There is one interesting and authentic account of a quite wonderful adventure with one of these formidable beasts, in which Joshua Osgood played a prominent part. Mr. Hayward thus tells the story, in his History of Gilsum (page 156): “Early in June, 1777, Eleazer Wilcox, Senior, had a noted fight with a bear. The story is told with many variations, and the exact truth is difficult to get at. The locality had been claimed for Keene, but the best authority asserts that it was very near the line in Gilsum, east of Lansing Wilder’s meadow. Mr. Wilcox had previously wounded the bear, and sent for Joshua Osgood of Sullivan [then Gilsum] to come and help him. After hunting a good while, they were separated some thirty or forty rods, when the bear disturbed by the dog, suddenly came at Mr. Wilcox from behind the root of a tree. His gun missed fire, and the bear rising on her hind legs struck it with such force as to bend back the guard and make a heavy dent, still to be seen in the stock [which also shows six marks of the bear’s teeth near the breech, the gun being in the possession of the family of the late Edwin C. Ware, formerly of Milford, a descendant of Mr. Wilcox]. The man and bear then clinched. Mr. Wilcox was a large, powerful man, noted for his strength in wrestling. He seized the bear’s tongue and held on with all his might. The dog kept attacking the bear from behind, and his barking and the shouts of Mr. Wilcox soon brought Mr. Osgood. He feared to fire at first, lest he should kill the man, but seeing that the bear would soon dispatch him, if let alone, he watched his chance and fired. The bear dropped her hold and ran away. She was found dead the next day near a little pool of water. Mr. Osgood went immediately for assistance and they carried Mr. Wilcox home on a litter of boughs. He had forty-two wounds on him, some say sixty. It was a wonder that he recovered. He said his worst hurt was in his back, by struggling to hold up against the bear, who, with her paws on his shoulders, was trying to push him over backwards. He was never as well as before, and occasionally had ill turns, that he called his ‘ bear fits’ “.

Source:  History of the Town of Sullivan New Hampshire, 1777 – 1917, Vol. 1 by Rev. Josiah Lafayette Seward, 1921, p.109