Being a trapper,puts me in touch with a part of history that I can live somewhat today. Brunswick County, Va. was started in 1720. It was surveyed at about the fall line of the Nottoway River,west up the Nottoway to the Blue Ridge Mts. Following the Blue Ridge south to what is now the North Carolina line. In the mid 1600s frontier men reported on animals like deer,elk(larger than oxen) fox, raccoons,wildcats, panthers,and wolves. The wolves were said to be smaller and more brown than the timber-wolf to the north. John Lederer noted the wolves in his travel accounts of 1670."I fear my horse would be devoured by them,they would gather up and howl so close around him" William Byrd accurately reported that " a wolf will not attack a man in the keenest of his hunger, but run away from him as from an animal more mischievous than himself." Later frontiersmen became settlers and farmland and livestock began to open the county. Animals of prey would be a problem. The County of Brunswick imposed a bounty on wolf heads. So the trappers of the day would dig wolf pits to catch the wolves. Most of the countys revenues taken in as tithes were paid out as bounties for wolves heads. The court paid 140 pounds of tobacco for an old wolf head and 70 pounds for a young one. In Aug.of 1734 over fifty heads were brought in. The record for wolf killings belongs to Drury Stith,Jr. who on 1739 brought one young and twenty-three old wolvesheads and collected 4690 pounds of tobacco as bounty. Now early in the 2000's Brunswick Co. has had to put the bounty back on the wolf, that is the Coyote (Wolf). Whoever,whatever,whyever,the coyote (wolf) has started with a good foothold here on the Nottoway River and others parts of the county. Trappers of today can enjoy the thrills that our great-great grandfathers did,and be in hopes of keeping the number of coyotes down. I myself have collected bounty from Brunswick Co. and I will say setting a trap with a little dirt dug out for a trap has got to be easier than digging a wolf pit. Thank God for traps and the farmers and ranchers will thank the trappers.