Frank Morrison called me last week. He had a comment on a recent Transitions article in which some of the origins of Litchfield Park were detailed. Those who know Frank will recognize that he wasted no time in getting to the point: “Hey Bill,” he said. “How come you didn’t mention anything about the wild boar that Mr. Litchfield imported to stock his Adirondack holdings?”
Even before I had an opportunity to reply, Frank fired another question: “By the way, do you know why they had those iron bars on the windows?”
“For security?” I weakly replied.
“Nah,” said Frank. “It was to keep the boar from entering the Chateau. Of course, after the boar disappeared from the park, someone recognized that if there was a fire, the iron bars might prevent an escape, so they removed them.”
Frank insists that his source for that story is reliable, and that readers would be interested that at one time not only moose and elk but other exotic species were imported by Mr. Litchfield with an idea toward developing “a game preserve equal to the finest Europe can provide.”
If Frank is right, perhaps a brief sketch of that noble experiment to create a wild game sanctuary on the outskirts of this community will be of interest.
The story begins around the middle 1890s, when Mr. Litchfield enclosed 8,000 acres of his property with a woven wire fence 8 feet high. He then stocked that enclosure (at great expense) with elk, moose, wild boar, European grouse, quail, jackrabbits and fallow deer.
Louis Simmons, in his seminal local history entitled, Mostly Spruce and Hemlock, noted that the “elk were transported from Wyoming (Moosehead Ranch in Jackson Hole) and the moose from Minnesota, Maine and Canada. Red deer and fallow deer were imported from England. The wild boar were natives of the Black Forest in Germany and were supplied by the Hagenbach of Hamburg.”
Unfortunately, despite the great expense, a colorful part of Adirondack history, to which early Tupper residents had a grandstand seat, did not survive.
An early observer summed it this way: “Within a few years, Mr. Litchfield’s hope for a sanctuary were blasted due to the constantly breaking down of sections of the high and strong fence. Practically all the herds of moose and elk escaped. Vandal hunters would occasionally shoot an elk for the valuable and highly prized teeth used for lodge charms.” (Elks Club)
Note: Some elks were still frequently seen in later years. One female became semi-domesticated and was a common sight as she foraged with the cows near the foot of Little Tupper Lake (1920s). Joe Haile, one of this area’s preeminent woodsmen, once told me that an elk hung around his trapping cabin near Handsome Pond as late as the middle 1940s.
The wild boar also escaped, but multiplied and turned out to be one of the most exciting additions of the wildlife imported by Mr. Litchfield.
I grew up with Floyd Hutchins, Jr., whose father was park superintendent for 35 years, and I heard many thrilling stories about this “ferocious, swift-footed species of wild swine.” They were considered very dangerous because of their great speed and strength, their long lethal tusks, their lack of fear and their willingness to charge a hunter.
Note: Hunters and many lumberjacks reported many encounters with wild boar in this area. They had long and heavy dewclaws and, when running through the snow, their feet spread and a made a track much like that of caribou. They would also leave large areas uprooted in their search for edible roots and other forage. The last one reported killed was in the 1920s just across from the Sorting Gap on Racquette Pond.
I will conclude this week’s column with an excerpt from an account of a great boar hunt that occurred in Whitney Park in March of 1919. The article was made available by the late John Stock and appeared in a publication called State Service in May of 1919 under the title, First Wild Boar Hunt in the United States, with a sub caption which read, “It took place only a few weeks ago in the wildest part of the ADKs.”
The article was written by James Whipple, a former New York State Forest, Fish and Game commissioner. I will quote only the section of the article in which the author lets one of the hunters, Ernest Johnson, well-known in this area at the time as the general manager of the Whitney Preserve, tell “in his own words,” the story of the hunt:
“There is no doubt about this being one of the wild boars that escaped from Litchfield’s park about ten years ago, and finally worked its way across onto the Whitney preserve. These fierce animals have wintered on Moose mountain near the outlet of Little Tupper Lake, north side. As they are very keen and wary, much more so than deer or bear, we have never been able to get sight of one until this winter. For years I have seen workings where they have fed, but have never been able to locate one. Having an idea about where they were wintering, I had been thinking that when conditions were right I would indulge in a little kingly sport now that nearly all kings have abdicated and one man is as good as another and go wild boar hunting as did the kings and nobles of olden days. Therefore, a few days ago a guide, William Sibley, my two sons, Alfred and Dyenley, accompanying me, we started out before daylight on show shoes. After traveling about six miles, we saw some old signs of their workings where they had dug through the snow for roots. Alfred and Dyenley then traveled long on one side and the other on the opposite side of Moose pond, while Sibley and I made a circle and came in from the east.
“After traveling about half an hour, I heard Sibley shoot and in a few minutes I saw a large black animal running by on the hillside. Under the snow conditions it ran very fast. I knew instantly it must be a wild boar, and fired one shot at quite a long range. The boar was running quarterly toward me, and when I fired the animal swerved in its course and came on directly at me, and when within about forty feet I fired again. The second bullet from my 25 Savage apparently struck the animal pretty well back and through the intestines. The boar let out one loud squeal and plunged into a thick copse of brush and out of my sight.
“I have done much hunting of moose, deer and bear, and am unusually cool, but am obliged to admit that this first wild boar hunt had me going a little. In about a minute I heard a shot up near where my son, Dyenley, was on the high ground, and in about two minutes I heard a shot in the direction further on, where Alfred was supposed to be. I followed the trail as fast as I could on snow shoes, finding blood all the way, and in arriving over near the foot of the pond I heard the boys yell, ‘We got him,’ and on coming up to them found they had the boar dead.
“To show the wonderful vitality of the animal, I will tell you more particularly about the affair. Sibley had jumped three of the boars and hit the one that came toward him a glancing shot, not fatal. My shots went clean through a little back, as I said before. Dyenley shot one hind leg off and Alfred finished him. His first shot went through the lungs of the animal, and at that the boar made for him, and when within about twelve feet he fired again, striking him in the top of the shoulder and ranging back; it sort of paralyzed the boar but he did not fall. He simply stopped and stood with his feet well apart, a real fighter, game to the last. In that condition before he finally succumbed, Alfred took several pictures of him. Of all the game animals I have seen and killed during forty years in the woods, I have never seen any gamier animal, and doubt if any, even the lion or the tiger of Africa, have more stamina. Sibley jumped the three boars from a nest made of green spruce branches and dead grass.”
Note: The boar was later turned over to Joseph Sabattis, taxidermist of Long Lake, to be mounted full life size.