plunged my knife three times into
the monster's body with all my force, without thinking of
(10:40):
jumping back. At the third thrust, the bear turned upon me.
Seeing as Paul coming, I attempted to evade the blow,
felt a sharp pang and sunk senseless to the ground.
When I recovered my senses, bears grease was licking the
blood from my face. On attempting to rise, I felt
(11:00):
a severe pain in my left side and was unable
to move my left arm. On making a fresh effort
to rise, I succeeded in sitting up. The bear was
close to me, in less than three ft from him,
lay erskine, stiff, and cold. I sprang up with a
cry of horror and rushed towards him. It was too true.
(11:20):
He was bathed in blood, his face torn to pieces,
his right shoulder almost wrenched away from his body, and
five of the best dogs ripped up with broken limbs
lying beside him. The bear was so covered with blood
that his color was hardly discernible. My left arm appeared
to be out of socket, but I could feel that
(11:42):
no bones were broken. The sun had gone down, and
I had hoped that the other hunters might have heard
our shots and the barking and howling to the dogs.
It grew dark. No one came. I roared and shouted
like mad, but no one heard me. I tried to
light a fire, but my left arm was so well
that I gave up the attempt. But as it would
(12:02):
have been certain death to pass the night under these
circumstances without a fire, I tore away part of the
back of my hunting shirt, and the fore part, being
saturated with blood, sprinkled some powder on it, rubbed it well,
and with my right hand I shook a little powder
into my rifle. Placing the muzzle on the rag, I fired,
blowing it up to a flame. I piled on dry
(12:25):
leaves and twigs and succeeded in making a good fire,
though with great pain and trouble. Now it was dark,
I went to my dead comrade, who was lying about
five yards from the fire. He was already stiff, and
it was with great difficulty that I could pull down
his arms and lay him straight, Nor could I keep
his eyes closed, though I laid small stones on them.
(12:49):
The dogs were very hungry, but it was impossible for
me to break up the bear only ripped him up
and fed them with his entrals. Bearscreached, laid himself down
by the corpse, looking steadfastly in his face, and went
no more near the bear, and hoping of obtaining help,
I loaded and fired twice, but nothing moved. The forest
(13:11):
appeared one enormous grave. I felt very ill, vomited several
times as well as I could. I laid myself down
beside the fire, and lost all consciousness of my wretched situation.
Whether I slept or fainted is more than I can tell,
But I know that I dreamed that I was at
(13:32):
home in my bed, and my mother brought me some
tea and laid her hand on my breast. Such an
awakening as I had, was worse than I could wish
to my bitterest enemy. Bears greased had pressed close to
my side, lying his head on my breast. The fire
was almost out, and I was shivering with cold, and
(13:54):
the wolves were hollowing fearfully around the dead, keeping at
a distance for fear of the living, but by no
means disposed to lose their prey. I rose with difficulty
and laid more wood on the fire. As it burned up,
the face of the corpse seemed to brighten. I started,
but found it was only an optical delusion. Louder and
(14:14):
fiercer howled the wolves and the dogs, of whom five
were alive besides Bear. Grease answered them, but the answer
was by no means one of defiance, rather a lament
for the dead, partly to scare away the wolves, and
partly in the hope of finding help. I loaded and
fired three times. My delight was inexpressible. As I heard
(14:35):
three shots in return. I loaded and fired until all
my powder was expended. As morning broke, I heard two
shots not far off, and soon after a third. A
shipwrecked mariner hanging to the side of a plank could
not raise his voice more lustily to hail a passing
ship than I did, And joy upon joy, I heard
(14:56):
a human voice, and answer the bark of the dogs.
And now to stranger and what Chiga advanced out of
the bush while he exclaimed. Staring at the shocking spectacle,
he felt poor erskine and shook his head mournfully. He
turned to me. I showed him my swollen arm, which
he examined attentively, without speaking, Forming a hollow with his
(15:18):
two hands and placing them to his lips, he gave
a loud, piercing shout. The answer came from no great distance,
and in a few minutes my old dear friend Conwell
and most of the Indians were at my side. I
grasped Conwell's hands sorrowfully and told him in few words
how it all had happened. The old man scolded and
(15:39):
said it served us right. There's no greater danger and
sticking a knife into a bear's paunch when he's fallen
with the dogs upon him. But if he has been
thrown and then catches the sight of his greatest enemy man,
he exerts all his force to attack him, and woe
to him who comes within reach of his paws. It
was all very well talking. He had not been present
(16:01):
and seen one dog after another knocked over, never to
rise again five minutes more, and not one would have
been saved. And who knows whether the enraged beasts would
not have attacked us. Then. Meanwhile, the Indians had been
digging a grave with their tomahawks, wrapping the body in
a blanket. They laid him in it and covered him
(16:22):
with earth and heavy stones. Conwell cut down some young
stems and made a fence around the solitary grave. I
could not avoid a shudder at the quiet coolness of
the whole proceeding, as the thought struck me that the
same persons, under the same circumstances would have treated me
in the same cool way had I fallen instead of Erskine.
(16:45):
Like me, he was a lonely stranger in a foreign land,
having left England some years before, and his friends and
relations will probably never know what became of him. Thousands
perish in this way in America, of whom nothing more
is heard, and perhaps in a few months the remembrance
of them was entirely passed away. After the dead was
(17:07):
quietly laid in the grave, Chiga came with an elderly
Indian to look at my arm. Chiga moved it while
the other looked steadfastly in my face. The pain was
enough to drive me mad, but I would not utter
a sound. Next, the Indian took hold of my arm,
laying his left hand on my shoulder, and while Chia
suddenly seized me around the body from behind, the other
(17:28):
pulled with all his force. The pain at first was
so great that I almost feigned, but it gradually diminished.
In spite of my resolve to show no signs of it,
I could not suppress a shriek. Conwell soon after asked
if I could ride on my answering yes, he helped
me on a horse. Then, throwing the bear's skin and
(17:49):
some of the meat on his own, we moved slowly homewards.
My sufferings on the way were very great, but I
uttered no murmur. I only longed for pose. This was
just a couple of pages out of a four hundred
page book, but I want to take some inventory of
(18:12):
the components of this story. A German, a British guy
and an American hunting with a mixed tribe of Native Americans,
Cherokees and Choctaws in the eighteen forties. They were bear
hunting with dogs, the Native Americans dogs to be exact
for black bear. In the month of February in the
Ozarks of Arkansas, an incredible bear chase ensues and a
(18:37):
man who we only know his first name, Erskine, dies
at the hand of a bear after stabbing it with
his bowie knife. They didn't have time to reload. His
comrade charges in and kills the bear with a knife
and in the process gets smacked so hard it dislocates
his shoulder and knocks him out. Girl Stalker spends the
(18:57):
night with an arm's reach of a day bear, five
dead dogs, and Erskine's corpse. Gray wolves which used to
be in Arkansas, kept him awake, howling through the night.
He laid stones on the eyelids of the corpse to
keep his eyes shut. The next morning, he's found by
the hunting party and the natives set his shoulder into
(19:20):
place and buried the dead in the shallow grave dug
with tomahawks. They throw the bear meat and the hide
over the back of a good horse and head home.
End of story. Now you know the story of Erskine's death,
(19:42):
and you've seen a bit into the life of Gerstalker.
But we need to know more information to understand the
significance of this wild story. And I'm still wondering why
and how this short snippet of time just a little
part of somebody else's wave has impacted me the way
it has. As I sit down with Dr Brooks Blevins,
(20:11):
He's wearing a black suit and a pink tie. He's
all dressed up because he was just on the documentary
for TV talking about the backwoods of the Ozarks. He's
an in demand guy, you see. Dr Blevins is a
professor at Missouri State University, and he is the Jedi
Master of Ozark history and probably one of the coolest
(20:32):
guys I've met in a long time. He drives a
mid nineteen nineties Sedan with duct tape on one of
the side mirrors, and he's written over fifteen incredible books
about the Ozark region. I wanted to get some context
from Dr Blevins about the time period that Gerstalker was here.
Context is king. So, Dr Blevins, Gerstalker was in the
(20:56):
Ozarks and Washingtas from eighteen thirty seven to eighteen four
prety three. What can you tell us just about that
general era, who was here and kind of what life
was like. Well, first of all, in Arkansas, this is
right after Arkansas becomes a state in eighteen thirty six.
One of the things that that we would immediately notice
(21:16):
is how few people there were. You know, there were
You're talking about fewer than a hundred thousand people in
the entire state. The Washingtalls and the Ozarks especially would
have been very very thinly populated. And of course that's
why he's there. He's he's there to find animals, not
not people. You're talking about sparse population. You're talking about
(21:37):
a population of people who have mainly come from the
upper south east of the Mississippi. So you've got lots
of tennessee Ins who are here. You got Carolinians, people
from Virginia, Kentucky. Those are the people who are for
the most part coming to the Ozarks and Washingtalls. And
a lot of these people are gonna have backgrounds in
(21:59):
in hunting of various kinds, and in a lot of
cases that's why they're out here in the first place.
You know, they've kind of exhausted their hunting grounds back
east and they're just kept moving west. A lot of
people come because they want to hunt, especially if they
want to hunt commercially. You know, the commercial hunting was
pretty much a dead letter by the eighteen thirties and
(22:21):
forties back east of the Mississippi. And if you were
interested in making a living selling skins and and bear
grease and and meat and stuff like that, you had
to go to the to the edge. This would have been,
during that time considered part of the western edge of
the frontier. Really, oh yeah, I mean, so we don't
(22:44):
think of Arkansas being the frontier or the west, but
this was like far west. So yeah, the uh, the
Washingtons and the Ozarks, Arkansas, they're all the edge of
the edge of American civilization. Gerstalker seemed to have the
(23:05):
intent of coming from Germany to hunt in America. Was
that common? I mean? And I guess my question is
what was the reputation of the American frontier on the
global stage. I think, well, I guess it depends on
how you defined common, But I would say it certainly
wasn't uncommon for Europeans who had the means and the
(23:30):
interest to come to the United States, and especially the
western part of the United States and hunt. I mean,
we see that happening even after the Civil War, where
you have European buffalo hunters come over. For instance, would
they have heard of Daniel Boone? By that, I mean
Daniel Boone would have already been dead for twenty years
or so. I mean, would they have heard of Daniel
(23:51):
Boone globally by that? Yeah? I think. I think Well,
if you were well read, like GERSH. Dicker obviously was,
if you were an educated person and you were interested
in the exotic, you know, American frontier, as these guys
obviously were, you would have been well versed in Daniel
Boone stuff. But as we know that as late as
(24:12):
eighteen eleven, so we're talking about roughly a quarter century
before ger Sticker shows up, Daniel Boone had done a
long hunt in the Ozarks. A long hunt is a
description of the style of hunting. It may be intuitive,
but it wasn't to me. It was a term used
from the mid seventeen hundreds through the mid eighteen hundreds.
(24:34):
That simply means dudes went hunting for long periods of time,
like six months up to a couple of years. But
what you're dealing with, especially with ger Sticker, is a
young man who is really really influenced by Romanticism and
everything that mean. And I'm not talking about you know,
Valentine's Day and kissy stuff. We're talking about the sort
(24:59):
of dark unknown out there that that that calls to people,
especially young men, who want to go out and explore
and see what's out there. And that romanticism would have
been like portraying something as just like amazing and mystical
and like looking at the positives and something that actually
(25:19):
may not have been very positive. Like he he he
romanticized about the West and about hunting. And you can
tell that, you know, uh, one of the things that uh,
that I did in in my book Arkansas, Arkansas as
I as I contrasted the romantic thinkers and what I
call the Enlightenment thinkers. And and that's a good point.
(25:39):
What what ger Shticker saw as romantic and positive and
earlier traveler like say Henry Roe Schoolcraft, who came through
roughly twenty years before Gersticker did. Schoolcraft would have found
repulsive and uncivilized. And he couldn't wait to get back, right,
(26:00):
I mean, he he really couldn't wait to get back
to the Hudson River Valley and to civilization. But they
were both educated young men, but one just had a
different outlook on on live. I mean, he had chosen
to come here, you know, thinking about the reputation of
the American frontier, like what Gerstalker would have maybe heard
(26:21):
and seen back in his home in Germany. It's it's
hard to imagine a section of a massive continent that
would just be unknown, like we we don't live inside
of that paradigm any longer. Like the Earth has been explored.
There's there's micro cosms that hold mystery today. But this
was like massive mystery and intrigue of the West and
(26:45):
the in the in the even the animals. I mean
like they were introducing animals to these people that they
had never heard of before. I mean bison and elk
and in in black bears. They didn't have black bears
in Germany, they would have had brown bears. It's hard
for me to imagine. I can see the draw. I
can imagine the draw to the American West. I mean
(27:06):
it would have just been this like mythical place. And
now what we see inside the book, and what gir
gir Stalker does such a great job of showing, is
how difficult it was. I mean, what I came out
of this book understanding and having respect for him was
just and these people was just their resilience and their
just ability to persist through hardship and there. They didn't
(27:30):
know any better. I mean, they didn't they didn't know
any different. They didn't know the comforts that we have
today that they could have compared with. So, I mean,
you would assume, and you would hope that the resiliency
and internal strength and physical strength of us today would
have been comparable to them. But it's hard to make
that jump. Like I'm I'm a hunter, and when I
hear these stories of Girl Stalker and Erskine, I just
(27:52):
think I couldn't have done it. But there's this hope
inside of me, Dr Blevin's that if I didn't know
any different, that I would have been able to do it,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I know exactly what
you're saying. And and the the amazing thing about Girl
Shticker is to a certain degree he did no different.
You know, he did grow up in a in a
middle class and in as civilized and modern a place
(28:15):
as you could have grown in the world. And yeah,
that's right on planet Earth. So the Ozarks became nationally
known during that time period for bear hunting. How did
that happen? Well, part of it is that there was
a basis in fact for all of the legends. I
mean that this really was and you you find this
not only from girl Shticker who gets here relatively late,
(28:37):
but earlier explorers who talked about the wealth of wildlife
in this place. The Ozarks and the Washingtons were in
the in the middle part of the continent. They were
this just sort of promised land of of of wildlife
by the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds. Part
of that because the Ozarks especially had been uninhabited. It
(29:00):
had been the hunting ground of the O Sage for
a century or more by the time the first European
settlers got here. But they really didn't live here. They
didn't they didn't leave a really big footprint on on
the area. So there was just this abundance of wildlife
of bears, deer, elks, buffalo, you know, you just name it,
(29:22):
and and they found everything here. What Dr Blebens is
describing may need a little explanation. We often have this
idea that Native Americans had permanent settlements and regions for
thousands of years without interruption. However, the archaeological records shows
something different. Paleo Indians arrived in the Ozarks about twelve
(29:45):
thousand years ago and used bluffs for shelter, and they
left a lot of artifacts. They lived here in very
small numbers for thousands of years, but the last one
thousand years it's less certain who was here and for
how long. It's believed that the Ozarks was only used
as a seasonal hunting ground for the Osage tribe, meaning
(30:08):
there would be long stretches of time where there were
no humans here. Just think about that for a minute.
When the French arrived in the Ozarks in the seventeen hundreds,
they found the place almost entirely devoid of permanent Native
American settlements. What starts happening is by the late seventeen hundreds,
(30:31):
the o Sage, to a lesser degree, the Cherokee, who
are starting to come in, and the Choctaw and some
of the other groups start to convert from their traditional
lifestyles to market hunting. And when they do that, you
really start to see the wildlife numbers start to go down.
(30:51):
And then when you add to that all of these
white market hunters who start coming into the region in
the early eighteen hundreds. Henry row Schoolcraft, in his first
book about the Ozarks, mentions that just in the White
River Watershed. He estimated there were between a thousand and
fifteen hundred full time market hunters in in eighteen nineteen
(31:14):
uh and And you can imagine the destructive capabilities to
the wildlife populations that that many hunters, combined with Native
Americans who had who had made the switch over. And
so you've got bales and bales of pelts and hides
coming into St. Louis and and Memphis and these other cities.
(31:36):
By the time schoolcraft comes, bear hunting is just starting
to be the big thing. It's the next big thing.
Ger Stecker really comes in at the end of that,
at the end of the commercial bear hunting age. He's
he his timing was just right, that he didn't miss it,
and he even noted he even mentions this, he he
realizes that this is coming to an end, that that
(31:59):
these destructive of practices of these hunters was quickly bringing
an end to this what once had been a wonderland
of wildlife. He was he was noted and he's noted
today of having foresight and and having kind of a
conservation mindset, even though he participated in it. You see
Inklands in his writing that he recognized that this wasn't
(32:20):
sustainable and it wasn't good for his time. That was
kind of progressive thinking, which is noteworthy of him. Yeah,
that's right. Girl Stalker's main dog that he had his
whole time in Arkansas was named bears grease. Can you
(32:42):
talk to me about bear grease and its importance in
the region. Bear grease was it was part of that market. Uh,
it was even in eighteen nineteen when Schoolcraft first gives
us some numbers. He even tells us what the price
of a bear high. It's well, I think it was.
It was a buck fifty at that time. He talks
(33:05):
about the price of bear meat. That bear meat was
was highly valued. It was, it was the most expensive
meat in the area. But also bear grease was it
was used for. Uh. It could be used as actual
cooking grease. And bear grease is the rendered fat of
(33:25):
a bear. Yeah, it's bear fat. It's cooked down then
turned into liquid oil. It could be used actually for
cooking oil. But it was often used as well for
candle making. And but it became one of the one
of the really valuable products of the bear hunting process.
There was a at one point in the eighteen thirties
(33:49):
we know that there was a bear oil rendering plant
that was established at the mouth of Bear Creek near
the Arkansas Missouri line. It would have been probably I
think it would have been a Boone count modern day
Boone County, Arkansas. But we know there was a rendering
plant there that, by some accounts employed several dozen people
(34:13):
down to New Orleans. That's right, Yeah, they would ship
them to New Orleans and that was a big thing.
Why do you think he would have named his dog that? Like,
does that tell us anything? Because it it's like, you know,
there's certain things inside of society and we do it
today that has like a metaphorical meaning. What was he
alluding to? You think it could have It could have
just been a something that I mean, the word itself
(34:37):
for a German could have just sounded very American or something.
I'm not really sure. I mean, obviously it would have
been symbolic for him, as a guy who aspired to
be a bear hunter to have a dog named bears Grease,
but it could also reflect how valuable the dog was
to him. It was as valuable as Greece. I mean,
(34:57):
and we know, I mean, we know not just from GERSH. Decker,
but all kinds of bear hunter stories that there was
nothing more valuable to a hunter than a good dog.
I mean, if it could mean the difference between life
and death. If you if you remember, the most emotional
that the German Gersh Decker ever gets in his book
is when he has to say bye to his dog
(35:19):
and he tears up. You know, he has to turn
away so bears Greece won't see him crying. I heard
you one time say that bear hunters were the rock
stars of the Antebellum South. Can you can you describe
what you meant by that? Because I like it? What
is the Antebellum South? Can you tell me the word
(35:42):
antebellum means before the war. Human history is so wrought
with war that we have an English word that generically
means the time before the war. Clearly, in this context,
the war we're talking about is the Civil War. You know,
you're talking about an era when most of the modern
(36:04):
sports that we follow we're not even invented. Yet. You're
talking about an era when you know, horse racing was
probably the biggest competition type sport that there was. So
it's an age when people again romanticized and sort of
made made heroes out of people who did these kind
of brave, dangerous things, especially on the frontier. There was
(36:29):
nothing that qualified better than bear hunting. So there was
this kind of daredevil, rock star, you know, athletic he yeah, yeah,
and it's even better than than modern day uh athlete.
He rose because some of these guys didn't make it out.
I mean there, you know, there were guys like Erskine
(36:50):
who died uh and and further sort of burnished the
stories of the survivors. When I first read this book,
I was intrigued by girl Stalker's relationship with the Native Americans.
Many times in the book he recounted camping and hunting
with them, and their interactions were always peaceful and he
(37:12):
seemed to have the utmost respect for them. Once Gerstalker
described staying in the Native camp and the men coming
back into camp the next morning with a giant black bear,
which was quote the largest I'd ever seen. He said
the men would sit around the fire at night, smoking
their pipes, stoically staring into the fire and not say
(37:34):
a word. He would try to talk, but they basically
told him to be quiet. Anyway. I asked Dr Blevins
about the relationship between natives traveling Europeans and Americans. How
would how would they have known that these Native Americans
weren't hostile as I as I was as I was
(37:55):
reading this book, playing the story through my head. They
had no qualms with these people, And I mean the
Native Americans had no qualms inviting these guys into their camp.
Like was that normal? Where if you're if you're dealing with, uh, say,
the Cherokees, that would have been normal. The Cherokees were,
I mean, it's you know, it's a it's a cliche
and and and a statement that you know contains racist
(38:20):
ideas within it. But historians used to call them the
the so called civilized tribes, and the Cherokees were one
of the foremost of those. And what that meant to
historians a few generations back is that the Cherokees had
adopted the ways of white people. And by the early
(38:40):
eighteen forties, you're talking about generations of Cherokees and Mountain
white people who had lived in the vicinity of each other.
There had been inner marriages, and there were all kinds
of of connections, and certainly the Cherokees who were in
the Indian Territory lived lives that were very, very similar
(39:01):
to the Conwales and these other white settlers in the
back country. I mean they were raising cattle and hogs,
they were living in log houses, they were growing corn.
They were so they had uh, they had adopted many
of the trappings of white society. Many of them would
have known English, and it would have been pretty common
(39:23):
for them to interact with white Europeans. Ger Stalker describes
in detail the burial of Erskine by the Native Americans.
He noted the cold, stoic, and precise nature of the procedure,
and gir Stalker even said that odd deaths and unceremonious
funerals were common on the American frontier. Dr Blevins had
(39:47):
some unique insight. I guess the short answer is is,
I don't know how common that stark and that sort
of detached, you know, burial would have been if Erskine
hadn't been such a stranger. You know, he's not he's
not related to any of these people. We don't even
(40:08):
know his last name. He's not even American, he's not
Native American. He's a he's a traveler from another world,
like like ger Shticker is. If he had had more
of a connection. I can't help but think that his
burial would have been attended with some more you know,
feeling and maybe you know, ceremony or something. But at
(40:29):
the same time, they're deep in the woods, deep in
the mountains, you know, they got bears to haul back
to where they're going, and it was just and yeah,
I mean, what we're if they if they take his
body out where I mean, who's gonna want it? You know? Yeah,
Like you know, he doesn't have any family, So I
think that's obviously what scares the dickens out of girl
Sticker is he's thinking, I'm Erskine, you know, to these people.
(40:55):
And that's what he says that that, I mean, this,
this could have been me. Just this unceremony. You start
throw some dirt over him and let's get out of here.
And that's really that ends his career. I mean, that's
that's really what he decides. You know, I may need
to go back home. Thinking from this standpoint, if you're
talking about if you assume that these guys are Cherokees,
(41:18):
it's possible that they just lived through the trail of
tears five or six years earlier. And we know in
the Trail of Tears. There were a lot of people
buried on that trail. You know that guys we're familiar,
may they may not be terribly unusual for them. You know.
I think that's a great point, because these would have
been people that would have been familiar with death, and
(41:38):
and Gerstalker said they had a very specific way that
they did it. It wasn't haphazard. Would do what they
they line They lined the tomb with stones, and they
covered it with stones, and they just went to work
as efficient. You know, I've never connected that to the
Trail of Tears. And also you think about it like
these people would have inventially been hardened, not not hardened,
(42:02):
but you would speculate that to deal with that kind
of trauma that for sure, if not them themselves, but
their family members would have gone through they had a
way of emotionally dealing with death that probably would be
different than I would. We don't know exactly where Erskine's
(42:27):
hundred and eighty year old grave is, but we do
know it's in the Hurricane Creek drainage in Arkansas. The
only clue we have was documented in a nineteen fifties
paper in the Arkansas Historic Quarterly, when a professor from
Oklahoma got curious, drove to the Ozarks and set out
in search of Erskine's grave. He recounted stopping at houses
(42:49):
in the remote region and asking locals if they knew
anything about the grave. He only found one clue. One
young man didn't know anything about Erskine years before had
found some suspicious old carvings on a rock in the
Hurricane Creek drainage. The man told him where the carvings were.
(43:09):
After examination, it was decided they were likely connected to
Erskine's grave, and to this day it's the best and
only clue we have. This is where the story gets interesting.
That young man in the nineteen fifties was named Ori Province.
You may have heard an interview I did with Ori
(43:31):
on my past podcast, the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast titled
Old Mountain Hunter Episode twenty one. You can go back
and listen to it. In early March of nineteen, I
drove to ORI's home and interviewed him about his life.
I'd known Ori for at least ten years prior, but
one month later after our interview, Or he passed away
(43:54):
in April of nineteen at the age of two, My
kids and I turkey hunted the morning before his funeral,
not far from where he lived. We changed our camo
into funeral clothes on the side of a dirt road.
So many people were at the country church there was
no room in the main hall and we had to
(44:16):
sit outside or He was an incredible guy. At the
end of the interview, I asked him about the professor,
the carvings, and what he knew about Erskine's grave. I
just couldn't tell this story without including Corey. This is
what he said. Hey, how are you doing? Oh I'm
(44:45):
doing fire against Good to see you, Yeah, good to
see you. Hello, miss Mary, how are you? This is
my youngest son, Shepherd. I don't think he's ever been
over here before. I don't haven't seen him before any
Come around and have a seen here. How are y'all doing?
Excuse the flour. I was in the middle of vacuumen,
but I ain't. I got done, so don't worry about
(45:06):
the hand. Oh this is great. So back in the
nineteen fifties, there was a college professor from Oklahoma that
came over here looking for a grave back in the
Hurricane Creek drainage, and they came here and asked you
(45:26):
if you knew where it was? Is that right? Tell
me all that you remember about that. Well, they come
and ask about it. Then uh uh, two of my
brothers went with them. Work. Um, I'm sating on this
rock eating dinner, uh, deer hunting, you know what dinner
there got looking coming on that rock and there's their
(45:48):
inationals are. Anyway, it had earl pointing right up the hill. Yeah,
and I found it and I told the once about it,
you know, and so and nobody had ever to your knowledge,
nobody had in recent time had found that. So you
just were up there on that rock hunt. Yeah. And
(46:13):
then so these guys came back in here in the
nineteen fifties looking for an old grave. These guys believe
that the engraving that you found was connected to that grave,
and they were looking for Erskine's grave and uh, and
so you gave him some intail back in the nineteen
fifties for where to potentially find that grave, and they
(46:36):
they claimed to have found it back in there a
long time. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, that the grave
was just firm here defense for rock. So well, you know,
you're in an article in the Arkansas Historic Quarterly that
was written sometime in the nineteen fifties. Who whoever that
(46:59):
professor was And I have to look back. I've got
the article. Yeah, it's in Uh he's from Oklahoma. Yeah,
but your name is in there. I mean because he
said or he may not have said your name, but
it was it was you that he was talking about
that had you know, there was a young man that
had found this engraving on a rock that had an
(47:20):
E and they felt like that stood for Erskine and
that it was marking where the grave was three and
had a cut marking pretty deep down in that sand rock. Yeah. Yeah,
well that's a neat story. I'm I'm fascinated by that
story of Erskine's death. I really am. We've got to
(47:45):
wind back the clock about a decade. In two thousand
and ten, or he had told a friend and I
where the rock carvings were. I swore a vow of
silence to its exact location, and I don't plan on
going back on my word words, So don't ask me
where the engravings are. I won't tell you. In the
spring of two thousand and ten, myself, my son, Bear,
(48:08):
and my friend Mo set out on a series of
expeditions in search of Erskine's grave. Our search for the
old Bear Hunter is one of those odd experiences that
impacted me and my family in ways that's hard to describe.
I want to take you into the hurricane drainage. You're
(48:34):
all ready to go. It's not a short walk. It's
cold too. I don't know. It's at least it's over
a mile and a half. What do you think of
this country? Man? It's beautiful? What do you think? Ship?
Pretty cool? Is it? This is pretty easy walking though,
isn't it. This is about as rough as it gets
(48:58):
into the ozarks? Oh? Who down here? Hey? Look you
see that? That's it? Yeah, let's go to it. Every
time I come through here, I look for anything that
resembled the pile of rocks. But a hundred and eighty
(49:21):
years later, I don't think you really expect to see
a pile of rocks. All all that we know, the
only clue of this whole story is what Oor Province
told that professor in the nineteen fifties. They came back
in here, and at the time the professor claimed to
have actually found a grave. You know, like a pile
(49:43):
of rocks that looked like a grave, which at that
time would have only been like, you know, about a
hundred and ten years later. Today there's there's no pile
of rocks. Like, so we're kind of speculating that this
engraving has anything to do with this other than it
fits the geographic location to a t. And you know,
(50:08):
we're kind of taking this old professor at his word
that at one time there was a grave here. So
what I'm trying to understand and I've kind of just
come to terms with it, doesn't We don't need an understanding.
We can just make a choice in our life to
(50:28):
be impacted by people and stories and what people did.
But like, this story really shaped my life. It shaped
my adventure. It shaped like not very many days go
by where I don't think about ger Stoker and Erskin,
a man we didn't even know his last name. He
died back in these mountains. Why why, why do you
(50:49):
think these stories can be so impacting? This is my wife, Misty.
I don't know, but I was thinking this week about
that same thing. When you said we were going to
go out here, I was thinking about you reading that
story to our little bitty kids when they were little,
and kind of seeing the imprint of Erskine's life in
You know, our daughter still wears she's a high school senior.
(51:10):
She still wears a a bear claw around her around
her neck, a real pretty one, but a bear claw.
And I think that part of her sense of adventure
comes from that. I think our boy's interest in the
wild comes in large part because of the stories that
they heard. And I just thought it was notable that
this guy, you know, he died out here, and in
(51:32):
the in the book it even says his family might
not even ever know why. But I just thinking about
how his life and the loss of life might have
seemed insignificant or unnotable, But yet what happened in these
woods still impacts us a hundred and fifty two hundred
years later. Well, there's there's a lot inside this story.
(51:54):
There's the these guys were involved in market hunting and
wanton way of wildlife in many ways, and so we
can look back on these and remember that and that
informs our future. But how we'll never do that again.
And we're now like these ultra focused managers of wildlife
(52:16):
that are trying to use wildlife commodities to the highest extent,
and we've placed cultural value on on eating the food,
utilizing the animal. But even as important as we've placed
cultural value on valuing the hunt, the experience, the immersion
into the wild. This is a wild place for where
(52:36):
we live, and this story gives this place value. If
this place had been devoid of human experience for the
last thousand years, we would come here and it wouldn't
have as much meaning. We're humans. We value other people,
we value what they did. And to me, ger Stoker,
he's the one that lived his life, is an inspiration
(52:58):
because he at his time was what had foresight into
the future. He was one of the few guys of
the time that said, hey, the way these Americans are
doing this is bad, talking about market hunting and hunt
and waste and stuff. Um. He also just his spirit
for adventure and he valued people everywhere he went. He
talked about the people even then. This story talks about
(53:20):
his old dear friend Conwell. Like as I read this book,
like I saw how he cried when he left the
Conwell's home. This is a German with his American family,
and like, that's me, that's I want to value people
like that, um, his deep sense of adventure. I mean,
(53:40):
girsh darker, Holy cow, he did stuff that makes us
look like city slickers. Yeah. I think his appreciation for
the story and for for documenting the journey and documenting
the process and all the things. I mean, that's that's
so valuable and that I mean, that's why we know
the story is because he took the time and energy
to to write it down and and that indicates that
(54:02):
he saw value in the experience. Yeah, and that those
stories give this place meaning and give this place life
and shape. And you know, the land impacts people, and
people people give meaning to the land. The reason we
(54:27):
love stories and there's such a powerful part of the
human experience is because they have an impartational value though
we weren't there, and understanding of what happened and how
people responded inspires and instructs us in a very functional way.
In modern times, stories are often just seen as entertainment,
(54:48):
but they're a highly effective medium of transferring values and knowledge.
Even in what seems like mindless entertainment on television, which
is essentially a story, is power awfully transferring values into
your home. You have a choice of what stories impact
you and your family. As a family, we weren't big
(55:10):
into superheroes, but we allowed Gerstalker to become like one
in our family. I have a frame sketch of the
scene of Erskine's death that I drew framed in my office.
My father in law and I made a commemorative bowie
knife that we called the Girl Sticker. I don't have
a great reason why this story impacted me so much.
(55:31):
On the surface, it's probably because he was a bear
and deer hunter, and he hunted in the Ozarks like me.
Gerstalker valued people and he had some uncommon insight for
the time period, and I respect that Gerstalker's life can't
be seen in this one small story. I guess I
don't have a good answer, but I'm content just letting
(55:55):
stories do what stories have done for a long time.
Um they have impacted us and instructed us and inspired us,
and if we choose the right stories, it makes us
better people. H m hm
M. What you're dealing with, especially with ger Sticker, is
a young man who is really really influenced by romanticism,
the sort of dark unknown out there. This week on
the Bear Grease Podcasts, we're going to explore the tragic
(00:20):
death of a bear hunter and hear the account firsthand
from the guide that was standing there when it happened.
Then we're going to search for his hundred and eighty
year old grave. In the process will look into the
adventurous life of the comrade of the deceased, Frederick Gerstalker.
We're gonna talk with the national expert on the Ozark region,
(00:43):
and we'll hear from the man who held one of
the keys in trying to find the old grave, and
then we'll go on a search for the grave ourselves.
You're not gonna want to miss this one. M. My
(01:07):
name is Clay Nukelem, and this is the Bear Grease
Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for
insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story
of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
(01:31):
I want to tell you a story, or really I
want the story to tell itself. If we think about
the now of time as the front edge of a
wave that we're writing Like a surfer. We can't get
back anything that's behind us. The wave no longer exists.
(01:51):
All we have is the remembrance of the imagery sight,
sounds in the context of the moment on the waves
stored in our giant human brain. But humans don't just
have brains. I'm quite certain that we have spirits which
also collect data that informs us of a deeper and
more meaningful connection to the events of our lives and
(02:13):
the lives of others. But it's more than just stored
data like temperature or the color of the sky or
what was said. The spirit can see the thing behind
the thing. Spirits are made of flesh and bone, and
you can't find it like an organ in the body.
But the spirit is the conduit that connects our lives
(02:34):
to something much bigger. It's what makes our lives more
than just a biological record of a human eating and
drinking and producing offspring. The spirit is what makes us human.
There's some stories that just impact us in more significant
ways than others. The story you're about to hear for
(02:54):
me is one of those stories that has shaped my
life in a significant way, and it's hard for me
to even explain why. The question I'm trying to answer
is this, What is the mechanism that can make someone
else's story so meaningful in our lives. When I was
(03:17):
in college, I had a professor that knew I was
interested in Arkansas black bears in passing. One day, he
suggested I read a book called Wild Sports by Frederick Gerstacker.
His sales pitch was weak. It's about an old German
guy that has some Arkansas bear hunting stories in it.
He said. The pitch was so weak that it would
be five years before I had ever read the book.
(03:40):
I mean, I guess I can't blame him for poor marketing,
but I thought, what's a German guy got to do
with Arkansas bear hunting? When I finally read the pages
of the book, I was mesmerized by the words of
the adventurous young German. I was mesmerized by his life.
He was witty, he was an incredible right, he was
(04:00):
tough as alligator leather, and fearless, and maybe most of all,
much of his adventure took place within twenty miles of
where I live. But even more, he was insightful into
human life. He valued people, and he even recognized the
wasteful and unsustainable ways of the market hunting culture of
(04:22):
his time, of which he even participated in. Frederick Gerstoker.
Some people say gersh Sticker was a well educated, middle
class German that came to the United States in search
of white tailed deer and black bear. Doesn't sound like
that bad of a guy. He came over on a
(04:44):
ship called the Constitution and arrived in New York and
July eighteen thirty seven. He embarked on a six year
long adventure that would take him through seven states and
one Canadian province. He kept detailed journals of his writing,
and at times he would send him back to his
mom in Germany. Six years later in eighteen forty three,
(05:04):
when he arrived back in Germany, he found himself an
acclaimed writer and national hero. His mother had been submitting
his articles to a local German publication. In the word
of his adventures spread like wildfire. There are too many
of ger Stalker's incredible stories to tell on this podcast,
(05:26):
but I want to tell you one that cut me
to the quick when I first read it. It involved
a man being killed by a bear in a Creek
drainage less than twenty miles from where I live. I
was shocked and slightly offended that nobody ever told me
this story. I want you to hear the first hand
account from Gerstalker of the death of his friend Erskine.
(05:50):
This is an excerpt from the book Wild Sports, published
in eighteen fifty four. This story is taken out of context,
so there are some characters you'll need to know. Conwell
as Gerstalker's older American hunting partner and friend with hair
(06:11):
as white as snow, he said. Conwell lived in Arkansas.
Wachiga is a Cherokee that became a trusted friend and
hunting partner of ger Stalker. And you'll be introduced to
young Erskine, who Gerstalker had met some years before in
the back country. So we were off again before noon
(06:35):
and gained the source of the hurricane. Rode across the
devil's stepping path, a narrow rock with a precipice on
each side, left the pilot rock on our left, and
came towards evening into the pine forest, where we were
sure of finding kindlers. Descending the steep side of a mountain,
we observed a thin column of blue smoke by the
(06:56):
side of the stream, showing that some hunters were in
camp there. We went straight towards it and found it
to be an Indian camp, and our former acquaintance, young Erskine,
among them there were Cherokees with three young choptaws, these
two tribes being on good terms like ourselves, they were
out bear hunting, but it had better luck. A quantity
(07:18):
of bear meat was hanging about the camp, and even
the dogs would eat no more. Casting ourselves down by
the fire, one of the squalls, for there were several
women in the camp, immediately cooked for us some bear,
which we duly regaled ourselves. M Night came on, and
soon we were all sunk in deep repose. Early in
(07:42):
the morning we began to move, dividing into two parties
for the better chance of finding game. Conwell went with
some of the Indians, amongst whom he had found an
old acquaintance, to make a circuit around the Pilot Rock,
while Erskine and I, with three Cherokees, proceeded to the
sources of the Frog Bayou. Night found us far from
our camp, so we made one for ourselves. Where we
(08:03):
were on the morning of February one. We had hardly
started ere we heard the dogs, which he could, declared
instantly that they were his brothers, and disappeared behind the
rocks without another word. As we stood listening, the sound
seemed to take a different direction. We ascended the mountain
as fast as we could to cut off the chase,
but found that we must have been mistaken, for in
(08:24):
a few minutes all was as silent as a grave.
Once we thought we heard a shot, but we couldn't
be certain. We ascended to the highest terrace and walked
slowly on, looking out for fresh signs, and listening to
catch the sound of the dog below. Amongst the broken
masses of rock, they might be near without being heard.
Along the mountaintops, they're audible at a great distance. It
(08:48):
may have been too in the afternoon, and we had
seen nothing when bears Grease raised his nose in the air,
remained for an instant or two in a fixed position, then,
given a short smothered how rashed down the mountain side.
Listening attentively, we heard the chase coming down the Hurricane river.
Erskine called out triumphantly, we shall have plenty of bear
(09:09):
this evening, and dashed after the dog. I was soon
by his side. I must observe by the way that
we were both very hungry. Presently, a bear broke through
the bushes of projecting rocks, stopped him for an instant.
When Erskine saluted him with a ball, he received mine.
As he rushed past and disappeared. The dogs, encouraged to
greater efforts by our shots and the stronger scent, followed
(09:33):
him out bears Greece, who was quite fresh leading the van.
Soon they came upon him and stopped him. We rushed
to the spot, without waiting to reload, and arriving in
time to see the beast, excited to the greatest fury,
kill four of our best dogs with as many blows
of his paws. But the others threw themselves on him
with greater animosity, and if our rifles had been loaded,
(09:55):
we could not have used them. Just as a large,
powerful brown dog, which had curiously attacked the bear, was
knocked over, bleeding and howling. Erskine called out, oh, save
the dogs, threw down his rifle and rushed on with
his knife among the furious group. I followed on the
instant when the bear sauce coming, he exerted still more
(10:16):
force to beat off the dogs and meet us. Seizing
his opportunity, my comrade ran his steel into his side.
The bear turned on him like lightning and seized him,
and he uttered a shrill, piercing shriek. Driven to desperation
by the sight, I plunged my knife three times into
the monster's body with all my force, without thinking of
(10:40):
jumping back. At the third thrust, the bear turned upon me.
Seeing as Paul coming, I attempted to evade the blow,
felt a sharp pang and sunk senseless to the ground.
When I recovered my senses, bears grease was licking the
blood from my face. On attempting to rise, I felt
(11:00):
a severe pain in my left side and was unable
to move my left arm. On making a fresh effort
to rise, I succeeded in sitting up. The bear was
close to me, in less than three ft from him,
lay erskine, stiff, and cold. I sprang up with a
cry of horror and rushed towards him. It was too true.
(11:20):
He was bathed in blood, his face torn to pieces,
his right shoulder almost wrenched away from his body, and
five of the best dogs ripped up with broken limbs
lying beside him. The bear was so covered with blood
that his color was hardly discernible. My left arm appeared
to be out of socket, but I could feel that
(11:42):
no bones were broken. The sun had gone down, and
I had hoped that the other hunters might have heard
our shots and the barking and howling to the dogs.
It grew dark. No one came. I roared and shouted
like mad, but no one heard me. I tried to
light a fire, but my left arm was so well
that I gave up the attempt. But as it would
(12:02):
have been certain death to pass the night under these
circumstances without a fire, I tore away part of the
back of my hunting shirt, and the fore part, being
saturated with blood, sprinkled some powder on it, rubbed it well,
and with my right hand I shook a little powder
into my rifle. Placing the muzzle on the rag, I fired,
blowing it up to a flame. I piled on dry
(12:25):
leaves and twigs and succeeded in making a good fire,
though with great pain and trouble. Now it was dark,
I went to my dead comrade, who was lying about
five yards from the fire. He was already stiff, and
it was with great difficulty that I could pull down
his arms and lay him straight, Nor could I keep
his eyes closed, though I laid small stones on them.
(12:49):
The dogs were very hungry, but it was impossible for
me to break up the bear only ripped him up
and fed them with his entrals. Bearscreached, laid himself down
by the corpse, looking steadfastly in his face, and went
no more near the bear, and hoping of obtaining help,
I loaded and fired twice, but nothing moved. The forest
(13:11):
appeared one enormous grave. I felt very ill, vomited several
times as well as I could. I laid myself down
beside the fire, and lost all consciousness of my wretched situation.
Whether I slept or fainted is more than I can tell,
But I know that I dreamed that I was at
(13:32):
home in my bed, and my mother brought me some
tea and laid her hand on my breast. Such an
awakening as I had, was worse than I could wish
to my bitterest enemy. Bears greased had pressed close to
my side, lying his head on my breast. The fire
was almost out, and I was shivering with cold, and
(13:54):
the wolves were hollowing fearfully around the dead, keeping at
a distance for fear of the living, but by no
means disposed to lose their prey. I rose with difficulty
and laid more wood on the fire. As it burned up,
the face of the corpse seemed to brighten. I started,
but found it was only an optical delusion. Louder and
(14:14):
fiercer howled the wolves and the dogs, of whom five
were alive besides Bear. Grease answered them, but the answer
was by no means one of defiance, rather a lament
for the dead, partly to scare away the wolves, and
partly in the hope of finding help. I loaded and
fired three times. My delight was inexpressible. As I heard
(14:35):
three shots in return. I loaded and fired until all
my powder was expended. As morning broke, I heard two
shots not far off, and soon after a third. A
shipwrecked mariner hanging to the side of a plank could
not raise his voice more lustily to hail a passing
ship than I did, And joy upon joy, I heard
(14:56):
a human voice, and answer the bark of the dogs.
And now to stranger and what Chiga advanced out of
the bush while he exclaimed. Staring at the shocking spectacle,
he felt poor erskine and shook his head mournfully. He
turned to me. I showed him my swollen arm, which
he examined attentively, without speaking, Forming a hollow with his
(15:18):
two hands and placing them to his lips, he gave
a loud, piercing shout. The answer came from no great distance,
and in a few minutes my old dear friend Conwell
and most of the Indians were at my side. I
grasped Conwell's hands sorrowfully and told him in few words
how it all had happened. The old man scolded and
(15:39):
said it served us right. There's no greater danger and
sticking a knife into a bear's paunch when he's fallen
with the dogs upon him. But if he has been
thrown and then catches the sight of his greatest enemy man,
he exerts all his force to attack him, and woe
to him who comes within reach of his paws. It
was all very well talking. He had not been present
(16:01):
and seen one dog after another knocked over, never to
rise again five minutes more, and not one would have
been saved. And who knows whether the enraged beasts would
not have attacked us. Then. Meanwhile, the Indians had been
digging a grave with their tomahawks, wrapping the body in
a blanket. They laid him in it and covered him
(16:22):
with earth and heavy stones. Conwell cut down some young
stems and made a fence around the solitary grave. I
could not avoid a shudder at the quiet coolness of
the whole proceeding, as the thought struck me that the
same persons, under the same circumstances would have treated me
in the same cool way had I fallen instead of Erskine.
(16:45):
Like me, he was a lonely stranger in a foreign land,
having left England some years before, and his friends and
relations will probably never know what became of him. Thousands
perish in this way in America, of whom nothing more
is heard, and perhaps in a few months the remembrance
of them was entirely passed away. After the dead was
(17:07):
quietly laid in the grave, Chiga came with an elderly
Indian to look at my arm. Chiga moved it while
the other looked steadfastly in my face. The pain was
enough to drive me mad, but I would not utter
a sound. Next, the Indian took hold of my arm,
laying his left hand on my shoulder, and while Chia
suddenly seized me around the body from behind, the other
(17:28):
pulled with all his force. The pain at first was
so great that I almost feigned, but it gradually diminished.
In spite of my resolve to show no signs of it,
I could not suppress a shriek. Conwell soon after asked
if I could ride on my answering yes, he helped
me on a horse. Then, throwing the bear's skin and
(17:49):
some of the meat on his own, we moved slowly homewards.
My sufferings on the way were very great, but I
uttered no murmur. I only longed for pose. This was
just a couple of pages out of a four hundred
page book, but I want to take some inventory of
(18:12):
the components of this story. A German, a British guy
and an American hunting with a mixed tribe of Native Americans,
Cherokees and Choctaws in the eighteen forties. They were bear
hunting with dogs, the Native Americans dogs to be exact
for black bear. In the month of February in the
Ozarks of Arkansas, an incredible bear chase ensues and a
(18:37):
man who we only know his first name, Erskine, dies
at the hand of a bear after stabbing it with
his bowie knife. They didn't have time to reload. His
comrade charges in and kills the bear with a knife
and in the process gets smacked so hard it dislocates
his shoulder and knocks him out. Girl Stalker spends the
(18:57):
night with an arm's reach of a day bear, five
dead dogs, and Erskine's corpse. Gray wolves which used to
be in Arkansas, kept him awake, howling through the night.
He laid stones on the eyelids of the corpse to
keep his eyes shut. The next morning, he's found by
the hunting party and the natives set his shoulder into
(19:20):
place and buried the dead in the shallow grave dug
with tomahawks. They throw the bear meat and the hide
over the back of a good horse and head home.
End of story. Now you know the story of Erskine's death,
(19:42):
and you've seen a bit into the life of Gerstalker.
But we need to know more information to understand the
significance of this wild story. And I'm still wondering why
and how this short snippet of time just a little
part of somebody else's wave has impacted me the way
it has. As I sit down with Dr Brooks Blevins,
(20:11):
He's wearing a black suit and a pink tie. He's
all dressed up because he was just on the documentary
for TV talking about the backwoods of the Ozarks. He's
an in demand guy, you see. Dr Blevins is a
professor at Missouri State University, and he is the Jedi
Master of Ozark history and probably one of the coolest
(20:32):
guys I've met in a long time. He drives a
mid nineteen nineties Sedan with duct tape on one of
the side mirrors, and he's written over fifteen incredible books
about the Ozark region. I wanted to get some context
from Dr Blevins about the time period that Gerstalker was here.
Context is king. So, Dr Blevins, Gerstalker was in the
(20:56):
Ozarks and Washingtas from eighteen thirty seven to eighteen four
prety three. What can you tell us just about that
general era, who was here and kind of what life
was like. Well, first of all, in Arkansas, this is
right after Arkansas becomes a state in eighteen thirty six.
One of the things that that we would immediately notice
(21:16):
is how few people there were. You know, there were
You're talking about fewer than a hundred thousand people in
the entire state. The Washingtalls and the Ozarks especially would
have been very very thinly populated. And of course that's
why he's there. He's he's there to find animals, not
not people. You're talking about sparse population. You're talking about
(21:37):
a population of people who have mainly come from the
upper south east of the Mississippi. So you've got lots
of tennessee Ins who are here. You got Carolinians, people
from Virginia, Kentucky. Those are the people who are for
the most part coming to the Ozarks and Washingtalls. And
a lot of these people are gonna have backgrounds in
(21:59):
in hunting of various kinds, and in a lot of
cases that's why they're out here in the first place.
You know, they've kind of exhausted their hunting grounds back
east and they're just kept moving west. A lot of
people come because they want to hunt, especially if they
want to hunt commercially. You know, the commercial hunting was
pretty much a dead letter by the eighteen thirties and
(22:21):
forties back east of the Mississippi. And if you were
interested in making a living selling skins and and bear
grease and and meat and stuff like that, you had
to go to the to the edge. This would have been,
during that time considered part of the western edge of
the frontier. Really, oh yeah, I mean, so we don't
(22:44):
think of Arkansas being the frontier or the west, but
this was like far west. So yeah, the uh, the
Washingtons and the Ozarks, Arkansas, they're all the edge of
the edge of American civilization. Gerstalker seemed to have the
(23:05):
intent of coming from Germany to hunt in America. Was
that common? I mean? And I guess my question is
what was the reputation of the American frontier on the
global stage. I think, well, I guess it depends on
how you defined common, But I would say it certainly
wasn't uncommon for Europeans who had the means and the
(23:30):
interest to come to the United States, and especially the
western part of the United States and hunt. I mean,
we see that happening even after the Civil War, where
you have European buffalo hunters come over. For instance, would
they have heard of Daniel Boone? By that, I mean
Daniel Boone would have already been dead for twenty years
or so. I mean, would they have heard of Daniel
(23:51):
Boone globally by that? Yeah? I think. I think Well,
if you were well read, like GERSH. Dicker obviously was,
if you were an educated person and you were interested
in the exotic, you know, American frontier, as these guys
obviously were, you would have been well versed in Daniel
Boone stuff. But as we know that as late as
(24:12):
eighteen eleven, so we're talking about roughly a quarter century
before ger Sticker shows up, Daniel Boone had done a
long hunt in the Ozarks. A long hunt is a
description of the style of hunting. It may be intuitive,
but it wasn't to me. It was a term used
from the mid seventeen hundreds through the mid eighteen hundreds.
(24:34):
That simply means dudes went hunting for long periods of time,
like six months up to a couple of years. But
what you're dealing with, especially with ger Sticker, is a
young man who is really really influenced by Romanticism and
everything that mean. And I'm not talking about you know,
Valentine's Day and kissy stuff. We're talking about the sort
(24:59):
of dark unknown out there that that that calls to people,
especially young men, who want to go out and explore
and see what's out there. And that romanticism would have
been like portraying something as just like amazing and mystical
and like looking at the positives and something that actually
(25:19):
may not have been very positive. Like he he he
romanticized about the West and about hunting. And you can
tell that, you know, uh, one of the things that uh,
that I did in in my book Arkansas, Arkansas as
I as I contrasted the romantic thinkers and what I
call the Enlightenment thinkers. And and that's a good point.
(25:39):
What what ger Shticker saw as romantic and positive and
earlier traveler like say Henry Roe Schoolcraft, who came through
roughly twenty years before Gersticker did. Schoolcraft would have found
repulsive and uncivilized. And he couldn't wait to get back, right,
(26:00):
I mean, he he really couldn't wait to get back
to the Hudson River Valley and to civilization. But they
were both educated young men, but one just had a
different outlook on on live. I mean, he had chosen
to come here, you know, thinking about the reputation of
the American frontier, like what Gerstalker would have maybe heard
(26:21):
and seen back in his home in Germany. It's it's
hard to imagine a section of a massive continent that
would just be unknown, like we we don't live inside
of that paradigm any longer. Like the Earth has been explored.
There's there's micro cosms that hold mystery today. But this
was like massive mystery and intrigue of the West and
(26:45):
the in the in the even the animals. I mean
like they were introducing animals to these people that they
had never heard of before. I mean bison and elk
and in in black bears. They didn't have black bears
in Germany, they would have had brown bears. It's hard
for me to imagine. I can see the draw. I
can imagine the draw to the American West. I mean
(27:06):
it would have just been this like mythical place. And
now what we see inside the book, and what gir
gir Stalker does such a great job of showing, is
how difficult it was. I mean, what I came out
of this book understanding and having respect for him was
just and these people was just their resilience and their
just ability to persist through hardship and there. They didn't
(27:30):
know any better. I mean, they didn't they didn't know
any different. They didn't know the comforts that we have
today that they could have compared with. So, I mean,
you would assume, and you would hope that the resiliency
and internal strength and physical strength of us today would
have been comparable to them. But it's hard to make
that jump. Like I'm I'm a hunter, and when I
hear these stories of Girl Stalker and Erskine, I just
(27:52):
think I couldn't have done it. But there's this hope
inside of me, Dr Blevin's that if I didn't know
any different, that I would have been able to do it,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I know exactly what
you're saying. And and the the amazing thing about Girl
Shticker is to a certain degree he did no different.
You know, he did grow up in a in a
middle class and in as civilized and modern a place
(28:15):
as you could have grown in the world. And yeah,
that's right on planet Earth. So the Ozarks became nationally
known during that time period for bear hunting. How did
that happen? Well, part of it is that there was
a basis in fact for all of the legends. I
mean that this really was and you you find this
not only from girl Shticker who gets here relatively late,
(28:37):
but earlier explorers who talked about the wealth of wildlife
in this place. The Ozarks and the Washingtons were in
the in the middle part of the continent. They were
this just sort of promised land of of of wildlife
by the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds. Part
of that because the Ozarks especially had been uninhabited. It
(29:00):
had been the hunting ground of the O Sage for
a century or more by the time the first European
settlers got here. But they really didn't live here. They
didn't they didn't leave a really big footprint on on
the area. So there was just this abundance of wildlife
of bears, deer, elks, buffalo, you know, you just name it,
(29:22):
and and they found everything here. What Dr Blebens is
describing may need a little explanation. We often have this
idea that Native Americans had permanent settlements and regions for
thousands of years without interruption. However, the archaeological records shows
something different. Paleo Indians arrived in the Ozarks about twelve
(29:45):
thousand years ago and used bluffs for shelter, and they
left a lot of artifacts. They lived here in very
small numbers for thousands of years, but the last one
thousand years it's less certain who was here and for
how long. It's believed that the Ozarks was only used
as a seasonal hunting ground for the Osage tribe, meaning
(30:08):
there would be long stretches of time where there were
no humans here. Just think about that for a minute.
When the French arrived in the Ozarks in the seventeen hundreds,
they found the place almost entirely devoid of permanent Native
American settlements. What starts happening is by the late seventeen hundreds,
(30:31):
the o Sage, to a lesser degree, the Cherokee, who
are starting to come in, and the Choctaw and some
of the other groups start to convert from their traditional
lifestyles to market hunting. And when they do that, you
really start to see the wildlife numbers start to go down.
(30:51):
And then when you add to that all of these
white market hunters who start coming into the region in
the early eighteen hundreds. Henry row Schoolcraft, in his first
book about the Ozarks, mentions that just in the White
River Watershed. He estimated there were between a thousand and
fifteen hundred full time market hunters in in eighteen nineteen
(31:14):
uh and And you can imagine the destructive capabilities to
the wildlife populations that that many hunters, combined with Native
Americans who had who had made the switch over. And
so you've got bales and bales of pelts and hides
coming into St. Louis and and Memphis and these other cities.
(31:36):
By the time schoolcraft comes, bear hunting is just starting
to be the big thing. It's the next big thing.
Ger Stecker really comes in at the end of that,
at the end of the commercial bear hunting age. He's
he his timing was just right, that he didn't miss it,
and he even noted he even mentions this, he he
realizes that this is coming to an end, that that
(31:59):
these destructive of practices of these hunters was quickly bringing
an end to this what once had been a wonderland
of wildlife. He was he was noted and he's noted
today of having foresight and and having kind of a
conservation mindset, even though he participated in it. You see
Inklands in his writing that he recognized that this wasn't
(32:20):
sustainable and it wasn't good for his time. That was
kind of progressive thinking, which is noteworthy of him. Yeah,
that's right. Girl Stalker's main dog that he had his
whole time in Arkansas was named bears grease. Can you
(32:42):
talk to me about bear grease and its importance in
the region. Bear grease was it was part of that market. Uh,
it was even in eighteen nineteen when Schoolcraft first gives
us some numbers. He even tells us what the price
of a bear high. It's well, I think it was.
It was a buck fifty at that time. He talks
(33:05):
about the price of bear meat. That bear meat was
was highly valued. It was, it was the most expensive
meat in the area. But also bear grease was it
was used for. Uh. It could be used as actual
cooking grease. And bear grease is the rendered fat of
(33:25):
a bear. Yeah, it's bear fat. It's cooked down then
turned into liquid oil. It could be used actually for
cooking oil. But it was often used as well for
candle making. And but it became one of the one
of the really valuable products of the bear hunting process.
There was a at one point in the eighteen thirties
(33:49):
we know that there was a bear oil rendering plant
that was established at the mouth of Bear Creek near
the Arkansas Missouri line. It would have been probably I
think it would have been a Boone count modern day
Boone County, Arkansas. But we know there was a rendering
plant there that, by some accounts employed several dozen people
(34:13):
down to New Orleans. That's right, Yeah, they would ship
them to New Orleans and that was a big thing.
Why do you think he would have named his dog that? Like,
does that tell us anything? Because it it's like, you know,
there's certain things inside of society and we do it
today that has like a metaphorical meaning. What was he
alluding to? You think it could have It could have
just been a something that I mean, the word itself
(34:37):
for a German could have just sounded very American or something.
I'm not really sure. I mean, obviously it would have
been symbolic for him, as a guy who aspired to
be a bear hunter to have a dog named bears Grease,
but it could also reflect how valuable the dog was
to him. It was as valuable as Greece. I mean,
(34:57):
and we know, I mean, we know not just from GERSH. Decker,
but all kinds of bear hunter stories that there was
nothing more valuable to a hunter than a good dog.
I mean, if it could mean the difference between life
and death. If you if you remember, the most emotional
that the German Gersh Decker ever gets in his book
is when he has to say bye to his dog
(35:19):
and he tears up. You know, he has to turn
away so bears Greece won't see him crying. I heard
you one time say that bear hunters were the rock
stars of the Antebellum South. Can you can you describe
what you meant by that? Because I like it? What
is the Antebellum South? Can you tell me the word
(35:42):
antebellum means before the war. Human history is so wrought
with war that we have an English word that generically
means the time before the war. Clearly, in this context,
the war we're talking about is the Civil War. You know,
you're talking about an era when most of the modern
(36:04):
sports that we follow we're not even invented. Yet. You're
talking about an era when you know, horse racing was
probably the biggest competition type sport that there was. So
it's an age when people again romanticized and sort of
made made heroes out of people who did these kind
of brave, dangerous things, especially on the frontier. There was
(36:29):
nothing that qualified better than bear hunting. So there was
this kind of daredevil, rock star, you know, athletic he yeah, yeah,
and it's even better than than modern day uh athlete.
He rose because some of these guys didn't make it out.
I mean there, you know, there were guys like Erskine
(36:50):
who died uh and and further sort of burnished the
stories of the survivors. When I first read this book,
I was intrigued by girl Stalker's relationship with the Native Americans.
Many times in the book he recounted camping and hunting
with them, and their interactions were always peaceful and he
(37:12):
seemed to have the utmost respect for them. Once Gerstalker
described staying in the Native camp and the men coming
back into camp the next morning with a giant black bear,
which was quote the largest I'd ever seen. He said
the men would sit around the fire at night, smoking
their pipes, stoically staring into the fire and not say
(37:34):
a word. He would try to talk, but they basically
told him to be quiet. Anyway. I asked Dr Blevins
about the relationship between natives traveling Europeans and Americans. How
would how would they have known that these Native Americans
weren't hostile as I as I was as I was
(37:55):
reading this book, playing the story through my head. They
had no qualms with these people, And I mean the
Native Americans had no qualms inviting these guys into their camp.
Like was that normal? Where if you're if you're dealing with, uh, say,
the Cherokees, that would have been normal. The Cherokees were,
I mean, it's you know, it's a it's a cliche
and and and a statement that you know contains racist
(38:20):
ideas within it. But historians used to call them the
the so called civilized tribes, and the Cherokees were one
of the foremost of those. And what that meant to
historians a few generations back is that the Cherokees had
adopted the ways of white people. And by the early
(38:40):
eighteen forties, you're talking about generations of Cherokees and Mountain
white people who had lived in the vicinity of each other.
There had been inner marriages, and there were all kinds
of of connections, and certainly the Cherokees who were in
the Indian Territory lived lives that were very, very similar
(39:01):
to the Conwales and these other white settlers in the
back country. I mean they were raising cattle and hogs,
they were living in log houses, they were growing corn.
They were so they had uh, they had adopted many
of the trappings of white society. Many of them would
have known English, and it would have been pretty common
(39:23):
for them to interact with white Europeans. Ger Stalker describes
in detail the burial of Erskine by the Native Americans.
He noted the cold, stoic, and precise nature of the procedure,
and gir Stalker even said that odd deaths and unceremonious
funerals were common on the American frontier. Dr Blevins had
(39:47):
some unique insight. I guess the short answer is is,
I don't know how common that stark and that sort
of detached, you know, burial would have been if Erskine
hadn't been such a stranger. You know, he's not he's
not related to any of these people. We don't even
(40:08):
know his last name. He's not even American, he's not
Native American. He's a he's a traveler from another world,
like like ger Shticker is. If he had had more
of a connection. I can't help but think that his
burial would have been attended with some more you know,
feeling and maybe you know, ceremony or something. But at
(40:29):
the same time, they're deep in the woods, deep in
the mountains, you know, they got bears to haul back
to where they're going, and it was just and yeah,
I mean, what we're if they if they take his
body out where I mean, who's gonna want it? You know? Yeah,
Like you know, he doesn't have any family, So I
think that's obviously what scares the dickens out of girl
Sticker is he's thinking, I'm Erskine, you know, to these people.
(40:55):
And that's what he says that that, I mean, this,
this could have been me. Just this unceremony. You start
throw some dirt over him and let's get out of here.
And that's really that ends his career. I mean, that's
that's really what he decides. You know, I may need
to go back home. Thinking from this standpoint, if you're
talking about if you assume that these guys are Cherokees,
(41:18):
it's possible that they just lived through the trail of
tears five or six years earlier. And we know in
the Trail of Tears. There were a lot of people
buried on that trail. You know that guys we're familiar,
may they may not be terribly unusual for them. You know.
I think that's a great point, because these would have
been people that would have been familiar with death, and
(41:38):
and Gerstalker said they had a very specific way that
they did it. It wasn't haphazard. Would do what they
they line They lined the tomb with stones, and they
covered it with stones, and they just went to work
as efficient. You know, I've never connected that to the
Trail of Tears. And also you think about it like
these people would have inventially been hardened, not not hardened,
(42:02):
but you would speculate that to deal with that kind
of trauma that for sure, if not them themselves, but
their family members would have gone through they had a
way of emotionally dealing with death that probably would be
different than I would. We don't know exactly where Erskine's
(42:27):
hundred and eighty year old grave is, but we do
know it's in the Hurricane Creek drainage in Arkansas. The
only clue we have was documented in a nineteen fifties
paper in the Arkansas Historic Quarterly, when a professor from
Oklahoma got curious, drove to the Ozarks and set out
in search of Erskine's grave. He recounted stopping at houses
(42:49):
in the remote region and asking locals if they knew
anything about the grave. He only found one clue. One
young man didn't know anything about Erskine years before had
found some suspicious old carvings on a rock in the
Hurricane Creek drainage. The man told him where the carvings were.
(43:09):
After examination, it was decided they were likely connected to
Erskine's grave, and to this day it's the best and
only clue we have. This is where the story gets interesting.
That young man in the nineteen fifties was named Ori Province.
You may have heard an interview I did with Ori
(43:31):
on my past podcast, the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast titled
Old Mountain Hunter Episode twenty one. You can go back
and listen to it. In early March of nineteen, I
drove to ORI's home and interviewed him about his life.
I'd known Ori for at least ten years prior, but
one month later after our interview, Or he passed away
(43:54):
in April of nineteen at the age of two, My
kids and I turkey hunted the morning before his funeral,
not far from where he lived. We changed our camo
into funeral clothes on the side of a dirt road.
So many people were at the country church there was
no room in the main hall and we had to
(44:16):
sit outside or He was an incredible guy. At the
end of the interview, I asked him about the professor,
the carvings, and what he knew about Erskine's grave. I
just couldn't tell this story without including Corey. This is
what he said. Hey, how are you doing? Oh I'm
(44:45):
doing fire against Good to see you, Yeah, good to
see you. Hello, miss Mary, how are you? This is
my youngest son, Shepherd. I don't think he's ever been
over here before. I don't haven't seen him before any
Come around and have a seen here. How are y'all doing?
Excuse the flour. I was in the middle of vacuumen,
but I ain't. I got done, so don't worry about
(45:06):
the hand. Oh this is great. So back in the
nineteen fifties, there was a college professor from Oklahoma that
came over here looking for a grave back in the
Hurricane Creek drainage, and they came here and asked you
(45:26):
if you knew where it was? Is that right? Tell
me all that you remember about that. Well, they come
and ask about it. Then uh uh, two of my
brothers went with them. Work. Um, I'm sating on this
rock eating dinner, uh, deer hunting, you know what dinner
there got looking coming on that rock and there's their
(45:48):
inationals are. Anyway, it had earl pointing right up the hill. Yeah,
and I found it and I told the once about it,
you know, and so and nobody had ever to your knowledge,
nobody had in recent time had found that. So you
just were up there on that rock hunt. Yeah. And
(46:13):
then so these guys came back in here in the
nineteen fifties looking for an old grave. These guys believe
that the engraving that you found was connected to that grave,
and they were looking for Erskine's grave and uh, and
so you gave him some intail back in the nineteen
fifties for where to potentially find that grave, and they
(46:36):
they claimed to have found it back in there a
long time. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, that the grave
was just firm here defense for rock. So well, you know,
you're in an article in the Arkansas Historic Quarterly that
was written sometime in the nineteen fifties. Who whoever that
(46:59):
professor was And I have to look back. I've got
the article. Yeah, it's in Uh he's from Oklahoma. Yeah,
but your name is in there. I mean because he
said or he may not have said your name, but
it was it was you that he was talking about
that had you know, there was a young man that
had found this engraving on a rock that had an
(47:20):
E and they felt like that stood for Erskine and
that it was marking where the grave was three and
had a cut marking pretty deep down in that sand rock. Yeah. Yeah,
well that's a neat story. I'm I'm fascinated by that
story of Erskine's death. I really am. We've got to
(47:45):
wind back the clock about a decade. In two thousand
and ten, or he had told a friend and I
where the rock carvings were. I swore a vow of
silence to its exact location, and I don't plan on
going back on my word words, So don't ask me
where the engravings are. I won't tell you. In the
spring of two thousand and ten, myself, my son, Bear,
(48:08):
and my friend Mo set out on a series of
expeditions in search of Erskine's grave. Our search for the
old Bear Hunter is one of those odd experiences that
impacted me and my family in ways that's hard to describe.
I want to take you into the hurricane drainage. You're
(48:34):
all ready to go. It's not a short walk. It's
cold too. I don't know. It's at least it's over
a mile and a half. What do you think of
this country? Man? It's beautiful? What do you think? Ship?
Pretty cool? Is it? This is pretty easy walking though,
isn't it. This is about as rough as it gets
(48:58):
into the ozarks? Oh? Who down here? Hey? Look you
see that? That's it? Yeah, let's go to it. Every
time I come through here, I look for anything that
resembled the pile of rocks. But a hundred and eighty
(49:21):
years later, I don't think you really expect to see
a pile of rocks. All all that we know, the
only clue of this whole story is what Oor Province
told that professor in the nineteen fifties. They came back
in here, and at the time the professor claimed to
have actually found a grave. You know, like a pile
(49:43):
of rocks that looked like a grave, which at that
time would have only been like, you know, about a
hundred and ten years later. Today there's there's no pile
of rocks. Like, so we're kind of speculating that this
engraving has anything to do with this other than it
fits the geographic location to a t. And you know,
(50:08):
we're kind of taking this old professor at his word
that at one time there was a grave here. So
what I'm trying to understand and I've kind of just
come to terms with it, doesn't We don't need an understanding.
We can just make a choice in our life to
(50:28):
be impacted by people and stories and what people did.
But like, this story really shaped my life. It shaped
my adventure. It shaped like not very many days go
by where I don't think about ger Stoker and Erskin,
a man we didn't even know his last name. He
died back in these mountains. Why why, why do you
(50:49):
think these stories can be so impacting? This is my wife, Misty.
I don't know, but I was thinking this week about
that same thing. When you said we were going to
go out here, I was thinking about you reading that
story to our little bitty kids when they were little,
and kind of seeing the imprint of Erskine's life in
You know, our daughter still wears she's a high school senior.
(51:10):
She still wears a a bear claw around her around
her neck, a real pretty one, but a bear claw.
And I think that part of her sense of adventure
comes from that. I think our boy's interest in the
wild comes in large part because of the stories that
they heard. And I just thought it was notable that
this guy, you know, he died out here, and in
(51:32):
the in the book it even says his family might
not even ever know why. But I just thinking about
how his life and the loss of life might have
seemed insignificant or unnotable, But yet what happened in these
woods still impacts us a hundred and fifty two hundred
years later. Well, there's there's a lot inside this story.
(51:54):
There's the these guys were involved in market hunting and
wanton way of wildlife in many ways, and so we
can look back on these and remember that and that
informs our future. But how we'll never do that again.
And we're now like these ultra focused managers of wildlife
(52:16):
that are trying to use wildlife commodities to the highest extent,
and we've placed cultural value on on eating the food,
utilizing the animal. But even as important as we've placed
cultural value on valuing the hunt, the experience, the immersion
into the wild. This is a wild place for where
(52:36):
we live, and this story gives this place value. If
this place had been devoid of human experience for the
last thousand years, we would come here and it wouldn't
have as much meaning. We're humans. We value other people,
we value what they did. And to me, ger Stoker,
he's the one that lived his life, is an inspiration
(52:58):
because he at his time was what had foresight into
the future. He was one of the few guys of
the time that said, hey, the way these Americans are
doing this is bad, talking about market hunting and hunt
and waste and stuff. Um. He also just his spirit
for adventure and he valued people everywhere he went. He
talked about the people even then. This story talks about
(53:20):
his old dear friend Conwell. Like as I read this book,
like I saw how he cried when he left the
Conwell's home. This is a German with his American family,
and like, that's me, that's I want to value people
like that, um, his deep sense of adventure. I mean,
(53:40):
girsh darker, Holy cow, he did stuff that makes us
look like city slickers. Yeah. I think his appreciation for
the story and for for documenting the journey and documenting
the process and all the things. I mean, that's that's
so valuable and that I mean, that's why we know
the story is because he took the time and energy
to to write it down and and that indicates that
(54:02):
he saw value in the experience. Yeah, and that those
stories give this place meaning and give this place life
and shape. And you know, the land impacts people, and
people people give meaning to the land. The reason we
(54:27):
love stories and there's such a powerful part of the
human experience is because they have an impartational value though
we weren't there, and understanding of what happened and how
people responded inspires and instructs us in a very functional way.
In modern times, stories are often just seen as entertainment,
(54:48):
but they're a highly effective medium of transferring values and knowledge.
Even in what seems like mindless entertainment on television, which
is essentially a story, is power awfully transferring values into
your home. You have a choice of what stories impact
you and your family. As a family, we weren't big
(55:10):
into superheroes, but we allowed Gerstalker to become like one
in our family. I have a frame sketch of the
scene of Erskine's death that I drew framed in my office.
My father in law and I made a commemorative bowie
knife that we called the Girl Sticker. I don't have
a great reason why this story impacted me so much.
(55:31):
On the surface, it's probably because he was a bear
and deer hunter, and he hunted in the Ozarks like me.
Gerstalker valued people and he had some uncommon insight for
the time period, and I respect that Gerstalker's life can't
be seen in this one small story. I guess I
don't have a good answer, but I'm content just letting
(55:55):
stories do what stories have done for a long time.
Um they have impacted us and instructed us and inspired us,
and if we choose the right stories, it makes us
better people. H m hm
Host
Clay Newcomb
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!