Gerald C. McEntire (1822), brother to Loranzo, son of John A. McEntire and Elizabeth Wiley McEntire. Married to Elizabeth Snow. (see "Uncle Jarrel" below in story).
The following two stories are from the Silas Turnbo Collection. I enjoy them in their own right and particularly because they are rich in both Rutherford County and McEntire history.
The full link for these stories online is:
http://thelibrary.org/lochist/turnbo/toc.html
PECULIAR ACTIONS OF A WOUNDED PANTHER
By S. C. Turnbo
On the south bank of Crooked Creek at a beautiful flowing spring of cold water is the residence of Loranzo McEntire. His farm is one mile below Powel and he has lived here since 1850. He was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, July 29, 1828. Uncle Loranzo is a son of John and Elizabeth (Wiley) McEntire. His father is buried in the cemetery at the mouth of Clear Creek. His mother rests in a graveyard near Springfield, Mo. The writer and Uncle Loranzo served in the same regiment together in the Civil War. Uncle Loranzo was just as good a confederate soldier as he has always been an honorable citizen of Marion County, Ark., since the war and before. Mr. McEntire said that when he located on Crooked Creek the entire valley was comparatively a wild country and overrun with game. "But," said he "I never hunted to amount to anything. But I will give you two panther stories which are reliable. Along in the early 50’s Jarrel McEntire and Isaac Snow, who were brothers-in-law, went into the Buffalo Hills on a camp hunt. They took only one horse and one dog. One day while they were on a hill near Calf Creek they separated temporarily. Snow was mounted on the horse and McEntire was afoot.
As Uncle Jarrel went along through the tall grass the dog commenced growling and his hair all stood out straight. There was nothing in sight but Jarrel said he heard a noise similar to wolves howling at a distance and he supposed the dog had scented them. After walking a few steps further he stopped again and heard the same noise. It had a strange sound, but he still thought it wolves howling away off and if the dog had not scented them it was odd how he was acting for he kept growling like some kind of wild beast was close by. Uncle Jarrel went on a few yards further and stopped again, and the same noise greeted his ears. By this time he was convinced that it was not wolves but he was unable to make out what it was. When he started again a spotted animal the size of a grown coon sprang up out of the grass a few feet in front of him, and stopped in an open place. It was a beautiful little creature, but Jarrel could not name it. He had seen nothing like it before. He had seen plenty of fawns, but this was no deer nor no kin to deer, but he did not think only a few seconds when he leveled his rifle at it and shot it. Then he hallooed for Snow and when the man rode up they both gave it a thorough examination. They both said that they never seen anything that resembled it. While they were conversing together they heard something in the grass in 10 or 12 yards of them and were astonished at the sight of a grown panther slipping away through the rank grass. Neither men or dog had noticed it, but before Snow could aim at it with his gun it was gone. But they sent the dog after it, which pursued it about 300 yards and came back. Both men were now able to identify the little beast, for they knew it was a young panther. When the dog came back Jarrel reloaded his rifle and both hunters intended to go on. But they stumbled on two more little spotted fellows which ran up a scrubby chinkapin tree and Uncle Jarrel shot one. The other had stopped on a low limb in reach of the dog and he leaped up and jerked it down and killed it. They now went to a settlement for assistance to kill the mother panther, and a few men with plenty of dogs repaired to the spot where the young panthers were slain, but they did not succeed in killing the old one.
John McEntire, a cousin of mine, killed a panther in 1854 near where he lived on the head of Hampton Creek which flows into Crooked Creek just below the mouth of Clear Creek. One cloudy day while a mist of rain was falling John heard the sheep bell start and his flock of sheep came running to the house as fast as their legs to carry their bodies. John was sitting in the house when he heard them start. He thought it was wolves disturbing the sheep, and ran out of the house with gun in hand, and called the dog. His oldest son, whose name was Tom, went along with John too. Father and son hurried along as fast as they could go until they arrived at a little knoll where there was a small grove of chinkapin trees. Here the dog began yelping on the trail of some animal. This was followed by a hot chase across a hollow where the dog treed it which dispelled the idea that it was a wolf, for whatever it might be it had climbed a tree. Hurrying on across the hollow to the dog they discovered a panther up a large blackjack tree. John took with his rifle at the side of a tree and shot at the beast, but the bullet took effect in the fleshy part of its foreleg only. The wound stung the panther severely and caused it to jump in a lively way from limb to limb and bite off the ends of the twigs; but by the time he had reloaded it had quieted down and he advanced up closer to the tree to obtain a more accurate aim, intending to shoot the animal in the forehead. At the report of the gun it fell to the ground apparently dead. The dog sprang on it for a fight and to their surprise he got more than he was expecting for when the dog leaped on the panther the latter whirled on its back in an instant and placing its hind feet against the dog’s belly kicked it 20 feet. This put a cooler on the dog and it kept at a safe distance from that on. But in the meantime the panther got on its feet and ran up in ten feet of where John and Tom stood and stopped and they saw that the last bullet had glanced one of its eyeballs and put it out. The dog, after the panther had give it such a jolt, ran to the men, but it had enough panther to do it for awhile at least and they could not induce it to attack the ferocious animal anymore. The panther’s eye being out bothered it and it would look at the men like a hog with the blind staggers, then it would look at the dog, then at the men again. It appeared to be at a loss which to attack. John took his butcher knife from the scabbard and gave it to Tom saying if it jumps on me stab it to death with the knife. If it jumps on you I will kill it with the barrel of my gun. But the panther changed its mind and quickly wheeled around and ran up the same tree. During the excitement while the panther was threatening them John did not reload his rifle, but when it went back up the tree he worked in a hurry to reload by pouring into the gun a big charge of powder and rammed down two naked balls on top of it and sent the balls into the side of the panther’s head and it fell from the tree the second time. This time it was not able to kick another dog or frighten anymore sheep. It measured just 9 feet in length."
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SEVERAL STORIES OF WOLVES
By S. C. Turnbo
The writer’s brother, J. N. (Newt) Turnbo, gives the following story. "One late afternoon during the war, I and father, Allin Trimble, "Thresher" Bill Yocum and Abe Perkins met at the Willow Spring on Trimble Creek in Marion County, Ark., to camp out overnight to avoid encountering the enemy. We had our horses and guns with us but did not allow a dog to follow us for fear they might bark during the night and attract a body of federals to our camp. It was in the month of June and the weather was clear and serene. We did not need any fire except to toast some bread and broil some meat. Just after night wolves began to collect near our camp and howled terrible. As the night grew deeper in darkness the wolves gathered in greater force and it seemed that each animal tried to excel each other in noise until finally the hills and hollow surrounding our camping place appeared to have turned to wolves. After awhile they divided into three bunches and advanced up closer to us. We expected they would attack us and we made preparations to defend ourselves. But outside of heavy threats they made no attack, but they approached so near us at times that we could hear the pebbled rattle as the wolves walked on them. There was no sleep for us that night. Near an hour before daybreak the old ones ceased howling. Then a lot of young wolves turned loose to howling awhile and they quit, too, and we heard nothing more of them. Soon after daylight we searched for the den of the whelps and found it in a little hollow on the west side of the creek from our camp. But they were gone. The old ones had taken them away before daylight.
Mr. W. H. (Will) Lewis, son of Wiley S. (Judge) Lewis and Hezekiah (Lakey) Lewis and born near the present site of Ava, Douglas County, Mo., contributes the following.
"When my parents lived near where Ava is now my father went Into the woods one day to haul a feed trough to the stock lot with a yoke of oxen we called Bright and Berry. After he had unyoked the cattle and went into the house and had sit down to dinner and before the meal was finished mother happened to look out into the woodyard and exclaimed, "Look there, the old Berry steer is hooking at a wolf." Father rose from the table in a moment and grabbed his rifle and stood in the door and shot the wolf. It was a gray one and was only about 30 steps from the house. At another time," said Mr. Lewis, "while we lived on the dividing ridge between Big Beaver and Little Beaver Creeks and some 1O miles west of Ava, Tilman Elon, one of our neighbors, come to our house one day to help father butcher his fattening hogs. In the evening after the hogs had been killed and the meat salted away Mr. Elon asked me to go home with him which I did on receiving the consent of my parents. When we reached his place it was nearly sunset and without stopping to rest Mr. Elon went into his field to get some corn and shock fodder for his horses and I went with him. Mr. Elon had only one dog which was mixed with cur and shepherd and he followed us into the field which contained only a few acres. After getting into the field we noticed a gray wolf going across the field at a moderate gait. Elon encouraged the dog and he ran and caught the wolf by the tail and gave it a vigorous shake and let go and turned around and walked back to where we stood. The wolf was scared and made no offer to fight the dog, and when the dog let go its tail the animal ran to the fence and leaped over and went out of our sight. Elon tried to persuade the dog to follow it but it refused to pay any more attention to it."
Fate Jones furnished the following brief account.
"During the war while we lived on Crooked Creek 10 miles above Yellville, Ark., and near where the village of Powell is now my father rode off one day and was absent until dusk of the evening before he returned. After he took the saddle off of the horse I lead the horse into the lot and into the stable. Pulling the bridle off I stepped out of the stable to close the door and was nearly scared to death at seeing a black wolf standing in a few feet of the stable door. I was a little fellow then, but I called loudly for the dogs, but before they had time to get there the wolf darted off and leaped over the fence and was gone almost in an instant."
"In the early 30’s," said John H. Tabor, "while I lived in what is now known as the Flippin Barrens between the present town of Yellville, Ark., and White River, a bunch of horses belonging to Jim Montgomery was grazing one day close to my house. Among the bunch was a mare that had a bell on and this mare fell over a precipice that is some 15 or 20 feet high, and falling on a dry cedar top some of the ends of the limbs pierced her side and killed her. No one knew for a certainty how it happened that she fell off but it was supposed that while she was grazing near the edge of the cliff one of the other horses kicked her off. The wolves soon discovered the carcass and would collect from every direction at dusk and howl all night. One morning about daylight after they had quit howling I took my gun and went out to shoot one. The cliff of which was only a short distance from my cabin. But before I got in sight of the carcass I heard the tingle of the bell at short intervals and I was satisfied that some of the wolves were there. On creeping up in sight, I saw two of them eating on the carcass. I shot one of them and the other made its escape. This one was gray. The one shot, which was a black one, tried to leap to the top of the cliff but failing to do so after several efforts left the rock and ran toward me, but fell dead before it reached me. I dragged it to the house and examined for the track of my bullet and found that it had penetrated through the body of the heart. The animal was a she."
Mr. W. A. Holt, a long resident of Ozark County, Mo., tells of a man of the name of Wilson who settled on Little North Fork and built a cabin in the creek bottom just below the mouth of Barren Fork. Wilson owned a dog which was a severe one. One night after the settler had killed a fat shoat and after the family had ate supper and when his wife threw the scraps from the supper table to the dog which was near the door some animal came into the yard and attacked the dog and after a long fierce fight the noise of the combat grew silent. Wilson thinking that the beast whatever it was had killed his dog and supposing it would attack his cabin refused to go out to make an investigation and barred up the door until daylight the following morning when he peeped out through an opening between two of the logs of the house and was astonished at seeing a big gray wolf lying in front of the door dead. The brave and trusty dog had killed it."
"One day many years ago," said Loranzo McEntire, an old timer of Crooked Creek, Marion Co., Ark., two of Nimrod Teaf’s boys, Nim and Joe, while rambling around on the right prong of Sugar Orchard Creek they heard wolves howling nearby and the two youngsters beat a retreat toward home as rapid as their legs would take them. On arriving home and after relating their story two of their brothers, Henry and Jim Teaf, concluded they would go out alone and slay some of the wolves for scaring their two brothers. But by this time Nim and Joe had recovered from their fright and went back with them. The boys were accompanied by two dogs. On approaching the ground where Nim and Joe had heard the wolves howling Jim began howling like a wolf. It turned out that the animals were not gone and they answered Jim. The four boys and two dogs made a rush toward the beasts. There were a big gang of the wolves and they stood their ground until the boys and dogs had ran up close to them before they give back. The boys encouraged the dogs and they sped on in pursuit of the pack. The boys followed on making the wild forest echo with their yells. The wolves ran across a hollow and up the hillside to a cave and the entire bunch ran into it. The animals could not get into the cave fast enough and with an amusing scramble some of the hindmost wolves crowded over the front ones in the mouth of the cave. The dogs reached the mouth of the cave in time to catch one of the wolves before he could force his way to the inside and after a hard fight the dogs with the help of the boys killed the wolf. The boys then placed the dead beast in the entrance of the cave to prevent as they said the other wolves from coming out and went off for assistance to exterminate the whole bunch. After notifying a few settlers they and the boys returned to the cave with more dogs and found that the wolves were still in the cavern. The men concluded to smoke them out and started a big smoke in the mouth of the cavern for that purpose but the smoke failed to bring them out. Late in the evening the men changed their minds by deciding to put the fire out and stop the wolves up in the cave and fix a date and notify every settler in reach to come with their dogs and have a grand time taking the pack out of the cavern. So they carried stones and stopped the entrance of the cave in such a way that the wolves could not possibly escape. The wolves growled and whined while the men were at work. In a day or two word was sent in every direction for miles with an invitation for every settler to come and bring his dogs and gun. When the day appointed arrived more than 50 men collected at the cave with nearly 100 dogs. After unstopping the mouth of the cave some of the men took their dogs and crawled into the opening to bring on the fight and extermination. But they found the cave was empty. The game was gone. They had escaped through another outlet that heretofore was unknown to the men. The wolves had fooled the settlers and the fun had ended before it began," said Mr. McEntire as he finished his old time story.
Uncle to Gerald McEntire: Daniel Champion McEntire.
Champion McEntire, b. 1806 Rutherford County d. Mar 2, 1870, Bruno, Arkansas
wife of Champion, Sarah Black Waters McEntire
b. Oct 16, 1806, Rutherford County, NC, d. May 2, 1888, Bruno, Arkansas
Temperance Casey and Archibald McEntire
Daniel Archibald McEntire and wife Tempy Casey McEntire.
Maude, Lafayette, Mellisie, Grover and Marietta
- William Champion McEntire, son of Daniel Champion McEntire and Sarah Waters McEntire
WILLIAM C. MCENTIRE. This substantial citizen owes his nativity to the Old North State, where he was born February 5, 1838, a son of Champion and Sarah (Waters) McEntire, both of whom were born in North Carolina in 1806, and on January 10, 1846, landed in Yellville, Arkansas, in which place they lived for one year prior to moving to Bruno. They purchased a claim near this place, and here made their home until the father's death, March 2, 1879. He was a Union sympathizer during the war, and at that time was a resident in Greene County, Missouri After the war he returned to Arkansas, and prior to his death became the owner of an excellent farm of 238 acres, and was well and favorably known throughout northern Arkansas. He was a public-spirited citizen, and was a member of the Baptist Church, as was his wife who died May 2, 1888. Their children were as follows: John, who died at Salt Lake City many years ago; James was killed while with Price on his Missouri raid; Lawson was killed in the Mountain Meadow Massacre; William C., the sub-ject of this sketch; Joseph, who died in 1873, was a farmer of this county and was a soldier in the Union Army; Rachel D. is the wife of Dr. Elam; and Arch, who is living in this county. The maternal grandfather, John Waters, was a Revolutionary soldier. William C. McEntire came from North Carolina to Arkansas, with his parents, in a wagon, the journey thither occupying about three months. He received a fair education in the common schools, and at the age of twenty-one years enlisted in Company 1, Twelfth Texas Cavalry, with which he served faithfully and well for four years, taking part in the battlesof Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Yellow Bayou, and was with Gen. Banks on his raid of twenty-eight days in Louisiana. He served as corporal part of the time, and after the war located in Williamson County, Tex. He remained there but a short time, when he came to Marion County, Arkansas, and in 1871 was married to Miss Sarah A. Cash, whose parents were Newton and Lee Ann (Mays) Cash, the latter of whom was called from life when her daughter, Sarah A., was quite small. The father is living in Searcy County. Mrs. McEntire was born in that county March 19, 1854, and she and Mr. McEntire have a family of eight children: Pat O., Sarah A., Thomas, James, Lorenzo, William L., George M. and Turner. Mr. McEntire has a fine farm of 160 acres, on a portion of which the town of Bruno is located, and he has done much to build up and improve the place. He has a good mill and cotton gin there, is active and wide awake, and has succeeded in accumulating a good property. He is a man of good business ability, a substantial and worthy citizen, and his friends are numerous. He has always been a Democrat.
- Reminiscent History Of The Ozark Region, pub. Goodspeed Brothers, Publishers, Chicago 1894
- William Champion and Sara Cash McEntire family.
- Sarah Ann Cash McEntire
- Sara Ann Cash McEntire
- Sarah Ann 'Sally' Ann McEntire Russell family (daughter of William and Sara McEntire)
- James Wilburn McEntire. (Joseph, Archibald)
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James Thomas Dedman, husband to Susannah.
