Bellows Falls Times, Bellows Falls, VT, January 7, 1876
About a year ago a man named Jonas Butler went into the wild region around the head waters of the Delaware River, about twenty miles above Delhi, N. Y., for the purpose of cutting railroad ties and peeling bark, on contract for some parties in Greene County. He erected a log cabin, where he and his wife, his daughter Jennie, aged sixteen, and an infant child made their home.
On Sunday, Dec. 19, Butler was absent from home, and about 5 o’clock in the afternoon of that day Mrs. Butler and her daughter heard an unusual commotion among the pigs in the pen, a log inclosure a few rods away from the house.
Going to the door of the cabin Mrs. Butler saw a large black bear in the pen, with a pig weighing about sixty or seventy pounds hugged tightly in one forepaw and trying to get out of the inclosure with it. A watch dog belonging to the family was barking furiously at the bear from the outside, and the pig was wriggling and squealing. Without a moment’s delay Mrs. Butler told her daughter to take the axe, and she herself seized a heavy mall (sic), used in driving wedges, and thus armed, the two women rushed out to attack the bear. With no thought of consequences, they both jumped into the pen, followed by the dog.
They began the attack at once, dealing the bear blows heavy and fast with their weapons. The dog harassed bruin in the rear, and it was not long before he dropped the pig and turned his attention to his assailants. He first seized the dog and in a very short time had crushed the life out of it The infuriated animal then rushed with open mouth upon the girl. She retreated slowly, using her axe with vigor, but by a sudden blow of his paw the bear knocked the axe from her hands and pressed her in to a corner of the pen. But for the hearty and vigorous attack that Mrs. Butler kept up with her mall the bear would have crushed the girl in another second, as he had the dog. This drew his attention from the daughter, and he dashed at the mother. She kept him at a distance, and shouted to her daughter to go to the house and fetch the rifle and shoot the bear. Jennie leaped from the pen and flew to the house.
The struggle between Mrs. Butler and the bear waxed hotter and hotter. She retreated backwards around the pen, dealing blow after blow with the mall, the bear following her closely with open mouth and blood flowing from his wounds. Finally the bear struck the mall and sent it flying out of the pen. Mrs. Butler crouched down in a corner and covering her face with her hands, had resigned herself to her fate, when her daughter arrived with the gun. She pushed the barrel through a chink in the logs and fired. The bear, which stood over Mrs. Butler in the act of seizing her, tottered an instant on his haunches and fell over dead. The ball as was afterwards discovered, had passed clear through the heart.
After firing the shot and seeing the result the girl fainted. Mrs. Butler could not summon strength to get out of the place for some time, but finally succeeded in doing so, and got her daughter into the house, where she soon restored her to consciousness. The girl’s flesh was considerably torn under her arms, where the bear had grasped her, and she was severely scratched. Beyond that neither were hurt.
Monday the girl walked to where her father was at work and told him of the adventure. He came in and dressed the bear. It weighed over three hundred pounds.
