This story about Dr. Martin Luther Hawkins appeared in the Northwest Arkansas Times (a Fayetteville, Arkansas, paper) many years ago . . . told to the reporter by Loddie Stone, a distant relative. The story was also passed down independently through the Freyschlag family branch as oral history.
From the Northwest Arkansas Times:
Attacked By Panther
Pioneer Physician Kills with Pkt. Knife
Pioneer days demanded that a doctor be able to use a bowie knife as well as a lancet, according to Loddie Stone, who recalls an incident that occurred to Dr. Hawkins, one of this section’s earliest settlers, who once killed a panther with his pocketknife as his only weapon.
On his way to set the broken leg of a man who had been hurt while clearing timber, Dr. Hawkins was attacked by a panther, which dropped from a tree onto his horse’s rump. Plunging off the horse dislodged the wild beast, which was pinned down by the throat by a companion bulldog which had set out with the doctor, unawares, from his home early that morning. Dr. Hawkins jumped from the horse and pulling his knife, came to the aid of the dog, which, with jaws fastened on the jugular vein of the panther, was pivoting madly to escape the claws of the jungle beast.
The doctor’s trip, from what is now Benton County deep into Carroll County, was typical of those taken by the pioneer doctor of this section.”
A letter passed down through the Freyschlag family version includes an additional detail: That Martin cut a paw off the panther to bring home and show his family.
© 2013 W. Mullins