422	HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

twenty dollars. Though he made repeated searches for it, the gun could
not be found. Forty years afterward, while plowing corn in a field on
the south side of the creek, between the Louisville road and Eel river,
east of the Church Puckett corner, Joel H. Butler and his boys turned up
the barrel of this rifle, the stock having entirely decayed.

Remarkable Array of Sevens.
	For the period of seven years—from 1850 to 1857—there were in
Lewis township seven school districts, seven resident teachers, seven fam-
ilies in which there were seven children of school age, seven road districts
and seven supervisors, seven township officers (three trustees, two justices
and two constahles), and among the qualified voters of the township there
were seven Crists, seven Starks and seven Pucketts. A. J. Baber, who
knew personally every family in the township, gave out this local statis-
tical information just half a century ago.

An Old-Time Wolf Hunt.
	On the 14th day of February, 1848, the counties of Clay, Owen,
Greene, Sullivan and Vigo joined in a big chase to rid the territory com-
prised within their borders of the numerous ravenous wolves which were
playing havoc with small stock that winter. More than a thousand square
miles of territory were embraced within the circle of this chase, and hun-
dreds of interested and determined people of the respective counties par-
ticipated in the drive. The half-mile Center circle, or closing ground, was
staked off in Eel river bottom, a little distance south of New Brunswick.
The captains in command were Elias Cooprider and Joseph Griffith, Sr.,
with several aids, for Harrison township; Joseph Puckett, John J. Lan-
fling, Dck North and John Neal, for Lewis township; Isaac Sexton, Allen
McBride, Wyatt Johnson, with their aids, for Sullivan county; Rev. Rich-
ard Wright, Alexander Poe, Dick Lambert, John Standley, Ned Combs,
Enos Huey, and Elias Dayhuff, for Greene county; Aaron Hubbell, Alex-
ander Winters, Jesse Ragan, Adam Slough and the Littlejohns, for Owen
county.
	All the captains and their aids were on hand at the outside lines at
8 o’clock a. m. and were at the circle at 3 o’clock p. m. Some of the Huey
and the Winters boys ran the bends of the river from below Brunswick,
while Joe Griffith, Jr., and the Baber boys scoured the bends from above
down to the circle, so as to scare out the wolves from the thickets.
	Promptly at 3 o’clock the companies all met at the circle stakes. The
circle contained four wolves, about fifty deer and more than five hundred
turkeys, the turkeys, flying and running out in every direction. Strict
orders had been given to all companies not to shoot anything but wolves,
but Alexander Poe could not resist the temptation to shoot a deer which
ran up against the muzzle of his gun. And at the instant of his firing his
gun a large wolf ran out by his side, just as though the animal knew at
what point to make its escape. Only two wolves were killed, but after
four o’clock “the boys” took in several deer on the ice. That hunt made
a general stampede of all the wolves out of the neighborhood, excepting
occasional stragglers. The last wolf killed on the borders of Greene
county was shot by D. 0. Armstrong, a resident of Worthington, and
the last one in Harrison township by Stanley Vanhorn.
	This was a day long to be remembered, not only from the sport
attending the chase, hut from the hail storm which swept over the country
in the after part of the day. The low, heavy, black clouds almost turned