The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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SEEING THREE BEARS UP THE SAME TREE
By S. C. Turnbo
At the mouth of Coon Creek In Marion County, Ark., a rough bluff sets In which extends up White River to Long Bottom Creek. In this bluff a short distance above the mouth of Coon Creek Is the mouth of a rough gulch known as the Devil’s Hollow. Just above the mouth of this gulch and down near the water’s edge of the river is a fine spring of cold water where in the long ago the early settlers who lived on the bank of the river on the opposite side from the spring would visit this noted spring in their canoes and fill their cedar palls with this cool sparkling water and take it across the river to be used as drinking water. One of the families who lived here was Robert Casebolt and Jemima Casebolt, his wife and their small children. Mrs. Casebolt was an expert In a canoe and during summertime when the water in the river was too warm for drinking purposes she would get in the canoe with her big cedar pall and paddle the craft across the river and fill her vessel full of this pure cold water and return back to the opposite shore as safe as any man would. One day she got into the canoe and started across as usual to fill her pail with water. Just as the bow of the canoe touched the shore at the spring she heard a rustling noise up a tree which stood near the spring and on glancing up she was thunderstruck with astonishment at the sight of three bears up the tree. The sight of the animals so terrified her that she hurriedly backed the canoe away from the shore with the paddle and turning the bow of the craft toward the other shore she made the dugout glide swiftly through the water until she landed and ran to the house. This was In the summer of 1840 and Mrs. Casebolt said it was the last time she ever ventured back to the spring in the dugout alone.
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