The One Eyed Poacher And The Maine Woods

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The One-Eyed Poacher stories were a product of Edmund Ware Smith’s interactions over the years with game wardens and poachers, both of whom he respected, admired, and was great friends with. The epic struggle between game wardens and poachers in the Maine woods, and the stories that go along with that battle, needed to be told. In a stroke of genius, Smith decided to invent a character who was all poachers combined into one, Thomas Jefferson Coongate, the One-Eyed Poacher. His nemesis was the product of all of Smith’s game warden friends melded into the character of young warden Tom Corn. From these two characters, and other surrounding cast, developed an incredible set of fictional tales of the poacher, the warden, the Maine woods, and all surrounding elements in which the drama unfolds.

Smith explains more of the background behind the development of the One-Eyed Poacher stories, and reveals some true game warden and poacher stories gathered from his personal experiences in a story from “A Treasury of the Maine Woods”, in the story “My Game Warden Friends and Outlaw Companions”.

The One-Eyed Poacher and the Maine Woods was published in 1955. It contains an introduction by Bernard DeVoto, a description of Maine’s woodsmen by Smith, and two distinct parts. The first contains eight One-Eyed Poacher stories, while the second part contains seven essays about the Maine woods. Stories and essays were reprinted from Collier’s, Esquire, True, Country Gentleman, Outdoor Life, Lincoln-Mercury Times, Sports Illustrated and Reader’s Digest.