Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories. With Marysville and Union County celebrating Bicentennial anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, respectively, these articles help depict what life was like in those early years.
–––
My dad loved the out-of-doors. When he had some spare time, he spent much of it fishing, hunting and trapping. His favorite activity, I believe, was fly-fishing, and he made most of his flies himself.
He said it was quite a challenge to outsmart a fish. I thought that was pretty funny, and I used to kid him about it. I mean, a fish’s brain must be about the size of a lima bean. So how hard can it be to outsmart a fish? He smiled, but I don’t think he thought that was very funny.
During trapping season, he trapped a lot of muskrats, for they were abundant in Union County. Their pelts were in great demand during the 1940s, when women’s muskrat coats were very popular.
He set his traps mainly along stream banks. But some of his farmer friends also asked him to place traps in their farm ponds. Muskrats sometimes tunneled into the dams that formed the ponds. This could weaken the dams, and put the ponds at risk.
When he saw muskrat footprints in a “run” at the water’s edge, he placed a trap in that run, and he covered it with a few leaves. Then it was just a matter of walking his trap line every morning to see if he had been successful.
Trapping foxes was more challenging. They had a reputation of being among the wiliest of animals, and they often raised havoc in a farmer’s hen house. So several farmers asked my dad to set a few traps on their farm.
I remember when he first started trapping foxes. He brought home a basket full of black walnut husks. He got them beneath a large walnut tree near the corner of Fifth and Maple streets. He took the husks to our basement where he put them into a large metal container that was full of water. It sat on a gas burner in the basement.
He lit the burner and brought the water to a boil. The water turned black, and he dropped a few shiny steel traps into the boiling water. He let the traps soak for the rest of the day. Later that evening, he hung them from the clothesline in our backyard.
I asked my dad why he was doing all this, and he said there were two reasons. First, it gave those shiny steel traps a dull black finish, which made the traps less apt to be spotted by the foxes. And second, it gave the traps a strong natural smell of the walnuts, disguising any trace of a human scent. He told me that a fox’s sense of smell is its greatest asset.
He used a small piece of raw meat as bait. Then he placed a drop of what he called “fox lure” on the meat. It was foul-smelling stuff. He said a fox could smell it from maybe a quarter of a mile away. That drew them to the bait … and to the trap.
When he started trapping foxes, I went with him the first few days he was setting the traps. He was meticulous about everything he did. He positioned the bait and the trap to make it difficult for the fox to avoid the trap when going after the bait – maybe in a passageway between a bush and a tree stump. But each day, when he checked the traps, he had been outfoxed by the foxes.
This went on for a few days, until one day he came home and he was grinning from ear to ear. He had bagged his first fox, and he told me everything about it.
I don’t think I have ever seen my dad more excited. He took the fox to a man named Cody Zellzor. He operated a fur business in Marysville. Trappers took their animals there, where he prepared the pelts. Several weeks later, my dad sent that pelt to a furrier to have it made into a fox scarf for my mother.
Fox scarves had pretty much gone out of style a few years earlier, so my mother never wore it. It sat in a box in a closet until the fall of 1949, when I went to a Halloween party in Milford Center. I dressed as a 1890s woman, wearing a hoop skirt and other old clothes from my grandmother’s attic. The whole outfit was accented by that fox scarf.
Although my dad had that scarf made for my mother, I believe he was proud when he saw his son walk out the front door in a dress, with the fox scarf around his neck. I may have looked a bit odd, but it was his proof that he had, indeed, outfoxed a fox.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com