“James White could not have eaten squirrels,” my friend insisted. There must have been a squirrel infestation, he reasoned, and James was simply trying to reduce their numbers. In September 1866, Ellen White had written to their son Edson that “we have killed one wild black squirrel per day,” adding that, “he [James] enjoys it much.”1 I wondered what evidence supported my friend’s claim, and how killing one…