Rewind:  September 15, 2024

Our friend, David Waite has done some interesting research on the rattlesnakes that are found right here in Warren County.  Read his article and remember to look before you step next time you are on Tongue Mountain.

Rattlesnake Hunters of Lake George

by Dave Waite

Two creatures that most people go out of their way to avoid are poisonous spiders and venomous snakes.  While such spiders are uncommon in Warren County, there are snakes in our area with a lethal bite. Since before early settlers came to the area timber rattlesnakes have inhabited certain spots along the rocky slopes of Lake George.  For generations, they were considered creatures that were best eliminated, and it was only forty years ago that rattlesnakes in New York were designated a threatened species and protected by law.

For over one hundred years before this law was enacted a bounty hung over the head of every rattlesnake in Warren County, and for a few brave souls, seeking out this dangerous prey became a lucrative occupation.

One of the earliest newspaper accounts of rattlesnake hunting brought with it a tragic ending.  In mid-April of 1877, Sixty-eight-year-old Town of Bolton farmer Stephen Burton went by boat with his brother and son to hunt rattlesnakes at a spot known as Larkins Den along the rocky slope of Lake George’s Tongue Mountain Range.  During their search, Stephen encountered a massive, six-foot-long rattlesnake that he quickly caught using a forked stick.

Seeing some value in taking the snake alive, he hesitated in securing it and the snake maneuvered itself under a nearby rock.  Attempting to again gain control, Burton grabbed the reptile by the tail, and with that opening, the rattlesnake turned  on Stephen and bit his right hand.  Normally prepared for a snake bite with a bottle of turpentine, he found that it had been left behind when they came on shore, so time was lost before the bottle was retrieved and he could douse the wound.  To assist in this treatment, he also took a swallow of the raw turpentine, which only increased his injuries by burning the skin from his throat.  It is likely that this treatment was even worse than the snake bite as poisoning from the ingestion of as little as a half-ounce of turpentine can cause kidney failure.

In hopes of seeking treatment for this injury, the trio took to the water and headed eight miles south to Reuben Bradley’s newly opened Hundred Island House Hotel.  Here they obtained a bottle of whiskey which Stephen Burton quickly drank, followed by large quantities of tea made from rattlesnake weed.  The drinking of whiskey, brandy, or other liquor was once considered an essential first response to a rattlesnake bite, as it was thought that this would stimulate the body to fight off the effects of the venom.

The folk medicine treatment using rattlesnake weed was also well known in rural America, using either a poultice to be put on the wound or tea made from the roots.  A member of the aster family, this yellow, dandelion-like flower on a long, leafless stalk is a native woodland plant that can still be found along the shores of Lake George.

To summon medical treatment a telegram was sent to Dr. James Ferguson in Glens Falls, who immediately dispatched his associate Dr. Edward W. Hill to the lake.  When the physician arrived, he found Stephen’s arm black and swollen to a circumference of fifteen inches above the elbow.  At that point, antidotes were given with the expectation that a recovery was still possible.

The antidote from a physician for a poisonous snakebite in those times was primitive and likely just as deadly as the bite itself.  Dosing the area with ammonia and injecting it directly into the wound was thought to be an effective treatment, but by the 1890s this was replaced by another even more lethal substance, the poison strychnine.  Though not fully understood at the time, the fatal damage from the bite came from the venom-killing tissue around the wound causing gangrene.  While one treatment was immediately cutting into the wound and forcing out some of the venom, in reality, before an effective anti-venom was available, amputation was the only way to effectively treat the bite.

Two days after the incident, and barely conscious, Stephen Burton was loaded into the boat and carried home.  Though reports over the days that followed hinted at improvement, Stephen Burton took a turn for the worse and died on May 7^th, 1877, leaving behind his wife Ester and six children.  He was buried in the Burton Plot at Bay Street Cemetery in Glens Falls.

Burton was not the only hunter to have a fatal encounter with rattlesnakes at Larkins Den, as Larkins himself had been bitten and died there years earlier while hunting snakes.

For the Davis family from the town of Hague, hunting rattlesnakes was a tradition from generation to generation.  Reuben C. Davis and his wife Sophia came to Lake George in the 1830s and purchased lot twenty-eight in the Tongue Mountain Tract.  This 150-acre parcel was in rugged, rock-filled land that provided the family with little beyond their own needs.  The location of the property and the need for income may have been what turned the family to hunting rattlesnakes.  For Reuben and his son, also named Reuben but known as “Mint,” this work consisted of assisting neighbors in removing snakes from their property.

Taking full advantage of these kills, the family extracted oil from the fat, venom from the fang sacks, and made trade goods from the skins.  In a story about the Adirondack Region in the August 22, 1868, New York Evening Post, the writer alluded to the Davis clan when mentioning the snakes around Lake George:  “Near this place resides a grim mortal who actually gets his living by catching the reptiles and making rattlesnake oil from them. Thus does the lovely serpent of the wilderness contribute to the welfare of man.”

Unfortunately, the profit from snake oil and other products was not enough to bring wealth to the family, and when Reuben died in 1857, his wife Sophia soon sold their property on Tongue Mountain to her daughter Aurilla Coats for one hundred dollars.  In 1875, the widow Sophia passed away at the age of ninety-one while living in a log cabin on the property with her widowed daughter.  The second generation of snake hunters, Sophia’s 70-year-old son Mint, his wife Mary, and their fourteen-year-old son Charles were living in a log home next door.  The property stayed in the family until it was acquired by the state in 1927 and added to the Adirondack Forest Preserve holdings.

Reuben “Mint” Davis was admitted to the Warren County Poorhouse in 1879, with Charles going to live with the last of the line snake hunters, his thirty-two-year-old brother Ike.

With the bounty in 1887 of 25 cents for every rattlesnake taken in Warren County, Ike Davis claimed $88.75 that year. The next year his taking of rattlesnakes was even greater as between May and September of 1888 Isaac Davis killed four hundred rattlesnakes on Lake George.  At that time, he also announced that he would be displaying the nine largest, all over three feet in length, at the Warren County Fair.  By 1900, Ike had passed away, ending the Davis clan rattlesnake era along the western shore of Lake George.

In 1971 bounties on all animals in New York State were banned, bringing an end to the hunting of rattlesnakes along the shores of Lake George.  Today these reptiles can still be seen, and with their status as a protected species, their place in the ecology of the region is secure for the future.

Illustrations:

Rattlesnake Weed, Wildflowers of New York, Homer House, 1921

Bitten by a Rattlesnake, Saratogian newspaper, May 4, 1877

Timber Rattlesnake illustration is from Poisonous Snakes of North America by Leonard Steineger, Smithsonian Institute, 1895

Map of the Tongue Mountain Tract from warrencountyny.gov (with captions added by author)

Sources for this article include the newspaper archives at fultonsearch.com and nyshistoricnewspapers.org, as well as the online resources at healthline.com and timbitsblog.wordpress.com.