Newspapers, Woodlands and Waterways Echoes; LaSalle, Louisiana Submitter: Jack Willis Date: 29 Sep 2004 Source: Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal "Woodlands and Waterways Echoes" Source Date: 27 Feb 2002 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The Saga Of "Hance Kuhn" Joseph Clarence Kuhn, Jr. was born on March 8th, 1906, making him close to 98 years of age, but he is more readily known by the name Hanse or Hance and he's probably been interviewed by more outdoors activities writers than any other character in LaSalle and Catahoula Parishes. The reason being, he IS a genuine character, a born "yarner" and storyteller, and he's had just some adventures in his 90 plus years. Hance is saddened now because his loving wife, Mary Grace, of too many years to count, recently passed away. When asked where he got the name Hanse instead of his "given" name from his seat in Golden Age Nursing Center in Jena where he now resides, he had this to say. Hanse: Daddy had a brother named Hansford. He was married and he and his wife had four young children. He was hog hunting and come up on some hog thieves over close to Sandy Lake in Catahoula Parish (this was all Catahoula Parish then) and he caught them red handed with some of Papa's hogs, and they killed him. Grand Paw Joe (his Daddy) took the family in and raised the young'ns. Somewhere around 1890 Hanse's father, Joseph Lawrence Kuhn Sr. was reared at Manifest, La., relocated and settled at what was known then as Rhinehart Prairie, which later became known as Whitehall, named after the beautiful home Truemend Breithaupt built just west of Rhinehart. Grand Paw Joe as he was later known, used a team and wagon to haul 25 sows and three boars from Manifest to Whitehall, turning them loose in the forests abounding with mast and excellent forage. These brood sows were so prolific that Hanse estimates in 10 or so years, his grandfather had between 4,000 and 5,000 head of hogs ranging from Catahoula Lake to Sandy Lake to up in the Bayou Dan hills about 20 miles north and west of Harrisonburg and back to East Jena. He also ran over a 1,000 head of cattle in the same range area. Grand Paw Joe fathered four boys and five girls with three of the girls going on to become Registered Nurses at a point in time when women seldom pursued higher education. Hanse started to school in 1912, as he describes it, at Noah's Branch school located "between Whitehall and Sharptown." This was the same year a terrible tornado ravaged the nearby community of Nebo, killing Richmond Walker and one of his sons, Ervin Moses Walker. A black man Anthony Douglas, who was working at the Walker cotton gin when the storm hit, died about 30 days later from injuries suffered in the storm and to further illustrate the ferocity of the storm, as it passed over Hemp's Creek it sucked all the water out of the creek bed for over a quarter mile. One thing you come to expect when you put in with Hanse Kuhn is that the conversation is NOT going stay hitched! He'll start out telling one experience, and something he'll say will remind him of something else, and here we go. He can rabbit chase with the best of them, but he always comes back to where he jumped, and finishes what he starts. A sampling or cross-section of a typical Saturday afternoon conversation was as follows. Hanse: Thet cyclone wuz somthin! It come on up across down here at Sandy Hollow, between here and Jena. It caught the mail rider, his horse and buggy and turned it ever which way but loose. It tied that buggy in a plumb knot. Why old Carter Manning had to come borrow another buggy to finish carrying the mail on to Harrisonburg. Didn't hurt that mail rider bad...skint him up some. While Hanse got him a fresh chew and got it seated, he told how his sweet wife Mary Grace had ridden a million miles behind him on his horse when they were first married tending to his daddy's stock. He said that he didn't have any real stirrups because his was made out of old plow lines. Hanse: I got to figuring a little later on that if my Daddy could raise hogs, I ought to be able to raise goats. A feller out in Marshall, Texas sent me word that he'd take every goat I could ship him. Boy, did I fix him up! We rounded up goats for a week and loaded 'em on cars on the L& A siding down at Rhinehart. Them rail cars wuz double deckers, and I put a 160 head on the top deck and 160 on the bottom deck, 320 to the car. Loaded out six carloads. I thought I had ever goat I owned rounded up, but a feller sent word that there was a bunch down on Hemp's Creek close to Catahoula Lake. Wadn't nothing to do but saddle up ol' Dan and when I got down there, I rounded up sixty more head. Sent that Texas feller close to 2,000 head of goats and he wrote me out a check fer 'em. One of the reasons Hanse wanted to get out of the goat business was the presence of packs of wolves in the area. They got into some widow woman's stock one night and killed 32 head of goats and 60 head of sheep, so the Police Jury put a bounty of $10 a head for every wolf brought in. Old Nitey Strickland from out Aimwell way had a pack of dogs that would hunt wolves, so he and Hanse formed a partnership, and together finally cleaned the wolves out enough so that the various stock populations were safe from the vicious marauders Hanse: Old Nitey Strickland lived off out there in between Aimwell and Sandy Lake. One time he wuz a riving fence pickets and posts out of litered pine timber on the company land. Some of them fellers that lived out there close to him was hired by the company to look after their land, and they found his stacks of pickets and posts and confiscated them. Made old Nitey mad enough to bite a 60d nail into! He come to Jena and bought him a brand new three and a half pound Kelly Perfect double-bit axe, went back home and whetted it up, got him some pine knot torches, and spent every night for a month a deadening timber. Girdled about 40 acres of prime timber. The company hands had to come in and cut it before the bugs got into it. It wasn't long until the conversation drifted around to the past time of most of his childhood and adult years, and that 's messing with hogs, and that covers a lot of territory. Hanse: Later on, after me and Nitey quit wolf hunting, he sent word for me to come out to his place. Said to hurry; he had a hog problem. So I saddled up old Dan and took off across the cuttins. I got out there and he took me down by the creek where he was making 'shine. He had about three barrels of mash a settin' up against a bluff bank about ten feet high. He owned a big ol' Poland China sow that had somehow got up on the bluff bank and fell off into one of them full mash barrels. He told me, " I need to get her out." So I said," That ain't no problem...we'll just tilt the barrel over and pour her out!" Then he said he couldn't do that, and I naturally wanted to know why? He said he wanted to save what mash was left. So then I wanted to know why again? And he said he had a "deadbeat" brother-in-law that was always coming around mooching whiskey, and he wanted to cook that "sow mash", not sour mash, barrel off to give him. When we got the sow out, there was about 20 gallons left in the barrel, what she hadn't drunk. Ol' Nitey didn't waste nothing! Next Month: Part II W&WE (2-02) JMW