The Historic Grizzly

[brotherbear]

Grizzlies and Grizzled Old Men continued...
James Capen Adams was born in Medway, Mississippi, and didn't arrive in California until the autumn of 1849 during the gold rush. Mining wasn't in his blood, though, so he turned to the one thing that did interest him: wild animals. Leaving behind the teeming cities and gold mining towns, Adams headed for the mountains with a team of oxen pulling an old wagon, two rifles, and a pistol, along with several bowie knives.
Besides being an excellent shot, Adams possessed a variety of skills that served him well in the wilderness. He became an expert at constructing log cabin traps for bears and also made the steel cages to transport them back to civilization for bear/bull fights or for export . During his first trip afield, he killed several grizzlies, often administering the coup de grace with his bowie knife. Adams was soon doing a brisk trade in the export of pelts and wild animals, and it was his uncanny ability to bring back alive a large collection of lethal predators that furnished Adams with his first taste of notoriety and acclaim. A flurry of activity always surrounded Adams when, dressed in buckskin and beaver hat, he strolled triumphantly through San Francisco's wharf district on his way to the docks with a great menagerie of wild animals drawn behind him in wagons. Reply