A Moment in Time: Old Photos Invited from Our Readers

Photo provided by The Suffield Historical Society

Two Suffield hunters are pictured in this Hartford Courant photo printed on November 27, 1918. On the preceding Saturday afternoon they had shot what the Windsor Locks Journal called “a half-grown lynx . . . a regular bob-cat with tufted ears and bob tail.” John Harris, left, and Samuel Edmonds were hunting in First Selectman George Harmon’s woods on Hasting’s Hill when Harris made the fatal shot. The old photo isn’t too clear, but it appears that the 14-pound bob-cat is the creature held by Edmonds, at the right, while Harris is holding a smaller creature. The bob-cat was thought to be one of a family of marauders that had been responsible for killing 24 sheep that fall, obliging the Town to pay Charles Holcomb over $1,000 for his loss. Other sheep had been killed on the Lewis farm. It was previously thought that dogs were to blame, but the Journal commented that a pair of mature bob-cats may yet be “lurking about in the woods.”