Odd, Old News: A Parent’s Worst Fear Stories of a Century Ago

A mountain lion in the wild. 1865?-1890? by D. D. Burnham via WikiCommons.

Homesteading in wilderness country has always held a number of risks for families with children. The “war on predators” conducted since the arrival of the Euro-Americans to the wilderness has seen relatively few unprovoked attacks on humans by large animals. But there were occasional life threatening attacks on children. Imagine the horror of seeing one’s child being carried off in the jaws of a large predator.

This week, Odd Old News looks at two encounters of children with wild animals, dangers that were part of living in the country a hundred year or more ago, back when fear had a different face.

CHILD CARRIED OFF BY BEAR
Los Angeles Herald
January 8, 1901
Saved From a Horrible Death by a Party of Hunters

Three-Year-Old Daughter of John Bigsby, Living Near Cahto, Is Carried Off by a Bear but Has Remarkable Escape From Death
CAHTO, Cal.,Jan. 7.—Nina Bigsby, the 3 year old daughter of John Bigsby, living near here, had a narrow escape from death a few days ago. While she was playing out in the yard her attention was attracted by something in the woods. She had been gone only a short time when her mother went to look for her. She was unable to find her and started for a neighbors’ place for assistance.

When a few hundred yards from the house she saw, running across an open space, a large brown bear, followed by a pack of hounds and soon after three men on horseback. The lady call to one of the men and told her pitiful story of losing her little girl. He promised to assist her in looking for her child and rode off to catch the other hunters. He told them of the lady’s grief and the three began to discuss the matter as to how they should proceed. John Osbey told the other two to go on after the bear and he would return to where he left the lady. John Green and John Huston rushed to there the animal had taken refuge. When bruin saw them he jumped to the ground and was off.

The two men were horrified to hear the cry of a child and at once knew it to be the one the lady was looking for. The dogs followed at once, and soon were upon the bear. John Huston was ahead and saw the monster had something in his mouth and it appeared to him to be a child. This was soon proved to be the case, as when the dogs got too close bruin dropped the child and took to a tree. Huston at once went for the bear having caught his teeth in her clothes. He picked the little tot up and set her where she was out of danger and soon had Mr. Bear stretched out on the ground.

Panther Carries Off Child
Blue Lake Advocate
September 17, 1904

Mr. and Mrs. Chipporiano Ambrozini, Swiss people living on Will Russ’ dairy ranch on Doublin Heights, in the Bear River section had their little two-year-old boy carried off by a huge panther on the morning of Wednesday August 31, and but for the father hearing the child scream, the animal would have undoubtedly have escaped with the baby, afterwards eating it at its leisure.

On the morning in question Mrs. Ambrozini had gone into the garden to gather vegetables for the noonday meal, leaving the child playing in the dooryard. The father was in the dairy taking care of the morning milk, when, startled by a fearful scream from his child, he rushed out to see his baby in the jaws of a ferocious panther, who, hampered by the weight of the child was prevented from making rapid progress in the direction of the woods.

The horrified father not wishing to go to the house for a gun, fearful of losing sight of the beast, picked up a stick and ran after the animal. For nearly a mile the pursuit was kept up the panther finally dropping the child and escaping to the woods. Strange to relate the child was unhurt, its clothing alone being torn by the panther.

The joy of the parents at the recovery of their baby can be better imagined than described.

A posse of men with dogs was soon on the track of the animal but at last reports had not succeeded in running it down. —Humboldt Beacon.

Three months later a Santa Cruz paper retold the story with some additions:

A mile ride through a forest in the jaws of a panther is a remarkable adventure for a two year-old baby to survive, but Marie Ambrozini is none the worse for it During the week succeeding the incident no internal injuries have developed. It is a singular fact that little Marie was not even bruised while cradled in the jaws of the beast that had stolen her for a noonday meal.”….

“Amazed, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, Ambrozini picked up the baby girl. Two bright black eyes flashed into his own. A little hand readied upward in playful appeal. A voice piped like bird notes in the wooded silence. Marie laughed into the anxious face above her. Then the father did what any father in the land might have done. He clasped his own to him and sobbed like a woman”(Evening Sentinel, 12/13/1904).

(Ambrozini may be a misspelling of Ambrosini, the large family with history in the Ferndale area, and on the coast near the Russ family ranches)
Previous Odd Old News accounts of close encounters with panthers may be found here

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• The Hansell Ranch Orchard at Camp Grant
• Mountain Children
• More Caves of Mystery
• Sam’s Story of Snaking, Snakers, and Snakeries
• An 1884 Look at Dogholes, Lumber Loading Chutes, and the Rockport Suspension Bridge
• The Early History of the Save the Redwoods Movement
• Mammoth Beets And The Sugar Beet Industry That Never Took Root In Humboldt County
• When Empress the Elephant Came to Humboldt County
• No Such Thing As Impassable Roads For Fool-Proof Modern Motor Cars