Killed by A Grizzly Bear
She was a monstrous bear, weighing nearly one-thousand pounds, we figured. On the morning of November 24th 1864 Andrew P. Shumway and his father-in-law, Thomas B. Graham, started for a load of willows and with a sleigh drawn by a pair of mules. They drove about three and a half-miles southeast of Mendon Fort to the Muddy (Little Bear River). Father Graham stood his rifle against a clump of hawthorns and carrying his ax, proceeded into the thicket on the banks of the river, while Andrew P. Shumway commenced unhitching his team. Shumway's attention was immediately attracted to Thomas B. Graham in the grasp of a monstrous grizzly bear.
Shumway jumped into his sleigh, wheeled his team about and started with a bound for home. Mr. Richards writes: I think it was during the first snow of the winter of 1864. He was riding to the Old Fort with a sleigh and a pair of mules on the run. I was the first person he approached. He said, "Father Graham has been killed by a bear." I lost no time in getting my pistol and following his sleigh tracks as fast as a good horse could go, and I was on a good horse. I found the old man three and one-half miles from home, lying on his back dead, with his neck broken and his head nearly severed from his body, by a bite or bites by the bear and a bite in the groin and both his legs broken above the ankles. His ax was laying a short distance away and his small bore rifle was standing against some hawthorn bushes.
I followed the tracks of the bear and two yearling cubs. I tracked them to where they had gone into the brush or hawthorn thicket in a place that had been entirely surrounded with water, but was frozen over and three or four inches of snow covering the ice. By this time Bradford Bird and Joseph Baker came. We decided on going in after the bear. I went first, Baker following. I had Graham's gun and an old dragon Colt revolver. The brush was so thick we had to lay down on our horses. I had the butt of the gun forward and when the bear rose on her hind feet, about ten feet in front of me, I tried to turn my gun around but could not. We had no business with our horses in there, so decided to get a dog. I was the only one with a dog. I started for home, but before I returned with it, several men had gathered, some from Mendon and some from Wellsville. Among this number were Daniel Hill and Robert Hill from Wellsville and James H. Hill from Mendon.
Just as I was entering the place I heard the shots of the guns and the bear was lying dead as I came up. They said that Daniel Hill had said, "Boys, lets go in and get the bear!" And with that he started up the trail, which was about four feet above the ice around the island. James H. Hill was next to him and others prepared to follow.
They had just started into the brush when the bear reared up, right in front of them with her mouth open. Daniel shoved the muzzle of his gun near her mouth and tried to shoot, but it missed fired. James shot over Daniel's shoulder. I shot one of the cubs. I suppose it weighted about two-hundred pounds. This cub was fairly good eating. The other cub got away and ran to the western mountains. Andrew P. Shumway and myself took Thomas B. Graham's corpse to Great Salt Lake City for burial.
Notes…
Joseph H. Richards, a son of John K. Richards and Agnes Hill Richards, lived in early Mendon until he, his wife and his family were called to settle in southern Utah.