Steve Cole, Sugarlands, Gatlinburg, Sevier County, Tennessee
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Steve Cole, 54 years old, was from Deep Creek in Swain County, North Carolina. He had some education and was literate. He worked as a farmer, hunter, and logger.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
[C = Steve Cole; I = Interviewer Joseph Hall]
C: This is Steve Cole that lives in the Sugarlands near Gatlinburg in the park, been a-living here ever since the park was established, sev-, about seventy-one years old, him and his brother-in-law one night back years ago, about forty, went out a-bear hunting, a-, a-possum hunting or other, treed a bear, he minded up the tree, then it come down, I shot it, it rolled off down the mountain a piece, tore loose from the dogs and run away on down the flat and treed up another tree, we minded hit up there a good long while, finally it come down from up there, we had us a big fire made up at the root of the tree, when it come down why we had a good fire light to fight it by, when it come down I shot again, didn’t hit it the last time, when I shot it the last time, shot at it, why, just throwed my gun down and jumped a-straddle of it, grabbed it by both ears, me and my dogs, I thought I could help them and make them kill it, but I couldn’t do that, I broke the dogs’ hold, seed I couldn’t hold it myself, and I let it loose, started to run back around the tree, the bear took after me, just as I got around next to the fire the dogs caught it again, I turned around and jumped on it again a-straddle of it, called for the axe and my brother-in-law, he’d had the axe to fight the bear with and he’d laid it down and burnt the handle in two, he couldn’t hardly find the axe, but he hadn’t holp me a bit, he hadn’t fit none of the time, when I got to hunting for the axe and reaching for the axe, I knocked it in the head ever so many licks before I could get it to lay over and hush hollering, finally we got it killed, drug up around next to the fire, I got to looking at it, just looked a-scared to look at a bear a-thinking a man of my age or size would jump on a bear to fight fist and skull without something to fight with, so we killed it, brought it in home that night about daylight next morning, about as far as I can go with that.
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C: Well, I was going to talk a little more about that bear hunt that I took on the mountain up there when I killed that bear, I never told quite all of it, in scuffling and fighting around, why I aimed to help the dog kill it, broke the dog’s hold when I hit my dog, and when I grabbed at its foot to keep it from scratching the dog I stuck my hand in its mouth, and it bit me and I had to choke it loose, I took my right hand and hunted its windpipe and choked the bear loose from my hand, so when I got that done why then I called on my brother-in-law for the axe, he’s brought the axe in and I killed it, got it back up around next to the fire, and I guess that was about all.
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C: Back, back several years ago, about forty or forty-five years ago, when I was married, the way people lived in, the way people lived in this country, they had an awful hard time, couldn’t hardly get any money, used to sell a, a good calf for about a dollar and a quarter and a dollar, work for forty cents a day, sometimes less, couldn’t hardly pay their taxes, and lived very scanty, I lived five mile up above where I’m a-living now, near Smoky, for fourteen years and raised ten children, had a very hard time and I’d get out and work for just any way to get a little money to live on, my wife done the same thing, we’d just make a little crop of a summer, raised what potatoes and garden stuff we could get along with, everybody else would do the same, they was several old people, my grandfather, my father lived around up there close to me, they had hard times too, they wasn’t no stores any closer than five mile, and we had to walk to the store, no way of getting there, only walking, when you got any goods in here from anywhere to sell in the stores you had to go to Knoxville, it’d take a week to get them here, you start off on Monday and get back on Saturday.
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C: So we just managed in any shape or any way we could to live at them times, all the old people and back at that time when a person would get sick, we had good neighbors in here, they’d bunch up if you was sick and come work your corn for you and make quiltings and roll logs and grubbings and one thing and another and help you when you was sick and disabled and you couldn’t help yourself, but they don’t do that anymore, all that’s left them, they ain’t got that principle about them I don’t reckon in this country, so that’s the way we sort of lived in this country and along back about the time the park started in here, why this country around here where I’m a-living now was just settled up thick, lots of families lived around here, all the old settlers lived around here and they’re about all gone now, I reckon I’m the oldest one that’s in this country around here, so that’s about all I could tell you of any interest, in this now.
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C: My name’s Steve Cole, and I live in the Sugarlands in the park near Gatlinburg, been here for, been here, soon be seventy-one years, seventy one, going on seventy-one, been ...
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C: Yes sir.
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C: Yes sir, and her father was borned here at Gatlinburg, I was borned right around in here and raised here and my wife’s father was at Gatlinburg, he lived around here all his life, my father.
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C: About thirty or thirty-five years ago, me and my father started to North Carolina a-bear hunting at Deep Creek, we went up on top of Smoky at the Indian Gap, we got up there, we heard some dogs down in North Carolina, and he come on up, I’d beat him up there a little and he come on up, he says, “they’re after a bear,” and he says “give me the gun, I’ll go out here and kill it,” I reached him the gun and some cartridges and he went on out there, stayed a little while and after while he come on back and, and come back down to where I was a-setting, why the dogs was right out where he went to kill the bear, after the bear, and he just reached me the gun and says “here, take the gun and run down the road here to where the water runs the road, to where the river runs the road, and kill it,” says “It’ll cross right there,” well, I just grabbed the gun and as I started off, I said to him, I, we had two pretty severe dogs with us, Plott hounds, I said to him, I said, “you tie up your dog and just let mine go with me,” so when I got down there, why, right where he said for me to go, why, and just stopped long enough to get my breath, and the bear jumped out right in the road before me, squatted and looked down at me just like he was ready to catch me, I shot at it, just jumped off of the road, but I never hit it, went out in the laurel there and fit my dog a while and went on down around the side of the mountain for about a mile, me and my first cousin followed it on down there and finally it treed, went up a tree, I rushed on up to where the dog had it treed, I got up there why, it was way up in the top of a big balsam tree, we rested about thirty minutes, I was tired and he was too, finally I said to him, I says, “well, we’d better kill it, hadn’t we?” he said “yes,” I says, “where’d I better shoot it?” “well,” he said, “If you ain’t scared, shoot it in the head,” I says, “I ain’t scared a bit,” so when the bear got in the right position I pulled the trigger on it, it just let all holds go and fell over on two limbs there and just laid there just as dead as it could be, never kicked enough to kick out of the tree, we turned in to shooting at the limb under it where it was sort of weak and finally got it weak enough till the limb broke with the bear and fell out, that was the biggest bear that I ever killed or ever saw in my life, so we rolled it and drug it off down to the highway or to the road, went back up the road to where we first saw it, where I first shot at it, then we met the dogs a-coming that had run it off of Deep Creek, I muched the dogs a little and they come up to me, tried to get them to go on up towards the top of the mountain with me but they wouldn’t do it, they just took on after the bear and we had to run back down to where we killed the bear, so that they wouldn’t tear the bear up, when we got down there, why, they come on down there and just jumped right on the bear, we made them quit, when we made them quit fighting the bear, they went to fighting theirselves, just one another, they just fit there pretty hard a while and I finally knocked them loose with a stick, got them quieted down and we went on back up to top of the mountain, told my daddy we’d a-killed it, we had rations and everything fixed to go to Deep Creek to stay a week bear hunting, so I took them dogs off of, off over down in North Carolina a little piece, give them all the bread that they’d eat, scold them off and let them go home, they went on home and I never did hear from them anymore for a good long while, and finally I heared about them a-running a bear off, I never did hear where it went to, so we brought the bear on in, it was awful fat, we cleaned it and cut it up and cut middlings out of it just the same as we was a-cutting up a hog, we had plenty of bear meat while it lasted, and that is the largest bear that I ever killed in my life.
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C: This, this is Steve Cole.
I: Let me get this.
C: This is Steve Cole, in the park, at Sugarlands, near Gatlinburg, lived here all his life for seventy, going soon to be seventy-one.