Chenango & Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago

The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago

S.S. Randall

Chenango Telegraph, April 24, 1872

 

The Unadilla Hunt, or "Oxford Chase"

 

Continued from posting of September 1, 2017

 

According to a tradition lovingly commemorated by my two esteemed and valued friends, John Clapp and Henry R. Mygatt in recent numbers of the Binghamton and Oxford journals, it appears that in the ancient days of the Chenango and Unadilla Valleys, there resided on the banks of the latter a renowned and might hunter, dark-browed, "grand, gloomy and peculiar," extensively known throughout all the region round about as Sherman Page, Grand Sachem of Unadilla and the "Oxford Chase."  To his wigwam, at the close of the sultry, summer heats, were accustomed to resort, on the sound of "that mighty horn, on Unadilla's echoes borne," which swept musically and clearly along the green banks of the Chenango to the broad Mohawk Valley and the Oneida and Otsego lakes, a trusty band of Sagamores, Chief and Braves, with their prancing steeds, staunch hounds and faithful rifles, gaily caparisoned for the chase, "over the hills and far away" of deer, foxes, wolves, catamounts, snipe, pheasants and feathered fowl of every legitimate plumage,   Thither came John Cox Morris, tall and straight as an arrow, stout and burly Sam Starkweather, with his stentorian voice of thunder; Henry R. Storrs and Morris S. Miller, the far-famed Oneida Counsellor and judge, Nicholas Derreux, the great financier of the Mohawk Valley, Levi Beardsley, of Cherry Valley, with his twinkling eye and dry humor, Jo Miller of Cooperstown, (doubtless the original Jo), James and John Clapp, Ransom Rathbone, Peter Sken Smith, the magnificent and Simon G. Throop, with his "quips and cranks" and exuberant fun and frolic, from Oxford, Robert Monell, of Greene, with his silvery locks and beaming, gleeful, patriarchal countenance; John C. Clark, the irrepressible and Moses G. Benjamin, of Bainbridge.  In the language of the distinguished laureate of the Hunt.

 

"There was Throop, ready mounted on a fine black,

And a far fleeter gelding did Starkweather back.

Cox Morris' bay, full of mettle and bone

And gay Skenandoah on a dark, sorrel roan.

But the horse, of all horses, that rivaled the day

Was Clapp's well-fed charger of iron-clad gray"

 

"There was mounting 'mong horsemen of every clan,

Morris, Miller and Monell, they rode and they ran

There was racing and chasing, behind and before

They'll have fleet steeds that follow quote Young Skenandoah."

 

"Forty stags were brought down at forty rods fall

Forty bucks were made venison by long shot and fall

Forty sportsmen clubbed wits, every man in his place,

Forty stories were told of the grand 'Oxford Chase.'"

 

Still extant, preserved in vellum, are the official reports of Grand Sachem Page, Interpreter Ogden, "Medicine Man" Colwell, Sagamons Pooler and Field, and Ranger Carley, certifying to the astounding and almost incredible feat of prowess of that aspiring young brave, John Clapp, in slaying on the 18th of November, Annon Domini, 1822, at the distance of fifteen rods, "on the full jump," with a "smooth bore" charged with a ball and three back-shot, a "large doe," Whereupon in assembled wigwam in commemoration of this "deed of dering do" and the "sportsmanlike conduct" of the youthful warrior on the war path, it was decreed that he thenceforth and forever rank with the chiefs of the tribe, be girt with wampum, tomahawk, scalping knife, and admitted to the councils of the braves.  Scarcely more apocryphal in the tradition of the tribe was the adventure of Sagamon Throop, in the bringing down, "with his unerring rifle," of a "buck of ten," who, driven by the merciless hounds to the river, vainly sought refuge on an island, at an incredible distance from the shore. The huntsmen, amazed and dumbfounded.

 

"Looked up and down for a passage of dry land

When they found that the chase had fled to an island.

There he looked at the dogs, and the dogs looked at him.

Twas too rapid and broad for e'en diver to swim

And so they resolved, as they could not get nigh him,

Though twas too far to shoot, 'twasn't too far to try him."

 

Promptly responding to this most sage and incontrovertible decision of the impromptu council of chiefs, sagamons and braves, the gallant Throop, "rearing himself thereat," sprung forward, exclaiming in the words of the intrepid Miller, at Lundy's Lane, "I'll try, Sir"--quickly levelled his "unerring rifle," and in one momentous second the stately buck was not!

 

Such was the Simon G. Throop of two and fifty years ago.  After many and various mutations of fortune, with unbroken health and spirits, and inexhaustible wit and humor, he now, at the ripe age of eighty-two, sits on the bench of one of the Courts of Pennsylvania, as an Associate judge, bearing the burden of his four score years bravely and unweariedly and dispensing justice with equal and exact scales.  Long may he continue to grace the ermine he has so fairly and nobly won.  Long may it be ere his mirth-provoking countenance and exuberant glee shall cease to "set the table in a roar;" and long may he celebrate the annual festivity of his birth, surrounded by warm-hearted friends, and greeted from afar by the staunch surviving comrades of his early days!  The snows of many winters have long since whitened the heads of the youngest of their number; each succeeding year the mournful knell, --"albeit ad plures"--sound heavily on our ears; and in the course of nature, soon, very soon, will they in their turn pass to" that undiscovered country from whose bourse no traveler returns.

"The fashion of this world passeth,

Passeth swiftly away!

We weary to sleep in the darkness,

To wake no more to the sun!

For good or for ill -- it is finished.

We die -- but "Thy Will be Done!"