The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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THE SAD FATE OF A HUNTER
By S. C. Turnbo
It makes me feel sad to pen down the incidents of a man, woman or child who get lost and die in the wild woods. The thought of the suffering endured by the bewildered one with hunger and cold in the winter days and nights and finally die without assistance reaching them is enough to make one feel down cast in mind for the unfortunate one.
Mr. Austin Brown informed me that his father William Martin Brown got lost
in the woods and was found dead. The following is his account of the pathetic
incident. "My father was born in Culpepper County Virginia in 1800",
said he, "and went to the north west part of Missouri when he was quite
a young man and settled in Ray County where he married and I was born there
in 1835, then he moved to Stoddard County in the south east part of the
state and remarried a short time and went to Taney County and settled on
Bee Creek where my mother died in 183?, and was buried in the grave yard
at the mouth of Bear Creek. Then my father lived a while on the north side
of White River below the mouth of Bear Creek then returned back to Stoddard
County, Mo. and lived there until his death. One day in the month of December
1845 my father and a man of the name of Crabtree went off into the woods
together to hunt, but they had separated during the day and Crabtree not
seeing father any more returned back home thinking my father would come
back home in the evening. But he failed to return. On the following day
a searching party was formed and they hunted for several miles but found
nothing to indicate his whereabouts. It was now that a heavy rain set in
which lasted more than 24 hours which was followed by a cold snap. Men collected
together from many miles distant and a search was kept up day after day
until some of the men began to suspect that Crabtree knew something of his
whereabouts in other words many people believed that the man had murdered
my father and had concealed his body. Mr. Crabtree bitterly denied it and
said that he was entirely innocent, but the men threatened to mob him so
strong that Crabtree was afraid they would kill him and fled the country.
The citizens continued the search for 25 days and then give up all hope
of ever finding his body for we were all convinced that he was dead, but
just 30 days after my father had went off from home Bob Caldwell had rode
out into the woods many miles from any settlement stock hunting and discovered
the dead body of my father lying at the roots of a big white oak tree 15
miles from the nearest settlers house. The remains was found on a high piece
of land on the bank of the open lake and some 4 or 5 miles east of the St.
Francis River. He was lying on his back with his rifle lying across his
breast. The flint in the hammer of the trigger was gone and it was supposed
that he had lost it and was unable to strike a fire for there was no flint
rock in that country only what had been brought there and no doubt he had
starved and froze to death. Nothing had molested the remains except that
the eagles had eaten part of the flesh off of the face. A coroners jury
was held over the body and as there was nothing to show that he had met
with foul play Mr. Crabtree was exonerated from all charges of murder. The
men deemed it prudent to give the remains interment on the spot where they
were found and while some was digging the grave others felled a big tree
out of which they made 4 slabs the length of the grave and placed one slab
in the bottom of the grave and lowered the body down onto it, then they
placed a slab edge ways on each side and one on top and filled in the dirt
and formed a small mound over my fathers remains and made other marks to
show his last resting place on earth".
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