Israel Wid Medford was the son of Jonas Medford and Lydia Massey. He married Mary Ann Blaylock 2 August 1842 in Haywood County, North Carolina. They were the parents of 14 children.

The North Carolina Death Certificate for Harriett Medford Franklin shows the parents of Harriett to be Israel Wid and Margarete Olive Allen. However, records indicate that Wid was married to Mary Ann Blaylock when Harriett was born. Marriage to Margarete Olive Allen ????????????????


The 1900 U.S. Census shows Wid living in Haywood Co., NC as the head of household, along with his son Willis and two Grandchildren. His death occured between 1900-1910 in Haywood Co., NC. The Census also shows he was born in 1815.

Notes for ISRAEL WID MEDFORD:

‘Master hunter' lived up to reputation

Wid Medford was lord of his domain in the late 1800s mountains

By KATHY N. ROSS
Correspondent

He may have had almost no education and little money, but Israel Wid Medford, known
as Master Bear Hunter of the Balsams, lived a life many men only dreamed of.
For Medford made a good portion of his living by hunting, spending days and weeks at a
time in the great outdoors. His reputation, from accounts of those who hunted with him
during the 19th century, was well deserved, but so was his ability to promote it.

For Medford's other skill was as a talker, particularly a storyteller who could enthrall his
audience with a hunting yarn that carried an air of authenticity even while bordering on
the absurd. The tourists who hunted with him could forgive the cold winds, rains and
snow and sleeping on the ground after the thrill of following the dogs by day and hearing
Medford's tales at night.

Wid Medford was the son of Jonas Medford, the pioneer Medford of Haywood County.
According to history compiled by Robert and Connie Medford in Those Medfords of
Allens Creek, Jonas came to Haywood with his father-in-law's family after meeting his
bride, thanks to a broken leg.
Jonas had been searching for his brother in South Carolina when a fall from a horse
caused his injury. Farmer John Massey tended his injuries and, the family story goes,
asked for Jonas' horse as payment. Instead, Jonas said he would "just stay on and marry
your daughter.The Masseys and Medfords came to Haywood County about 1810,
and Wid was born in1818.

As much as he loved hunting, Wid also took time to marry -- and was obviously home
some after that, given that he and wife Mary Ann Blalock had 14 children. During the
Civil War, Medford served with the Confederate Army where he was employed to haul
supplies and cut and haul hay for horse feed, in theory being beyond the age for combat,
Robert Medford wrote. In reality, as his bear hunting jaunts would prove, he was far
more fit than many men far younger. One of Wid's sons, Elias, also served and died
during the war.

Medford apparently built up his market as a hunting guide by picking up passengers who
arrived, first by stagecoach and later by railroad, in Waynesville and transporting them to
local inns. On the way he would tell them hunting stories. But his fame reached grand
proportions when he guided Wilbur G. Zeigler and Ben Grosscup on a bear hunting
expedition through the Balsams. Zeigler and Grosscup published The Heart of the
Alleghanies, a book of adventures in hunting and fishing Western North Carolina during
1883. They devoted a full chapter to the hunt with Medford, including several of his
tales.

Medford claimed once to have fought a 450-pound bear with a knife after it disregarded
his shot and charged him.
I drew back a step, and as he brashed by me, I bent over him, grabbin' the hair o' his
neck with one hand, an' staubed him deep in the side with the knife in the other. That's
all I knowed for hours, he said.

Medford was asked if he'd fainted.

"Faint? ... Women faint. I fell dead! You see all the blood in me jumped over my heart
and into my head, an' ov course hit finished me for a time, the writers claimed he
answered.

The bear, unlike Medford, remained dead, stabbed through the heart.
At the time of that bear-hunting trip, Medford was 65, but he led the writers through
almost inaccessible country on a two-day, two-night hunt that taxed some of the younger
mountaineers. He also regaled them with more reliable lore of the bear and its habits,
gained through years of experience.

The writers also experienced his marksmanship firsthand. When the hunters caught up
with the dogs and bear engaged in a life-and-death battle in which several dogs had
already died, they hesitated to fire. They feared a shot would kill one of the dogs instead
of the bear. Then, from the other side of the fray, a shot rang out. Medford had killed
their quarry. It so frustrated the tourists that they wrote how much they regretted not
taking a shot, whether they'd killed several dogs or not.

Medford was slender, originally ruddy and red-headed, with blue eyes. He loved to dress
the part of the famous hunter, with a knife strapped to his side or chest.
That night as he sat cross-legged close to the fire, turning in the flames a stick with a
slice of fat pork on it, with his broad-brimmed hat thrown on the ground, fully exposing
his thick, straight, gray locks and clear-ruddy hatchet-shaped face, bare but for a red
mustache, lighted up with youthful animation, he kept shaking the index finger of his
right hand, while in his talk he jumped from one subject to another with as much alacrity
as his bow legs might carry him over the mountains, Grosscup and Zeigler wrote.

His tall tales and hunting prowess aside, Medford was also active in politics, according to
W.C. Allen. In his Annals of Haywood County, Allen described Medford as a "shrewd
judge of human nature" who served several terms as a county commissioner. While
Medford had little or no formal education, he was able to calculate numbers in his head,
Allen wrote, and once successfully challenged figures presented to the county board.

Medford died sometime between 1890 and 1900, based on census records, though the
year of his death is disputed. W.C. Medford believed his death to have been about 1899
while others considered it closer to 1895. He and his wife were buried at Green Hill
Cemetery under a hand-hewn field stone.

While on his hunt with writers Ziegler and Grosscup, Medford was asked how he would
live if he had his life to live over. Without hesitation, they wrote, he gave his answer:
"I'd git me a neat woman an' go to the wildest country in creation, an' hunt from the day
I was big 'nuff to tote a rifle-gun until ole' age and rheumatics fastened on me.

The End

SMN Archives/Mountain Voices

Mountain Voices. 11/29/00

Wid Medford --bear hunter-extraordinaire


"1har's suthin ' in the wind, " whispered Wid. "I reckon hits the music o 'thepack.
Sh-! Listen! "
Back in the late 1880s. two remarkable men, Wilbur Zeigler and Ben Grosscup, visited
Western North Carolina for the express purpose of developing a comprehensive profile of
the region.s resources. The subsequent book. The Heart of the Alleghanies, or Western
North Carolina, does contain an amazing catalogue of trees, minerals. birds, animals and
topography complete with detailed information regarding each item. However, readers
quickly discover that the gathering of factual data is merely a means to an end. Wilber
and Ben are sportsmen and nature lovers. Equally surprising is their fortitude. They fish,
hunt. scale peaks and sketch with a zest and energy that quickly gains them the respect of
local hunters who have spent their lives in the wilderness. The book is filled with
descriptive detail both written and etched: Nantahala Gorge. trout streams in the
Balsams~ dying bears beset by hounds and the ramparts of what would become known as
the Great Smokies. It is an impressive (and rare ) book.

However, the most memorable portraits are of people. Zeigler and Grosscup have a
genuine admiration for the inhabitants of the region, and go to considerable pains to
reproduce the character and language ofhunters, fishermen, housewives and farmers.
Fascinated by the nuances of speec~ they carefully reproduce the rhythms and
enunciation of Cherokees, bear hunters and merchants. Invariably, the results have a
strange musical beauty.

Shortly after arriving in Waynesville, the two men made inquiries about local residents
who had an exceptional knowledge of the region and would be willing to take them into
the Balsams despite adverse weather (it was winter). Everyone assured them that there was
only one man who could do that: Israel Medford, nick-named Wid. Considered a
master hunter and "a singular character," he was one of a vanishing species of
mountaineer who had been reared in the wilderness. The two men sought him out and
found him to be a gifted mimic, a shrewd judge of character and an accomplished talker.
He could hunt, too !

The subsequent venture into the Balsams amid a snowstonn and freezing temperature for
the singular purpose of finding the lair of a black bear constitutes one ofthe most
memorable passages in the book. Wid, 65 years old, grey-headed (but with a red
mustache), hatchet-faced and ruddy-ski~ agrees to talk the night away, but warns his
listeners that he will not tolerate skepticism about his adventures. "Whenever I talk of
facts," he says, "You can count on them as true as Scriptur." The hunting party and an

assortment of hounds take their places before a roaring fire in an isolated cove in the
Balsams and listen. Following is a direct quote from a lengthy chapter of The Heart of the
Alleghanies.

..What I don't know about these mountings," said he, directing his keen blue eyes upon
one member of the group, ..haint of enny profit to man or devil. Why, I've fit bars from
the Dark Ridge kentry to the headwaters of the French Broad. I've brogued it through
every briar patch an' laurel thicket, an'haint I bin with Guyot, Sandoz, Grand Pierre, and
Clingman over every peak from hyar to the South Caroliny and Georgy lines? Say?"

The night is just beginning and Wid weaves a tale that keeps his audience spellbound,
recounting a series ofhair-raising adventures as the temperature continues to drop and
snowflakes drift in the firelight. The following passage is a prime example of Wid
Medford at his most eloquent:

"... Hit war a hot summer day. We~ ..thet is~ Bill Massey who's awmost blind now, Bill
Allen, who gin up huntin' long ye'rs ago, my brother El, me and sev'ral others, -we
started a bar on the Jackson County line nigh Scotts creek in the momin'. We driv till
arter-noon, an' in the chase I got below hyar. I heered the dogs up on Old Bald
an'abearin' down the ridge top I was on. Powerful soon I seed the bar comin' on a dog.
trot under the trees. He war a master brute! ...Four hundred and fifty pounds net. Thinks
me to myself, 'Gun fust, knife next,' fer, you see, I war clean played out with the heat
and long run ...I fetched my gun to my shoul'er an' fired. The brute never stopped but I
knowed I'd hit him, fer I hed dead sight on his head; an', like blockade whiskey, a ball
outer thet black bore allus goes to the spot.

I dropped my gun an' pulled my knife. On he corn. He didn't pay no more tenshun to me
then ef I'd bin a rock. I drew back a step an' as he brashed by me, I bent over him,
grabbin the ha'r 0' his neck with one hand, an' staubed him deep in the side with
the knife in the other. Thet is all I knowed for hours. "

"Did you faint?" someone asked.

"Faint?" sneered Wid, sticking out his square chin and showing his teeth. "You ass! You
don't reckon I faint, do you? Women faint. I fell dead! You see, all the blood in
me jumped over my heart, an' ov course hit finished me for a time ...But the boys and dogs
corn on me a second arter. Bill Allen cut my veins, an' in a short time I corn around, but I
war sick for a week. ...Hit (the bear) lay dead by the branch, staubed clean through the
heart. "

As colorful as Wid's adventures are, the details of Grosscup and Zeigler's bear hunt the
following day surpass all expectations. As the party crashes through ice.bound streams
and laurel thickets, the authors describe scenes of amazing beauty ...and horror. Ice-
wreathed trees, flocks of great, wild turkeys, towering oaks that measure 16- to 30- feet
in diameter. ..and the gory demise of a cornered bruin. The bloodshed attending the giantng
bear's last stand is daunting. Amid mangled~ dead and dying dogs (hugged to death by the
dying beast), the bear is finally killed and the authors, somewhat sobered by the violence
of the last encounter, ask Wid if it would not be better to trap bears. Wid responds:

"Traps is good fer 'em ez hunts rabbits, an' rabbit huntin' is good fer boys; but fer me,
give me myoId flint-lock shootin' iron, an' let a keen pack o'lean hounds be hoppin' on
ahead; an' of all sports, the master sport is follerin' their music over the mountings, an ,
windin' up, with bullet or sticker, a varminous ole bar!"

At one point in this lengthy narrative, the authors ask Wid about his life. They
diplomatically suggest that "his way" is passing and wonder if he had his life to live over
knowing what he knows now, would it be different. What would he do? Wid's answer
could well serve as his epitath:

"I'd git me a neat woman, an' go to the wildest kentry in creation, an' hunt from the time
I was big nuff to tote a rifl-gun, ontil ole age an' roomaticks fastened on me."


Well Said