NOTES FROM YESTERYEAR

NEWAYGO COUNTYS LAST PANTHER

By A. L. Spooner

In pioneer days the large tawny feline, Felis Concolar, better known as puma, mountain lion or panther, ranged from the Appalachian Mountains, southward to the swamps of Florida and from Texas to the western states. Michigan was not its regular habitat, but by nature it is a roamer and there are many instances of it being sighted or killed in this state.

One such instance occurred in Newaygo County and there is no doubt that the animal that terrified some of the pioneers and what was finally killed near Newaygo was a panther.

One day at about dusk in 1874 William E. Gould and his sister, Carrie, was walking from the Tindall farm, south of Fremont Lake, to their home in the Brookside area. As they were climbing the long incline on the north side of the heavily timbered ridge, what was known afterwards as Panther Hill, they discovered some animal was following them. When they stopped, it stopped.

Terrified, they started to run again they could hear it plainly as it took long leaps parallel to their path. This continued until they finally reached home. Screams were

heard from the hill that night that sounded like a woman in distress but were pronounced of that as a panther by some who had heard them before.

The panther stayed in the region for several weeks, being heard and seen by several people.

On evening Mrs. John Grant, who lived about two miles east of the hill, was just laying her baby in its cradle in front of a low window, when she saw the animal crouching before the window and lashing its tail. Mrs. Grant quickly jerked the window shade down and seizing the baby ran into another room and closed the door.

One day as William Tindall was coming home from town, the panther crossed the road near the Frank Palmer place. It had killed some stock between Brookside and Newaygo. Mr. Tindall was a noted hunter whose life had been spent on the frontiers of Ohio and Indiana.

He trailed the animal for three days, camping in the open two nights, but a thaw came on melting the snow and causing him to loose the track.

Some time later dogs treed the panther and it was killed by an old hunter from Newaygo. It measured nine feet from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail.

The William Tindall mentioned came to the Fremont vicinity in 1868 and lived here until his death in1911, at the age of 91. He was a kinsman of Col. William H. Crawford who was burned at the stake by Indians near upper Sandusky, Ohio in 1782.

William Gould who had the terrifying experience was the son of Warren Gould who settled south of Fremont Lake in 1867 in what was then known as Sheridan Center. William Gould grew up her, and as one old timer expressed it, "waxed poetical" and named the community Brookside.

Mr. Gould later became principal of the Brookside School whichunder his administration in 1883 became the first completely graded school in Michigan. He was a teacher in numerous districts in the county and was at one time superintendent of Fremont School.

Many years ago he wrote the geology of Newaygo County and predicted that oil would be found in the northern part. Later he worked in Muskegon as a chemist and metallurgist.

For all his academic learning he had some dissenters and while teaching as the Waters School the children recited a bit of doggerel as follows:

In spite of the above William Gould was far ahead of his time.