Early Experience of Calvin TUNNELL, Greene County, Illinois

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives
Copyright 2000  Jim




    ANOTHER ACCOUNT BY CALVIN TUNNELL OF HIS EARLY EXPERIENCES
                    IN GREENE COUNTY, ILLINOIS

It was on the 14th of February 1819, when the sun was about to sink
down to rest behind the western horizon that I with my little family
which embraced your Aunt Jane William and Daniel arrived at our
little log cabin which was built of small round logs making one room
of 12 by 15 feet.  It had no door to close the entrance.  Your Aunt
hung up a
quilt to stop the aperture through which we made our ingress and
egress and to separate our little happy family from the prowling
monsters which roamed about the desert.  I had no time to do any
thing to make us more comfortable than we than we then were.  I had
to go back to Madison county forty miles to bring another load before
the ground would thaw and make the prairies impassible for we had no
roads.  One morning while I was gone your Aunt got up in the dusk of
early morning and drew the hanging quilt to one side and stepped out
to pick up a little wood to kindle a fire when she saw a very large
black wolf sitting on his haunches in the yard.  She immediately
stepped back into the cabin and took my rifle from its place and
returned to the door to shoot him when to her chagrin and
mortification she found that the best of the double trigger had by
some means got out of fix so they would not stand.  When she saw she
could not shoot him she began to hollow at him and to make a display
as though she intended to attack him but he kept his position for
some time and sat barking at her.  She moved slowly toward him
hollowing and clapping her hands when he finally trotted off as
gracefully as if he was perfectly at home.  The indians (sic) had
burned everything that was not impervious to fire.  Not a spear of
grass was left for our cattle to feed on and we had nothing to feed
with except a little corn I had hauled forty miles.  We found there
was a little green grass left on the margin of the lakes where the
fire could not reach it in the Illinois bottoms.  James Caldwell who
lived half a mile west of me and myself concluded we would drive our
cattle thither.  We agreed upon a certain morning not very distant
when we would start early.  The weather was very fine.  Boreas had
retreated to the north west and had lain behind the Rocky mountains. 
When old Sol taking advantage of his absence was engaged in bringing
up his forces from the south to take possession of this latitude.  We
were already being warmed and animated by the celestial light of his
genial rays while the voice of the Turtle dove and the return of the
fouls from the sunny south were regarded presages of an early spring. 
When the morning of our departure arrived we got up at the dusky dawn
when as yet we were scarcely able to distinguish objects through the
dimness of the morning twilight.  Your Aunt had breakfast early and
when we had finished our repast, I went out to manage matters for
starting the cattle.  At this moment old Sol was lifting himself up
above the eastern horizon.  He was richly clad in all the habiliments
of morning glory, and had gracefully draw around himself all the soft
and mellow tints of the rainbow and looked for all (the) world like
the Son of Austerbity(?).  I mounted my black horse which I called
Flint, thinking that name appropriate on account of his inflexible
spirit, his indomitable courage and powers of endurance.  I also took
my rifle which I called old Brimstone as a tribute to her
faithfulness and power of execution.  I had recently had a new stock
put to her which was a very plain sugar maple one but although very
plain it was very neat and tasteful.  The lock also was new and one
of the best I ever saw, the whole sale price of which was $5.25.  She
was three feet
eight inches in the barrel and one large calibree carrying about
forty balls to the pound.  She never missed fire and always threw her
balls
in the right direction.  Indeed she was as true to the centre as
Judge Douglas is to the principles of free government.  In those days
my
sight was unerring and my aim was deadly.  I laid her across the
saddle behind me to have her out of the way in driving cattle a very
slight pressure in the seat would preserve her equanimity.  Being
thus equipped your Aunt took a little salt and went before to toll a
few that would not follow and I drove up the rear until we got them
in company with Mr. Caldwell's cattle when your Aunt returned home
and Mr. Caldwell and myself started our cattle westwardly through
what is now call South Rich Woods.  Which being all burned off smooth
was so loose and mellow that as smaller kinds of animals passed over
it they would leave the impress of their feet upon the virgin soil
which had never been pressed by the foot of the white man.  Nothing
occured(sic) worthy of note until we had passed down the bluff and
came to a beautiful spring where we slaked our thirst.  This is a
small valley through which the little streamlet upon which Taylor
afterwards built his sawmill wended its way in a winding course over
the little shoals and pebbles to the main bottom.  After we passed
the spring a few hundred yards we came to a little grove of elms and
sugar maples interspersed with ash buckeye and a few other kinds of
timber.  This grove was not entirely detached from the surrounding
forest, yet there were from 30 to 40 acres clothed with a different
kind of timber and of younger growth than the ballance which made
this little spot of earth appear isolated from the ballance.  There
seemed to be
something so charming as to call the mind away from sublunary things
to a celestial world.  Something that rendered it lovely beyond
description.  Something that inspired the human soul with all the
stirring emotions of immortality and lifted it up to God in the most
devout adoration and praise.  Here nature was seen in all her
pristine beauty and loveliness.  Here the salient squirrel might be
seen with his tail gracefully curled over his back chattering to his
neighbors or springing from limb to limb with that agility which is
so peculiar to his race.  Here was also the red bird to be seen
perched on the topmost limb of a sugar maple from whence he was
sounding his clarion notes while with warbling song he wooed his lady
loves with lulling strains this muse evoked the nuptial lay while she
in the distance was busily engaged in picking up small straws of
grass, the hair of animals and particles of lint off the nettles
which had escaped the devouring flames with which she was making
preparation for an early incubation and while thus engaged she would
occasionally touch the warbling string and with plighted faith would
echo back the invocation of her loved one.  All the feathered
songsters of the grove seemed to join together in one voluptuous
swell to add pleasure and beauty to the music of the hour.  While the
honey bees were wafting themselves upon the wings of the wind from
bud to bud and from blossom to blossom sounding their soft-pleasant-
business hum among the elms and sugar maples and sucking from the
buds and blossoms the sweet nectarine which was found in the greatest
profusion and taking home to deposit in their beautiful and delicate
honey cups in the trees in the surrounding forest.  All animated
nature with these bees and feathered songsters sent up their songs of
praise in one acclaim and with warbling sounds filled up the measure
of one song.  The tender leaves of the forest which were just
bursting forth from their petals were made to tremble by the advent
of the universal song of praise that all animated nature was sending
up like holy incense from one common altar to the throne of God. 
This was not a place to be desired as a dwelling but a place of
retreat.  If the white man could have viewed it as I did in all its
pristine beauty and loveliness he would have spared it.  If it had
remained until now I should often repair to it as a sacred place of
retreat from the busy world and spend a few hours in the sweetness of
solitude where I could meet with God and consult him about the wisdom
of his laws by which he preserves so much order and harmony in his
animal and vegetable kingdoms.  When we noticed the thousands of bees
sucking the saccharine juice from the common nectary in the buds and
blossoms of the trees where it had perhaps been deposited by the
sweetness of the atmosphere mingling with the dew of heaven.  Mr.
Caldwell proposed to me to let the cattle rest an hour while we would
look around the forests and find a bee tree.  I had not yet learned
the art of finding bees though I had found a few trees.  He went
south across the branch while I went a northeasterly course along the
hill sides and over the deep hollow. I had taken a circuitous route
and got back to within about a mile of the cattle and I arrived on
the top of the last ridge I had to cross a spot from which was a
perfect view of the entire route I had made.  I turned my eyes to the
left when I discovered a panther, a male of the largest size.  He was
lying ten or twelve feet from me.  His feet were placed under him
just ready to spring on me.  Three or four feet more would have
placed me on a direct line with him.  I suppose he was waiting for me
to arrive at that point before he would attack me.  When I first saw
him he was looking me full in the eye.  His vast proportions revealed
to me a mass of nerve and muscle to which I had always been a
stranger.  He was able at one short leap to pounce on me and his
ponderous weight and impulsive muscle together with the force of such
a leap was sufficient to crush one into the earth in (a moment.  I)
would have been no more in his paws than a mouse would be in the paws
of a cat.  His large yellow eyes as keen as those of the eagle were
fastened upon me as though he intended to look me down and as soon as
he could see me quail under the keenness of his eyes he would pounce
upon me and make me an easy prey.  I saw the impending crisis had
come and the irresponsible conflict was about to commence.  There I
stood in the open sunlight.  Solitary and alone, no human being in
less than six or seven miles except Mr. Caldwell who perhaps was not
in hearing of my rifle.  There seemed to be no living thing to
witness the approaching combat or to make known the result.  The
first thought that presented itself to my mind on seeing him was that
God had created man in his own image and after his own likeness and
had given him dominion over the beasts of the field and the forests
and I concluded that after all this keeneyed monster had not courage
enough to spring on me while I looked him full in the eye.  I too
care to keep my eye on his thinking he would cower under the
penetration of it.  But no sign of cowering appeared.  No one unless
he has been placed in similar circumstances can have the least
conception of the amount of thinking I did in one short moment of
time I saw the perilous situation I was in.  I saw that either he or
I must died instantly.  I thought all depend on my manhood which I
felt conscious would not desert me.  I thought that a man who was
made in the image of God could ever feel a sensation of fear never
came into my mind.  I was not alarmed with fear at-all but remained
perfectly cool and self possed.(sic)  I felt the necessity of acting
like a man and making a sure shot for if I gave him a random shot he
would be on one instantly.  I found my whole system braced for the
coming contest.  My nerves were strung to their utmost tension.  My
mental powers for the moment became gigantic.  I was capable of
thinking more in one short moment than I had ever been (able) to do
in one week while physically I felt the strength of a horse.  The
critical moment arrived.  The past and future seemed to merge into
the present when my whole life was compressed into a moment of time
and my mind grasped at one thought the whole universe of God.  Heaven
and earth seemed to be hushed into the silence of death and it seemed
as though the Angels of life and death had met there to decide the
contest.  There we were looking each other full in the face.  There
was no quarling(sic) on either side.  I saw the fierceness of his
countenance begin to kindle up and exhibit an eagerness which I know
of no words with sufficient meaning to describe.  His eyes before as
sharp as eagles now began to emit  and send forth scintillations of
fire.  I laid my rifle to my face and when I saw the muscles about
his jaws and shoulders begin to alternately contract and swell and
his chest begin to swell and heave up with concentrated power, I
touched the trigger when old brimstone broke the still and painful
silence by sending forth that caused the earth to tremble beneath my
feet and reverberate from hill to hill an(d) echod(sic) back like
thunder rolling through the vault of heaven and again bursting forth
upon the earth.  At the moment I touched the trigger, I saw him leap
from the earth but fell near the same place.  I concluded as he was
in the act of jumping when the gun fired I had missed my aim and
given him a random shot and that he would be on me as soon as he
recovered a little from his wound.  I thought  how apt men are in
great emergencies to load their gun without powder.  I took no time
to measure the powder in my charge but turned up my horn and poured
what I thought a common charge into my rifle.  I then sent down a
naked ball and retained the ramrod in my left hand to reload with if
necessary.  I threw my gun across my left arm and primed her.  All
this time which was but a moment (for I do not think any man ever
loaded a rifle quicker than I did on that occasion) he was making
leap after leap and when I finished priming he made one grand leap 
but could not reach me.  I then saw him sink down to rise no more. 
It was the death struggle the mighty effort of an expiring monster. 
I turned my eyes and saw him three steps from me lying prostrate in
death.  The crisis was passed, the danger was over and the
irrepressible conflict was ended.  I turned my eyes downward to shut
out the panther when I saw my knees begin to tremble.  The whole
system relaxed, my nerves became unstrung when I trembled like a leaf
of the forest and became as week as a child.  I suffered infinitely
more under the relaxation of the system than I did under the
excitement.

A copy of the foregoing account was sent to me by Virginia Davis and,
I was informed,  was originally in an autograph book known as the
"Moss Rose Album".  I question whether Calvin put it in the album or
whether someone else copied it because the "Moss Rose Album" was
allegedly the property of Elizabeth Brown Tunnell, wife of John
Tunnell. The account was apparently written for nieces of Calvin
Tunnell.  While similar, it differs from the account in account which
was given to my father by Lucy Ball or Aunt Mame Tunnell Boyle.

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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Jim
<JD34TLO36@aol.com>