(An account by Aaron Alexander Tolman, son of Cyrus Tolman and Alice Bracken, as related to Sarah Alexander Tolman, his niece in 1931.)
I, Aaron Alexander Tolman, was herding sheep in the mountains of southern Idaho south of Kimberly and west of Oakley near Harrington Creek (in what is now part of the Sawtooth National Forest) on September 4, 1900. I had my camp on one side of the hill while on the other side was another camp. We two sheep herders decided to eat dinner together that day and after dinner go hunting for deer.
From my camp I had to go through several patches of very thick brush. As I passed through these, I noticed a lot of fresh deer tracks. When my companion and I met on top of the ridge, I told him about the deer tracks. We decided that I should go over the ridge and meet him at the place where I had seen the deer tracks. Instead of doing what we had planned, my companion went back to his camp. I reached the place where the deer tracks were and decided to go on without him. As I was going through one patch of thick brush I met three bears sitting on their haunches. They were a mother bear and her two cubs, which were almost as large as their mother. The mother bear ran toward me viciously smelling around with her big nose. I, supposing I had a fight on my hands, shot the bear. The bullet went through her nose and broke her lower jaw. She fell to the ground, and I thought she was dead. My two sheep dogs rushed to the bear after she fell, but she got up and began chasing them. The dogs, being very much afraid of the bear, ran to me for protection. This led the bear right on to me. I raised my gun to shoot again but the bear hit it with her paw and broke it, leaving me defenseless.
The old bear was very angry by this time, when she stood on her hind legs she was about one and one-half feet taller than me. At that time of the year the hair on the bear’s back was about twelve inches long, and this hair was standing straight out. This made a very fierce looking animal, indeed.
When she first struck at me she caught her claw under my left arm which I had raised to protect my face. She just missed a large artery and, as she brought her paw back, she tore the flesh very badly. Then she began chewing and clawing vigorously at me, cruelly tearing the flesh. She also scraped my left ankle bone. Next she brought her claw across my forehead, savagely ripping my scalp and tearing my left ear. My entire left side was a mass of torn and chewed flesh. One claw caught the back of my neck, inflicting a terrible wound. This wound and the one in my ankle were the only wounds that were very painful however, I suffered a great deal from these two.
The bear, thinking she had finished her vicious deed and that I was dead, walked off a ways and angrily watched me to make sure. I wanted to get away but at my slightest movement, the bear returned and resumed her dreadful chewing. Soon, the bear left me again, thinking I was surely dead. I lay very still for some time, fearing the bear might still be watching me. I could not see anything because of the blood that had streamed down my face from the wound in my forehead. Finally, I got enough blood wiped away that I could see a little. I could see nothing of the bear so I tried to get up. I tried to walk but my left leg was so crippled that I couldn’t stand. I began crawling slowly up the hill, realizing that I must get help. Before reaching the top, I became very weak; things turned black and I feared I was going to faint. But, I prayed earnestly that the Lord would spare my life and give me the strength I needed to reach the top of the ridge and get help.
I finally reached the top of the ridge and lay there awhile before I saw two men on horses. I called several times to them for help and they came. (According to some accounts, they were the camp tenders who brought food and supplies to the sheep herders periodically). One man stayed with me while the other went for help. This incident happened about 4:00 in the afternoon, and it was 10:00 the next morning before any more help came. I suffered a great deal. There was not a stitch of dry clothing on me due to the excessive amount of blood lost. The man who stayed with me carried water a quarter of a mile in a hat to give me a drink.
My wife, a brother and a doctor came to get me. They put me in a wagon and took me to Oakley (some 30 miles away) for treatment. The doctor said that it was impossible for me to live as the flesh was so badly chewed and torn. The entire neighborhood whispered of the sad death of Alex Tolman because they thought me so near death’s door that I absolutely couldn’t recover. I was administered to; another doctor was secured; and my family, being true, faithful latter-day saints, fasted and prayed for me that I might recover.
I immediately began to feel better, and, slowly but surely, I recovered. Nevertheless, it was six long months before I was able to get around to do anything. The doctor said that if I had not lived a good clean life, and been a strong man, I could not have lived. What could be greater than the gift of the spirit of God and to have faith in his divine guidance?
(At the time this was related to Sarah, Uncle Alex was still living. At age 68, he was healthy and strong. Nevertheless, he carried the scars left by the wounds inflicted on him by the angry old bear over thirty years before.)
From the files of The Oakley Sun, September 9.1900
(The Oakley Sun was one of the newspapers that proceeded The Oakley Herald)
Mr. Alexander Tolman is at his home in Marion in a very serious condition due to an encounter with a bear on last Saturday afternoon between 4 and 5 o’clock. Mr. Tolman was herding sheep for Poulton Brothers on Harrington Fork of Rock Creek. As he was going through a growth of small trees and brush he came upon a silver tip bear and her cubs. His shepherd dog charged toward the bear and the bear started toward him. Seeing that his only chance was to kill the bear, he fire and wounded her in the side of the head. The dogs, when they discovered the kind of foe they had to deal with, returned to Mr. Tolman.
After he fired, he reloaded his gun but before he could shoot the second time, the bear was upon him. With one blow she knocked the gun from his hands, breaking the stock from the barrel. She hit him a blow on top of the head, breaking the scalp for six inches in a line parallel with and two and one half inches back of the top of his head.
Mr. Tolman thinks that he would not have been bitten so severely but in his dazed condition, he attempted to rise after the bear first left. (This article was reprinted in the Idaho State Journal, Pocatello, Idaho, Sunday, September 24, 1972, in the column entitled, “Idaho in Retrospect.”)
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