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Hennipinn Ill 17th Dec 1857

Dear young Friend

I am sorry that infirminty had to be my excuse for the unseemly long delay I have been guilty of in my attempt to communicate to you any little information in my possession that would be available to you in making out a paper for the United States Patent office reports

I shall not fill my paper with apologies about my ignorance or my present want of health but simply say that I indulged a pleasant hope that you might be spared to a good old age and that in the improvement of your selfe in your favourite pursuit you might become a second Uncle Peter Purley Now thought I if any thing I can communicate will answer as a fact to keep by in the memory or as a suggestion directing your future enquiries I shall have contributed something for the entertainment and instruction of those who will come on the stage hereafter

Last edit 9 months ago by KokaKli
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So feeling I scribled away as I had time and health without any great expectation of furnishing you any thing that would be particularly available for the present purpose

Old people become gurulous & let themselves talk and write too when they are able without always keeping to the point in hand as closely as they should do but young people of good minds and prudent fore thought will mostly be able to bear with them when they remember that they are soon to fill the stage now filled by fathers and grandfathers

I hope you will be able to get up a good paper one that will be a credit to Ill, and that hereafter you my attain not merely the celebrity of a man of science but the more desirable form of a Benefactor a kind of Peter Parley and Ben Franklin in combination improved & corrected

Last edit 9 months ago by KokaKli
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and developed after the manner of our Western Praireis long and wide and rich and good in every part

I should be glad at any time to aid you in any way that may be a service to you as I feel a strong interest in your future success

Accept my most sincere regards Smiley Stephens

Last edit 9 months ago by KokaKli
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The following took place under my own eye, and I now put it on record, that yourselfe and others with whom you may associate, may jointly solve the questions rising out of the facts

In the spring of 1841 I was making sugar in the woods, and had noticed my dog frequently pursuing a Fox, that seemed to be at home in a large thicket, that laid between my sugar orchard & the Prairie Hearing a loud barking in the brush one day, I sent my son then a small boy, to see what was going on - He soon called to me and said, that some body had killed a fox, and hung it up in a tree, and that the dog was barking at it. I went to see it, and sure enough there was a very fine fox, suspended by the neck; his head thrust through a narrow close fork in the top of a sapling. A smart branch that grew out at right angles from the body of the sapling, passed under one of his fore legs; while another branch lower down, passed out between his hind legs. his mouth was slightly open, his eyes shut, and the whole body dangling about like a clout, when the tree was shaken, gave a most expressive idea of hanging -

Inspecting that there might be some artifice, I watched closely and discovered him breathing. I then went home for my gun a mile distant, during which time my son watched hiim, without discovering the slightes movement. My intention was to shoot and cut him slightly across the back of the neck, so that I might capture him when he fell: for the brush was so thick that had he chosen to leap off, he might have done so without danger from the dog

In my care that I might not wound too deep, I very nearly missed him just cutting a way the fur, & barely grazing the skin, but it sufficed to cure his conceit in the safety of hanging, for in his hastily disengaging his neck, from the fork tht held him, he missed his foot holdes, and fell to the ground, where the dog seized him

It seemed strange that he should ever have took to a tree for safety, when he had ten acres of very thick brush for a covert, and even in the open ground, he would have left the dog out of sight in a short race; much more then would he have done so, in the brush. But up the tree, the question is, did he hang himself in as a safe condition, so that he might not fall & become a prey to the dog, or did he affect to be hanged & dead, so as to escape further pursuit - Facts known to you or others may give a solution

Last edit 9 months ago by KokaKli
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The remains of the Elk, (horns & bones) were to be seen on the Prairie hereabout, when I first came to the state, and so late as the autumn of 1820, some were found and killed on the south side of the Sangamon river, between Springfeild & the Illinois river

For several years later, they were not uncommon, in the hilly regions in the northwest of our state, and in the parts of Wisconsin adjoining

The Buffalo had once abounded so here, and so lately that its bones were in a decayed state, strewn thickly all over the country, adjoining the Illinois river, in its northern part So plentiful were they in various places, that a common sized wagon box, might have been filled from with the bones, found on a lot of less than five acres; but time has so effectivelly wrought, that a solitary reminant can now be scarcely be found.

I frequently enquired of the Fur traders and Indians, about their manifest destruction, and about the date of their latest appearance in Illinois; but found no one that could tell with certainty, any thing about it

From an Indian chief of the Potawatamies, who said he was born and raised in the region of Peoria, and who was taken with others I kept at St. Louis as hostages, during the war of 1812 to 15; I learned that he had never seen Buffalo east of the Mississippi - With relation to the bones so plentifully dispersed over the Prairies, he said that the old people, told, that many years before a great snow had fallen, so deep (holding his hand above his head) that all the Buffalo had perished, and that since that time, they had never come into Ill.

As late as 1798 my father hunted them, in the central western parts of Ohio, at and previous to that which time they were common there, in their annual migrations; but immediately after ceased with a solitary exception, to be known in the State

During the autumn of 1804 a solitary old bull (supposed to have come from the north west) made his apperance in the settlements, bordering the Ohio river, and after a well sustained chase, was killed within a few miles of my birth place, in the Southwest part of the state

From these data I think it probable that Buffalo have not ranged in Illinois during the present century

Yours respectfully Smiley Shepherd

Last edit 9 months ago by KokaKli
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