Catching a gator; old man McCoy; $5 on the brown horse by Stanley Nelson - posted Wednesday, May 9th, 2012 @ 5:26 am  E-mail Story |  Print Story  From atop the bluffs at Natchez, 21-year-old Englishman Francis Bailey scanned the Mighty Mississippi and noticed in the distance alligators "prowling along amongst the bushes and brambles which are in the bottom, and at times uttering the most dismal howlings." Bailey was on a tour of America. He had traveled along the Atlantic seaboard and the Ohio Valley and was in route to New Orleans. He learned shortly after arriving in Natchez in the summer of 1797 that the American gator was hard to kill and that a musket ball would hardly faze it. ..... For the full story, subscribe to the The Franklin Sun's NEW E-Edition!