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Potter County's Seth Iredell Nelson, "King Hunter of the Sinnemahoning," circa 1900.
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A bearded man wearing a hat and suit, holding a cane, sits in a chair.

Credit: From Henry Shoemaker, Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns Reading Pa.: Faust Pub. Co., 1915.

In the 1800s, prolific hunters shared the same celebrity among rural Pennsylvanians that outstanding athletes enjoyed among city dwellers. One of central Pennsylvania's most famous big game hunters, Potter County's Seth Iredell Nelson (b. 1809) kept a game book that included hundreds of panthers, wolves, and elk, and thousands of deer, bears, wildcats, and other animals that he killed during his long career in the Pennsylvania big game fields. After his death in 1905 Nelson was buried on top of Karthaus Mountain, overlooking the one-time hunting paradise he had once roamed.

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