Trapping
New Ipswich Historical Society
Marion Davis Audio-Tape Transcriptions
Sometime before her death in 1986, Marion Davis recorded her memories at the encouragement of her brother, Walter Buck. The recordings were transcribed by a secretary.
The Friends of Wapack have made these available to the Historical Society. Marion was born on February 8, 1894 in Fitchburg, MA.
Skunked
We were there at the camp a whole week. It snowed some more during that time but we had our traps pretty well laid out. The first day we fried a lot of onions. Alice had a bad cold, and Mrs. Robbins had given us quite a few onions. She said, "Fry up some onions; that'll break up that cold" and I guess it did. It was pretty well over by the week end. One morning it was snowing pretty hard; I guess it was toward the last day or 2 and Alice said, "Do I have to go this morning?" and I said, "No, I'll go alone". I didn't get very far because the snow was blowing in whorls over the top of the mountain so I couldn't keep track of where I was going. I went back to camp.
The next morning it was beautiful; we started out again. I found one trap sprung; there was a piece of a foot in it. Well, I reset it just the same right in the mouth of the den. The next day we had that hedgehog again. You see he had gotten into that trap and I didn't tend the trap on account of the snow storm but the next day I had him and another foot but he was there. We got 13 hedgehogs out of there. The last day when we went to pick up the traps we had a skunk in one trap. Believe me I hated to tackle that. I had to shoot him and then all the way back to camp I dragged him back in the trap. We got all the others picked up. That scent followed us all the way back to camp. When we got there I hung the trap and skunk and all on the branch of a pine tree. I didn't know how I was going to get it out of the trap. I hated to touch it, but that night one of the men came down off the hill. He spied that skunk and wanted to know if he could have it. I said, "You sure can have it. You just take it out of the trap and leave the trap by the camp door". So that solved that problem.
Frank came after us; I guess it was the next day. We packed up our stuff and we started for the farm. We got down into Wilder Village; the sledding was pretty hard, the roads weren't too vacant. Alice and I put on our snowshoes right there in Wilder Village and said we'd cut across to the farm--across Toffat [sic] swamp. We got down into the swamp and the first thing we knew we were on some snowshoe tracks. We wondered who in the world would be down in that swamp besides us. And Alice said, "Well, look at the mesh; it's our mesh. We've gone around in a circle". So once more I had to take my snowshoes off and climb a tree to get my bearings. When I saw Barrett Mt. in the distance I got my bearings and I got a line in my mind and we started for home. By the time we got home Frank was home, the horses were unharnessed and the sled was in the barn.
Photo Archives
This photo is from the dedication of the Marion Davis Trail in 1985. It was held at Temple Mt. Ski Area, because, for some reason, they could not hold it at Miller State Park which is where the trail is located.
James Roger diary entry - Pullets 28
19th January 1913
Hard frost; fine day; wind west. Mr. Lane of Cushing Academy preached a good helpful sermon from the text “And David walked wisely before the Lord in all his ways and the Lord was with him.” S.S. after. Miss Taylor and Jenny Blood in the class; no evening service. Got letter from May last night; all well and had weaned the kid. Pullets 28. Wrote M. F. Taylor about his lot.
Sounds like Marion and Alice perhaps won the battle with hedgehogs but maybe lost the war.
One tough lady. Was there a bounty on hedgehogs?