B A C K   T H E N

Poachers

Hancock County, November 1890, Sabao Lake (east of Nicatous Lake). This tract of burned-over land provided excellent deer habitat. Probably these deer were “driven” by “human hounds,” although in 1887 much illegal actual “hounding” was reported in this region. Long after market hunting was outlawed, poachers returned from Sabao with hayracks full of deer. Barreled “saddles”—the hindquarters with the skin on and what meat could be trimmed off the shoulders—were shipped to Boston marked as fish or potatoes.

In ‘82 two Ellsworth men with three dogs killed 128 deer; another party bagged ninety. In ‘83 the first real efforts were made to regulate the deer kill; the (earlier) end of a ban on hunting by out-of-staters recognized the greater potential profit from harvesting visiting sportsmen. Laws were passed in 1883 prohibiting deer hunting with dogs, setting bag limits, and creating the Fish and Game Department and the warden service. As imperfect as enforcement would be, Maine’s efforts far surpassed those of other states. The regulations incited class warfare Down East. Market hunters (now called poachers) were depicted as lawless brigands, much like the Civil War deserters who had once infested the Maine forests. Locals were outraged to discover dogs, cats, and fowls “falling in all directions” after wardens spread strychnine poison intended for dogs. When a warden entered the reservation village at Peter Dana Point and shot a dog, outraged Indians hired a legal advisor and sent for a copy of their treaty. In 1886 two wardens in Hancock County were murdered in a dispute over a dog. A Lee man reported in January 1887 that “the poachers are abroad in the land.” Many residents, he wrote, “uphold the murder in Hancock county.”

“Hounding” was an easy way to hunt, since the deer, seeking escape, swam right out to the waiting hunters. In 1883, A.J. Darling, a warden, recalled the beginning of hounding in eastern Maine in the ‘50s:

One after another ... our “still hunters” commenced to hound deer into the waters of this State, and at last nearly every man and boy who could afford a canoe and hound, turned out to help kill and drive off these animals. I have helped make up a party of three ... who used to kill from sixty to seventy-five in the hunting season. At the height of our hunting, after everybody got well at it, we drove great numbers into the sea ... At the same time the wolves put in a claim for their share … Finally the State passed a law by which bounties were paid upon wolves killed, and the hunters turned their attention to poisoning these animals as long as one could be found.

“Crust hunting” on deep snow, also very efficient, was used both by skin hunters and “pot” hunters. “Jock” Darling (relationship to A.J. Darling not known), a market hunter and guide from Lowell, also recalled in ‘83:

Thirty years ago our forests were overrun, as it were, with deer and moose ... But during the war of the rebellion venison brought high prices in New York and other cities, and as we had deep snows for several years in succession nearly every man and boy who could wear snowshoes made a business of hunting. They finally glutted the markets, so that tons upon tons were sold in Bangor for two cents per lb., and many carcasses were left in the woods to rot. The wolves were plenty at that time and they would kill deer for fun when the snow was very deep. This was continued until very few deer remained, when the wolves got disgusted and left the country ...

Fly-rod maker H.L. Leonard claimed that the wolves starved after the deep snow of ‘64 when whites and Indians killed every deer they could in Penobscot and Aroostook Counties for hides. (In 1857 Leonard had bought 3,000 hides for twenty-five cents apiece.) Hounders claimed that “still” hunters wounded more deer than they killed. Jock Darling argued that the “doctors, lawyers and ministers” he guided all wanted to hunt with dogs because it was the “easiest mode.”

The illegal trade in Maine venison was long apparent to anyone visiting the Boston markets. In December 1894 the small schooner Montecello departed Addison with ninety deer carcasses and failed to arrive at Boston. Rumors of a schooner selling venison along the coast led the consignor to the authorities. When the Montecello finally did arrive the venison had vanished, her captain explaining that heavy weather had forced him to jettison cargo.

Incidentally, in 1894 deer were so rare in settled areas that a resident of Lincoln County, where no deer hunting was allowed, was forgiven for having shot a deer because he had never before seen one.

Text by William H. Bunting from A Days Work, Part 1, A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860–1920, Part II. Published by Tilbury House Publishers, 12 Starr St., Thomaston, Maine. 800-582-1899.