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MISSOURI SLOPE SHOOTING No Hunting Ground to Compare with It Fifty Years Ago Billions of Wild Ducks and Geese GeeseThere There for the Sportsmans SportsmansEntertainment Entertainment How dear to this Iieart arc the scenes of my mychildhood childhood When fond recollection presents them to view viewIn In these onomiiK lines of The Old Oaken Bucket Samuel Woodworth lias expressed a sentiment en ¬ tertained by almost every civilized person personMy My earliest recollection carries me back to the days of infancy in a little log cabin on the west right baifk of the Des Moihcs River in what afterward became Marion County Iowa at about the middle of the lifetime of the territorial form of government of that now great and prosperous commonwealth commonwealthThere There lived my father with his family wife daughter and son three miles from the nearest white neighbors and to all intents and purposes amen the Sac and Fox Indians We were on most intimate terms with these noble red men from whom we received many visits Frequently as many as a dozen of them paddling up or down the river in their big basswood canoes would land at our door come in and say How and partake of the corn bread bacon and beans which supplemented by the game meats procured by tne handy rifleman of the house and vegetables from the garden con ¬ stituted our commissary commissaryMy My father Lysander W Babbitt was a native of New York State was brortght up on the Old Ridge Road not far from where roll the waves of Lake Ontario He learned the trade of gunsmith at Lockport and upon completing bis apprentice ¬ ship anticipated Horace Greeleys advice Go west young man by removing to Cleveland Ohio where lie sot up his shop After a brief sojourn in the lakeside city he hied him onward to the lit ¬ tle town of Flint Hills on the west right bank of the Mississippi now Burlington Iowa and established himself in business businessIN IN LAND OF SACS AND FOXES FOXESThis This little hamlet soon became too metropolitan for him however and he sought relief in the wilds Leaving his shop and his family in care of friends accompanied by two adventurous companions he went on expeditions of exploration to the headwaters of the River DCS Moines away up into the unccded Indian country where few white men bad been be ¬ fore and for two winters engaged in hunting and trapping witli St Louis as the market for the pro ¬ ducts It was in this manner that he became ac ¬ quainted with and learned to speak the language of the Sacs and Foxes and laid the foundation of the friendship heretofore mentioned mentionedWhen When the lower Des Moines country was opened to settlement he trekked westward and built the little log cabin upon a site which he bad much admired during his visits to the section He carried his tools with him and frequently used them in jobs of ordinary blacksmithing as well as in repairing the firearms of the pioneers pioneersWe We removed from the cabin to a point selected as the site for the seat of justice for the proposed now county presently named Knoxville where for a time he plied his trade but soon became interested in merchandising milling and manufacturing though he never lost his love for the gun He was one of the best rifle shots in the region and frequently killed ducks wild pigeons and other feathered game in flight The double shotgun was then an un ¬ known weapon in that locality The old flintlock army musket the heavy smoothbore and an occa inoiily in use useWhile While living in the cabin on the Des Moines River out of touch with other people there was little to occupy my fathers leisure moments so he amused himself by hunting and practicing target shooting with his rifle Before I was two years old he used to aim the piece for me tell me when to pull the trigger and compliment me on m mark manship My first shot at i living object was in the early part of 1845 An old jim crow upon a dry limb not far from our cabin was caw caw cawing himself hoarse when taking down the rifle my father called me and said saidNow Now Boy lets kill that fellow fellowCarefully Carefully sighting the gun he told me to pull I pulled and the crow departed in great haste hasteAll All we missed him said my father fatherYes Yes I said but we made him quit the place placeAfterward Afterward made him quit the place became a sort of byphrase in our family whenever occasion arose where it might be aptly used With such a daddy and such training it was but natural that I should become devoted to the gun and a lover of all out doors doorsOVER OVER THE PRAIRIE FOR GROUSE GROUSEAfter After a few years at Knoxville we again moved westward over the beautiful rolling prairie land flecked witli the flowers of May to the Mormon town of Kanesville on the Missouri River within the recently vacated 1ottawattamie Indian Country the name of which had a few months before been decreed to be Council Bluffs City CityThere There at a little more than ten years of age I became the proud owner of a double shotgun and was carefully instructed in regard to handling it It was not until three years later however that I was allowed to go hunting unless accompanied by my father though in the meantime I had become a fairly expert wing shot shotWestern Western loiva or as we called it the Missouri Slope was a great natural habitat for wild ani ¬ mals and birds of game and other specie In the northern part ulk wapiti were found in herds in the winter the common red deer was plentiful the year round rabbits and squirrels were there in numbers beyond reasonable requirements wild turkeys bred by thousands prairie chickens pin ¬ nated grouse covered the entire open country but the ruffled grouse was unknown During twenty years of gunning in that region I never saw one of the latter nor heard of one being killed there though they were common in other parts of the state Quail were as numerous as they were tooth some and tlio wood pigeon was there in greal flocks We had some black bear many wild bob cats now ami then a panther puma cougar or mountain lion choose your own name for him occasionally an ordinary lynx and wolves of sev ¬ eral varieties mostly coyotes more numerous than desirable The streams and lakes abounded with fish and afforded homes for beaver otter mink and muskrats while the ringtailed raccoon was omnipresent I think that it may be said without fear of suc ¬ cessful contradiction that except In the more northerly breeding grounds or the far southern winter quarters no place in the United States then afforded such opportunities for wildfowl shooting as did the Missouri River Valley Even now when we are so accustomed to talk in billions it would be folly to attempt to say what numbers of geese including the several families of brant ducks of many species swan pelican sandhill cranes and other migratory water birds passed up and down that stream in their semiannual travels They were absolutely innumerable Early western gun ¬ ners paid no attention to woodcock jacksnipe cur ¬ lew or any of the plover family though their number was beyond computation computationCOUNCIL COUNCIL BLUFFS AND MORMONS MORMONSThe The city of Council Bluffs now extending widely over the Missouri River bottom lands developed from a Mormon settlement made in 1S4G and origi ¬ nally known as Millers Hollow later officially known as Millers Hollow later officially christ ¬ ened Kanesville by the Saints located in a small valley among rugged bluffs that rise to heights of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet on either side of the little stream called Indian Creek At distances ranging from one milt to two ami one half miles from the original settle ¬ ment Mosquito Creek half encircled the site on the east and south flowing through a valley vary ¬ ing in width from a few hundred yards to upward of a mile on each side of which arose bluffs or hills similar to those among which the old town nestled and passed out to tile river bottom through a narrow opening about a mile from the center of the town townThe The winter of 185557 was the most severe ex ¬ perienced by the pioneer settlers in that region ind it has not been equalled since Snow fell oarly in the season and accumulated from month to month until it reached an average level depth of from two feet to thirty inches drifting in msny places to such heights that one might drive over the tops of farm fences without knowledge of their existence Cold rains sleet and con ¬ tinuous freezing temperatures formed a heavy crust on the snow of such strength that save in spots where the hazel bushes or other growth came near the surface one might safely walk upon it without the aid of snow shoes Throughout the entire Missouri Slope this was known among the people for many years as the winter of the deep snow The result in so far as wild life was concerned was the practical annihilation of the quail and almost total destruction of the wild tmkeys and deer The latter unable to escape their enemies because of plunging through the ice zrust when attempting to run became easy vic ¬ tims to the coyotes and other carnivorous animals as well as of brutal men who ran them down and In many instances slew them with knives hatchets ind axes They were so starved and emaciated as to be almost useless for food purposes yet men killed them for the mere enjoyment of the killing uid after extracting the least bad portions either left the carcasses where they fell threw them to the hogs or fed them to their yellow dogs dogsBIRDS BIRDS BY THE MILLION MILLIONThis This mantle of ice and snow remained until late in the spring a very unusual occurrence in that locality and wassiiddenly removed by soft southern winds and warm rain torrential in char ¬ acter resulting in theretofore unheardof high freshets in all of the streams The Mosquito Val ¬ ley was submerged froni hill to hill for many miles along its course ami thousands of bushels of corn which had been left standing in the val ¬ ley fields in shocks as was the custom among the early farmers were swept down the stream spread over the valley bottoms and deposited imong the silt as the waters receded This oc ¬ curred at the very time when the northward flight of the migratory waterfowl was at its height heightThe The excellent feeding ground thus created was soon discovered by the birds especially the ducks and they swarmed to and fro into and out of the valley from the little lakes dotted over the Mis ¬ souri River bottoms and the sand bars in the river whpjre their nights were spent One con ¬ tinuous stream coming and going from early dawn to dewy eve all passing through the narrow gorge where the creek debouched upon the plain at such low elevation that there was no time probably not ono minuteduring the livelong day when a gunner stationed near the creek for half a mile or more above the gorge had not birds within his range The whirring of the wings was like the rear of a wind storm1 fo numerous were the ducks and so closely packed in flight were they cover for the shooter was of no consequence consequenceSpring Spring shooting was not then taboo mores the pity and those pioneers knew no better than to kill as many birds as they could each striving to outdo the other They had no thought and would not Lave believed had suggestion to such effect been made that the apparently inexhaustible sup ¬ ply of ducks could ever become extinguished As one of tin sinners I offer this poor apology lame as it may appear to those who may be unable to comprehend the situation as I have tried to pre ¬ sent it itThe The wonderful flight so unsatisfactorily described because of lack of vocabulary to adequately present the facts continued for something like a week dur ¬ ing which there were many gunners upon the ground There were no breechloading shotguns in that sec ¬ tion then A few had double barrels some old fashioned English single fowling pieces others heavy smooth bores or discarded Harpers Ferry flintlock muskets altered to percussion fire which latter was described in a magazine article recently published as about as shapely as a crowbar almost as heavy and only a little more deadly at twenty yards Some of the best equipped and most expert among the gunners participating in the massacre herein mentioned made a daily average bag of more than a hundred birds each during the period of the flight flightHUNDRED HUNDRED DUCKS TO A BAG BAGOne One morning at about eight oclock when the op ¬ portunity for inurder was at the maximum niv father and I walked over the hills from our home a little more than a mile from the upper end of the shooting ground to participate in the sport of which we had received glowing accounts We found a number of shooters already there so selecting tile most desirable unoccupied stands we began firing into the passing throng of innocents iy eleven oclock our supply of ammunition was ex ¬ hausted and we were compelled to retire Our lit ¬ tle raid resulted in a joint bag of nearly one hun ¬ dred ducks chiefly redheads of which number it is perhaps superfluous to say father was responsible for the greater share Among those eiigrijicd iii killing lllt niornius niorniuswen wen Wicks M and Shep McF the former si sicrack crack shot and the latter one of those who always carried a loaded flask on gunning trips and used usedit it M was scoring at nearly every shot while whileMcF McF was missing witli a regularity remarkable remarkableAfter After an hour or so as one of Mr s birds was wasfalling falling near McF the latter fired at it right rightaud aud left Here cried M Shep why in the devil devilare are you shooting at my dead bird birdWell Well l egad explained McF Ive been beenshooting shooting here all morning and havent got a tiling and I wanted to hear something drap after I shot shotA A mile or more below the point whore the Mos ¬ quito emerged from the hills Iony Creek spread at the foot of the bluffs forming a small lake sind great marsh wherein grew wild rice celery and other delectable foods for aquatic birds and this was a famous resort of wild geese and brant in ye olden time I bagged six Canada geese there in less than one hour one late October morning morningFORTY FORTY THOUSAND BRANT FLOCK FLOCKOn On the hillsides above the little lake the new grass siioots of early spring were tempting morsels for the birds especially white brant I have seen more than one hundred acres of this upland black ¬ ened as it was by late prairie fires so covtrcd by white bra lit on a late afternoon in spring sis to suggest when viewed sit i distance that si recent snow storm had visited the spot How 1111113 birds there were to the sicre would be difficult to esti ¬ mate perhaps forty thousand would not be an exaggeration The flesh of these birds was inferior but they made an easy target and came down with a thud pleasing to the ear of the ruthless slayer and were far less wary of the gunner than their great and wise gray cousins whose honk honk from high in the air comes like a cheerful bugle call causing n tingle in the blood of the lover of shooting when first heard at the begin ¬ ning of the season seasonIt It must not be assumed that all of the birds slaughtered as herein described were mere victims to the lust for killing It was usual among the hunters of that early day to distribute si portion of each days bag among nonshooting neighbors Much of the flesh was put in pickle and preserved for winter use and the feathers were conserved and built into that oldfashioned family comfort known as the feather bed The wings from the larger birds afforded material for the purpose of dusters about the home occupying si place now supplied by bristle brushes manufactured at great expense and requiring costly transportation transportationFrom From my own shooting during several seasons in the early sixties before and after marriage were made a large feather bed and seversil bolsters and pillows such as our daddies used and some of those feathers are still doing duty in my home in the form of pillows cushions etc My wife says that in memory she can yet feel the sore fingers acquired by the plucking Chsirles H Bab ¬ bitt in Forest and Stream
