Treat Shoemaker was part of a large family of ten children born to Malachi and Susannah Shoemaker, settling in the 1820s in an area of what is now Granville Township, Bradford County. It was frontier living, and a story shared by Treat, featured in a Towanda newspaper in 1902, leaves no doubt of the perils faced from wild animals in the wilderness.

The December 11, 1902 Bradford Star of Towanda recalls Treat’s story of being pursued by a large panther as he, his brothers and father made their way home after tapping some maple trees for syrup three-quarters of a mile from the house.

“The following is a true story, as is told by Treat Shoemaker of Granville Township to his daughter, Mrs. A. J. Rathbun of Grover recently. ‘Uncle Treat’ as he is familiarly called is now 82 years old. The occurrence here recorded took place in May 1826 on the farm now owned by T. F. Porter, Windfall, this county:

“In May 1826 my father, mother and family moved from the central part of Pennsylvania to the western part of Granville township in this county, which was at that time a dense mass of woods. Here my father settled, erected a hat factory on a small scale and commenced clearing and otherwise improving his property. There were but few neighbors and they were far between. Bears, panthers, wolves, and deer were very plentiful. The wolves were not the ferocious ones, but quite timid. If they heard us coming through the woods, they would skulk behind a tree and peeping out from behind shelter to see what we were doing and if they had a chance they would skip behind a log and then run for dear life. But don’t think for a moment we were not afraid of them for we were and didn’t go far from home without father or mother or our older brothers, but if we did venture a little ways, it didn’t take much of a noise for us to imagine it to be a bear or panther and we would take to our heels and run like little tigers.

“The following spring after we settled in the woods my father and older brothers concluded to tap some large maple trees that were situated about three-fourths of a mile from the house and to that end they built a little cabin and got things real handy and commenced business. The next morning, they started out bright and early and of course I was anxious to go too. But father said, ‘No, you can wait and when ‘mammy’ gets the dinner ready for us you may bring it down to us.’ I didn’t fall in with the arrangement very readily but concluded I would have to do as told. I contented myself about the house till mother had the lunch ready. She fried venison, made some fried cakes, some warm biscuits, and with some honey gathered from a ‘bee tree’ a few days before, she told me the dinner was ready for me to start. I took the basket on my arm and started, she telling me to run along as fast as possible as she was afraid the howling of the wolves might frighten me, for they would probably scent the fresh venison and she would listen for me; and father would be listening, too, as they were expecting me. I had not gone far before the basket seemed very heavy to me as I was only six years old but quite rugged for my age.

“Nevertheless, I hurried along and I had traveled about two-thirds of the distance when I commenced to hear the wolves howl; and it seemed as though they were coming nearer, nearer, and the nearer they seemed the faster I traveled. At last, I commenced to cry and of course couldn’t run as fast nor didn’t dare look behind. Just as I had begun to expect to have a wolf jump on my back, I heard my brother shout and looking, there he was just ahead of me in the path and ready to carry my basket. Then I dared to look around and just got the glimpse of a little grey wolf disappearing around a tree, but quite a ways from me, so I had been imagining him to be closer than he really was. They had heard the wolves and concluded I was the object of their notice. We started on and it was only a few minutes before we had arrived at the boiling place.

The afternoon passed rapidly, and it had begun to get real dark. The sap had boiled down to syrup and they had it in the pails ready to start home. By this time the panthers, etc., had commenced to prowl around and father and the boys made torches for each of us out of pine knots. Taking their knives and whittling till they had a row of shavings all around them, then lighting them, for all wild beasts are afraid of fire. We started each one moving a torch when a noise was heard in the bushes, and they would run back, sometimes making quite a noise, others only a slight sound as if afraid of being heard.

“But one animal seemed determined to follow us despite our efforts to frighten it away. It followed in the path about 20 feet behind us. We could see its eyes glaring and a more frightened boy it would be hard to find. I kept close to father and the boys as possible waving my torch and ‘hollering’ but all to no effect. At last father says, ‘Old fellow, I’ll fix you if you don’t stay back where you belong,’ and he told us all to get a stone and we would try stoning it but when you want stones, the size you want are not there, especially when a wild animal is near you. At last father found one that was of good size, and he threw it at it thinking he would hit it in the head, but just about time for the stone to strike the panther, as it proved to be, it sprang aside and gave one of the most unearthly screams I ever heard. I know my hair stood ‘on ends’ then father said that it is a panther and a big one too, we will have to keep a pretty good look out for him. By the time we got started he was behind us creeping along as before but getting closer to us all the time. We kept stones flying most of the time and when we struck him, or near him, he would jump and give another of his awful screams, but in a moment again we could hear its pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, behind us. We hurried along and in a short time arrived at the house. Mother had been looking for us and stood in the door with a tallow dip in her hand, and I tell you it didn’t take long for us to get in the house and fasten the door. For a long time, we could hear noises around the house and in the morning in damp places around the house we could see its tracks larger than a man’s hand. The same panther killed sheep, etc., all summer but the next winter it was caught while feasting on a deer it had killed. Thus ends one day in the life of a boy in ‘Ye Olden Times.’”

As part of his series on Extinct Pennsylvania Animals, author, folklorist and conservationist Henry W. Shoemaker wrote The Panther and the Wolf in 1917. He said that the panther, like many other wild animals in parts of the state, fell victim to wholesale slaughter by Pennsylvania hunters.

“Animal drives, similar to those once held in South Africa, were as plentiful in Central and Southern Pennsylvania as in the "Northern tier." As they occurred in the remote backwoods districts where no written history was kept, accounts of them have well-nigh lapsed into oblivion. One of the greatest drives ever known took place about 1760, in the vicinity of Pomfret Castle, a fort for defense against the Indians, which had been constructed in 1756. "Black Jack" Schwartz was the leader of this drive, which resulted in the death of more than forty panthers.”

The last documented kill of a panther was in Berks County in 1874. Panthers and mountain lions are the same species. Despite alleged sightings, the Pennsylvania Game Commission says the mountain lion, or panther, is extinct in the Keystone State.