BRUCE-FOURNIER May 14, 1910 Mariposa Gazette: Licensed to Wed.
Jay C. BRUCE of Mt. Bullion and Miss Kate FOURNIER of Mariposa were licensed to marry in Fresno, Thursday last. Mr. BRUCE is a son of Mr. and Mrs. A. O. BRUCE of Wawona. For several years past he has been a trusted employee of the M. C. &M. Co. He is a steady, industrious man and well liked among his associates. The bride is a most exemplary young lady, a native of Mariposa and the youngest daughter of A. FOURNIER, for many years a resident of Mt. Bullion but now of Mariposa. The young couple have a host of friends who will wish them many long years of happiness together.

Death Cert# 87-000113
Katherine NMN Bruce
Born 2/22/1890 96 years old Born in California
Father: Antone Fornier Born in France
Mother: Sarah Sharon born in Ireland
Spouse: n/a Widowed
Place of death: Feather River Hospital, 5974 Pentz Road, Paradise, 95969
Residence-1656 Nunnley Road, Paradise, Ca 95969
Informant: Wilson Bruce-Son
Female, White American SS# 545345884
Homemaker adult life
Cause of death: Severe (could not read) secondary due to massive gastrointestinal hemhorrage 1-2 weeks repeated cerebrial accidents due to age )This was in cursive writing could not read that well, I guess it was Dr. scribble)
Date of death: 1/20/1987
1500 Dr. Wesley Farr M.D.
771 Bushmann Road,
Paradise 1-9-87 to 1/20/1987
Rose Chapel Burial 1/23/1987
Paradise Cemetery, not embalmed

BRUCE-FOURNIER May 14, 1910 Mariposa Gazette: Licensed to Wed.
Jay C. BRUCE of Mt. Bullion and Miss Kate FOURNIER of Mariposa were licensed to marry in Fresno, Thursday last. Mr. BRUCE is a son of Mr. and Mrs. A. O. BRUCE of Wawona. For several years past he has been a trusted employee of the M. C. &M. Co. He is a steady, industrious man and well liked among his associates. The bride is a most exemplary young lady, a native of Mariposa and the youngest daughter of A. FOURNIER, for many years a resident of Mt. Bullion but now of Mariposa. The young couple have a host of friends who will wish them many long years of happiness together.

LION HUNTER BRUCE - Mariposa Gazette, July 6, 1928
LION HUNTER BRUCE LOSES LEFT EYE IN RECENT HUNT
Jay Bruce, State lion hunter, got his lion, as usual-but it cost him the sight of his left eye.
They're all talking about it in the State Fish and Game Commission, and about the oft-expressed fear of the veteran panther killer–the fear that some day his precarious calling would cost him his sight.
Last night at the St. Francis Hospital, where he is being treated, the veteran hunter declared that his accident will not stop him from continuing his work.
"My sighting eye is still sound," he declared, despite his pain. "I'll be back after the cats again pretty soon."
It happened last Friday, near Georgetown, Eldorado County. Bruce and his son, Jay Jr., were following a huge lion along the bottom of the Rubicon River canyon. Young Bruce fired and wounded the beast, which plunged into a thicket of tangled underbrush. The elder Bruce leaped after the animal. Suddenly a stick snapped beneath his foot. One end of it flew upward and pierced his left eye. Despite the pain he continued after the lion and a moment later dropped it with a single shot. It was his three hundred and thirty-ninth kill.
His son hurried away to get help. It was five mile to the nearest house. When he returned he found that his father had climbed 2,500 feet to the top of the canyon and was waiting there for aid.

Obituary - Jay C. BRUCE, Lion Hunter, Hornitos/Hayward (Excerpted from a Hayward, California Newspaper)
Funeral service were held this week for Jay C. BRUCE, who died February 8th, 1963, at the age of 81.. Mr. BRUCE, who was born in the Gold Rush town of HORNITOS, is survived by two daughters and a sister.
BRUCE spent 30 years with the State Fish and Game Commission from 1918 thru 1948. He took countless lions from the hills of Monterey County.
His adventures as a California Official Lion hunter are publish in a book "Cougar Killer," 1953.
Jay killed a total of 668 cougars, and many time escaped narrowly. Many times he was clawed by wounded cats.
Once he crawled into a cave to rescue his hunting dogs from a cornered mountain lion. Another time he lost his footing and slid down a snow bank, landing between two cougars devouring a deer.
He faced a treed lion with an empty rifle on another occasion but was saved by one of his dogs who brought him a little pouch full of bullets.

Mariposa Gazette, February 14, 1963

CAPTION FROM PICTURE
Jay C. Bruce, lion hunter, is shown carrying one of the animals out to the mountains, following a hunt. Occipital Cougar Hunter for the state, he was a familiar and well-loved person, in many stops in Mariposa and surrounding towns, as well as in mountainous areas through-out the state. His ability to tell of his adventures, while showing the pelts from the kill, and often a kitten or two, taken by hand, are among the pleasant memories of Mariposa, who through the twenties and thirties gathered to enjoy his stops.

LION HUNTER JAY C. BRUCE DIES AT 81 AFTER COLORFUL CAREER

Final rites were conducted at the Sorensen Bros. Chapel in Hayward at 11:00 a.m. Monday for Jay C. Bruce, 81, native of Hornitos, who died on Friday, February 8th, 1963 following ill health for several years. On Jan. 1, 1919 he was appointed Official Cougar Killer for the State of California, to spend thirty years at this dangerous and rugged task. Interment followed at the Lone Tree Cemetery.

He was a member of the Hayward Alameda County Lions Club and Mark Twain Society.

He is survived by two daughters, Katherine A. Elmore of Orinda and Elizabeth F. Brown of Hayward; a son, Willima F. Bruce of Paradise, Butte Co.: a sister, Mrs. Hattie Bruce Harris, who makes her home at the old homestead in Wawona, which includes the Chilnualna Falls and grotto; six grand children a great-grandchild numerous nieces and nephews.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mariposa Gazette, February 14, 1963

JAY BRUCE
A TRUE WOODSMAN

(Reference: Cougar Killer by Jay C. Bruce, 1953, Comet Press)

Jay Bruce was born Sept. 20, 1881 at the Washington Mine, three miles from Hornitos, where his father was a mechanic for the prominent Negro mining engineer and promoter, Mose Rogers. Fifth in line, he was their second son to survive.

His parents both came around Cape Horn to California. Albert Olcott Bruce, of Scotch and French descent, came with his parents when 13 years old from Scotland, to settle in Mariposa in 1852, where they set up a gunsmith business. His mother, Azealia Van Campen, born in New York, of Dutch and English ancestry, came with her family settling in Stockton and from when they moved west, first there to Elkhorn Creek, five miles west of Hornitos. She attended the State Normal School at Gilroy, and at the age of 18, with her teachers diploma, came to Mariposa to teach, met Bruce and they were married in 1872.

Two of Al Bruces's brothers in-law, Albert Henry Washburn and John J. Cook, who were promoting construction of a road and stage line between Mariposa, Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, set up headquarters at Clark's Station, formerly owned by Galen Clark.

Long on ambition and short on cash, they needed the help of a couple willing to work without regular wages. Al Bruce and his wife, with their family, including the young jay moved to Clarks station, where he constructed a water-power mill while she managed the hotel part of the business. Following a fire, when the Station burned, a new hotel was built, named by his two aunts, Jean Bruce Washburn and Frances Bruce Clark Wa-Wo-Na, (Indian for big tree) still standing and in later years simplified to Wawona.

In 1884 Al and Azealia filed for 160 acres of land adjacent to the Merced River and Chilnualna Creek. Family differences and possible competition caused his father to be dismissed from the Hotel. He left, in search of work, going from mine to mine, Princeton, Bear Valley, Coulterville, finally going to work at the Quartz Mountain, six miles form Sonora.

Grandfather Van Campen remained with them, and with scrap lumber and logs, built a cabin for the family in readiness for winter and left for his homestead on the bank of the San Joaquin River, 10 miles from Merced City. Young Jay and his brothers and sisters helped their mother fill the log cracks the best they could with discarded clothing and old newspapers. The winter was rough, and he could remember many morning waking to find snow on the face, which had drifted through some of the cracks.

The main discomfort of the family that winter was lack of fresh meat. A dreary Christmas was broken when Mary Ann, with a haunch of venison, with her little son "Injun Joe" close beside her, came to the door to present them with it as a gift from her husband, Bush Head Tom. The mother, in return, gave her a loaf of bread. This started a friendship, with the family never again without meat, and the Indian woman learning to bake and other household arts. Little Joe. always along, taught the boys to make bows and arrows, and soon they were killing lizards and small game.

When jay was nine and his brother Bert eleven, their father returned home for a longer period. he assembled three revolvers from parts saved from the gunsmith days, two 45 caliber six shooters and one 32 caliber five-shooter. Bullets were poured form a thin mental they found lining the boxes of tea, shipped from China, and discarded by the store. Because of necessity and practice, in a few months the boys could hit squirrels running up trees, and the pot was well supplied that winter, with squirrel fricassee (delicious dish rivaling mountain quail.)

His dog treed a big lynx cat, and with five bullets in his revolver, he killed his first large animal. Selling this and other pelts, also rattlesnake pelts and live, to tourists, they helped out the family. Their mother stopped them when she found out they were buttoning rattles form one snake to another , in order to acquire a higher price.

At the age of 15, while quail hunting, he bagged his first deer, with a b-b cap, accidentally hitting him just right, between the ribs.

On July 4, 1894, carelessly celebrating with a home made bomb that exploded, he received permanent scars to his face and hands, his father removing as much of the copper as possible. While disabled, eh took up trout fishing, and soon became proficient. This ability paid off getting him away from milking, and farm work which he hated. He worked and "chewed" his own flies, bent his own rods, and was able to sell all the trout he could catch as well as have several tourists pay him well to teach him his angling methods.

His way of earning a living was halted, in 1900, when commercial trout fishing was outlawed. he went to work in the oil fields, served as a hunting and fishing guide, and played a mandolin at night for dancing. Saving his money, he was finally able to enroll in the San Francisco School of Mines and Engineering. This was rudely interrupted by the San Francisco Firs and earthquake.

In 1910 he was married to the late Katherine Fournier, sister of Mariposa's well remembered Tony Fournier, a union which lasted twenty-eight years, while they raised a family, then a separation. The basic difficulty was that Mrs. Bruce wanted to live in civilization, he loved the woods.

With the responsibility of a family, Jay designed, built and operated a water power saw mill. However, with unscrupulous partners and a bad infection which caused his left hand to become crippled, the business failed.

The next several years were rough, and he started supplementing the meager family income by hunting cougars for bounty. He acquired two hunting dogs from George Wright, yellow pups, part Airedale, that were "eating him out of house and home. Jay trained them first to tree squirrel later lions and cats.

He obtained a part-time job as guide-lecturer at the tourist concession at the Mariposa Grove. During this time he sold two walking sticks (novel and expensive) with his gift of gab, to Dernard M. Baruch and Diamond Jim Brady, visitors.

In the winter of 1915, when their third child was on the way, with the eternal problem of earning a living and the high cost of groceries, Bruce made his first important lion hunt.

A light snow storm had covered the ground, making tracking easier, when he started out with his dog Eli, for Wawona Dome. With a 5000 foot contour line, where several months supply of winter feed for deer, from the Bucktorn thorn family, deer brush and mountain mahogany, were plentiful, and cave-like holes at the upper edge of the shelter made it ideal for predatory animals.

With Eli on a rope, to keep him from chasing squirrels, they found lion tracks, and came home with a kill to receive a bounty of $60 to $80. His further hunting expeditions kept the family in food and necessities. In three years he brought 31 lions to tree.

In 1918, Chief Ranger Forest Townsley introduced him to a group of influential people. Steve Mather, then director of National Parks, introduced him at a meeting, and he gave a talk, soon after receiving his "Cougar Killer" appointment, which he had tried to acquire for some time.

His first official lion hunt, with his dog Eli, was to Camp Nelson, Tulare county, where eight goats were reported killed in one night. Within 2 weeks he had bagged three lions and five lynx. in the thirty years followed, he totaled over 700 Lions. His work is credited with allowing a great increase in California deer population and making life safer for livestock in the mountains.

"Our respect to another passing Mariposa pioneer."