A fearful tale is told, in the Port Jervis [N. Y.] Union of a recent date of the fate of Lottie Merrill, the young huntress of Wayne County, Pa. According to this account she had met a most tragic death, having been attacked in her hut by six bears, killed and eaten by them, and her body burned with the carcasses of some of them in her cabin. A party of hunters, it is said, at the close of the day on which the horror occurred found her cabin still burning, and the proofs of the horrible death she had died. It appears that she had been hunting that day, and had killed a fine buck deer, which, after removing the entrails, she had dragged home on the snow. Six hungry bears , drawn by the smell of blood, had followed the trail to her hut, and, after devouring the carcass of the deer, attacked the huntress, killing her and devouring her body. The girl had evidently made a heroic defence. An examination of the carcasses of the six bears in the cabin showed that she must have killed two of them before being overpowered. The carcass of one bear had fallen against the closed door and imprisoned them all within the cabin, which took fire and burned the others to death. In the cabin were found one of the huntress heavy boots with the foot still in it, a bent hunting knife near the bones and the antlers of the deer she had brought home which with the carcasses of the bears furnished a complete key to the mystery. Her funeral took place the next day. At least 300 people were present, and the old preacher, William Budwick, preached the sermon, relating the story of her death and extolling her bravery and virtue to the skies. The remains were buried near her burned cabin, and over her grave was placed a pair of antlers and a hemlock slab with this rude epitaph:
    “Lottie Merrill lays hear she didn’t know wot it wuz to be afeered but she has hed her last tussel with the bars and they’ve scooped her she was a good girl and she is now in Heaven. It took six big bars to get away with her. She was only eighteen years old.
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