The passenger pigeon in Pennsylvania : its remarkable history, habits and extinction, with interesting side lights on the folk and forest lore of the Alleghenian region of the old Keystone state

Front matter

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Index

Pages

Introductory Preface - -5-6

I. Retrospective Lore and Legend - 7- 10

II. Customs, Flights and Nesting

Grounds - 11- 16

III. Development, Food and Decline

— Shooting and Netting the Birds - - - - - 17- 22

IV. In Pennsylvania and Elsewhere 23- 28

V. , Observations in the Susquehanna • Valley, Told by a Pioneer Octogenarian - - - - 29- 33

VI. Some Kentucky Observations, by

Alexander Wilson - - 34- 38

VII. Comments of an Eminent Observer, John J. Audubon, in Kentucky - - - -39-44

VIII. The Romance of Numbers and Testimony of Living Men as to the Reality of Figures Considered Marvelous - 45- 49

IX. The Rate of Reproduction and

NDEX — Continued

Pages

X. Nesting Cities and Extinction of

XI. Present Day Economics and Influence as Food Supply - - 62- 66

XII. Some Information About Their 'Characteristics, Classification and Peculiarities - 67- 71

XIII. Other American Varieties Also

XIV. Some Adaptable Foreign Varieties 78- 83

XV. Their Prehistoric Environment - 84- 89

XVI. An Observer's Recollection of the Passenger Pigeon, Once so Numerous, Now Extinct - 90-109

XVII. Our Forest Followed the Passenger Pigeons - 110-122

XVIII. More About the Passenger Pigeon 123-129

XIX. “The Pioneers" - - - 130-134

XX. The Bingham Estate - - 135-139

XXI. Romances of an Old Forest Road 140-145

XXII. The Indian Marathon - - 146-151

XXIII. From Forest Lore and Observations ----- 152-155

I NDEX — Continued

Pages

XXIV. A Hit From the Shoulder - - 156-159

XXV. Biographical Outlines - - 160-167

XXVI. Biographical Data of Otis J. P.

XXVII. The Passenger Pigeon — Its Last

XXVIII. Last Survivor of Wild Pigeons,

XXIX. What Exterminated the Passenger

XXX. Flight of Pigeons - - - 216-222

XXXI. How the Passenger Pigeon Came

to an Untimely End - - 223-234

XXXII. Pigeon Flocks in Wisconsin - 235-246

XXXIII. The Dove Not a Peace Bird - 247-251

XXXIV. Stray Passenger Pigeons - - 252-254

XXXV. Wild Pigeon Hunter a Kidnapper 255-257

INTRODUCTORY PREFACE

THROUGH the kindness of its sponsor, my good friend, Col. Henry W. Shoemaker, I have had the privilege of reading the proof sheets of Mr. French’s Passenger Pigeon Monograph.

Of later time a great deal his been written upon this fascinating subject. Of necessity most of it has either related to the period of the annihilation of this remarkable bird, or to a compilation of early literature of its life history, much of which was derived from most unreliable sources.

It is safe to say that no other single publication of modern times contains as much intimate and firsthand personal observation as this regarding the habits of the Passenger Pigeon throughout the year, in aJ well defined and typical position of its breeding range. Very few statements of fact are to be questioned and many of the author’s generalizations are truly inspiring and increase our appreciation of this great tragedy in Avian history. Here, too, we find recorded, probably for the first time in literature, an authentic narration of the part this bird played in the mythology and folk-lore of the Algonquin Indians.

It is to be hoped, when the inevitable demand for a second edition of this brochure shall make its reprinting necessary, that Mr. French will rearrange his chapters to conform to their historic and chronological sequence. This will not only disarm the inevitable critcisms of the technical perceiver, but present the valuable and original contribution which he has made to the Natural History of Pennsylvania in a form more useful as well as readable to both layman and naturalist.

Not only are we greatly indebted to Mr. French for this labor of love in rescuing facts from oblivion, but our gratitude should also include Colonel Shoemaker, the publisher, whose tongue, pen and fortune have so long been devoted to research in the Natural History, Antiquities and Folk Lore of his wellbeloved State.

Samuel N. Rhoads.

Haddonfield, N. J., October 20th, 1918.

Chapter I

Retrospective Lore and Legend — Characteristics, Habitat and Description

AMONG native birds of North America the Passenger Pigeon was, in several characteristics, most wonderful, the living, pulsing, throbbing and picturesque illustration of the abundance of food, prepared by bountiful Nature, in all her supreme ecstasy of redundant production of life and energy, that the native tribes and our early pioneers ever knew, or imagined as essential to their Happy Hunting Grounds and other blest abodes beyond the veil of physical environment, where the longings of baffled minds should vanquish the fears of sinister evils and realize harmony in the triumphant existence, and the rapture of attaining the ideals of unalloyed peace.

The Passenger Pigeon ( Ectopistes migratorius ) was known, east of the Rocky mountains from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay, wherever food was abundant, and not covered by snow ; for pigeons could not endure snow, although the cold affected them little when the air was dry. They have been reported around the shores, of Hudson Bay in November, and in southern Pennsylvania, as late as the first of February, when the ground was bare and food was plentiful. Migrators seem to have been in quest of more inviting feeding grounds where food for the young could be obtained, from the forests around a nesting city, within a radius of about fifty miles.

The Passenger Pigeon was a voracious feeder. His favorite food was beedi-mast, picked up in the early spring seasons, when beginning to germinate and absorb nitrogen and carbon from the air. But the bird fed upon numerous grains, nuts and fruits, such as buckwheat, hempseed, maize, acorns, chestnuts, holly berries,- cherries, blackberries and huckleberries. While in the south, much rice made the birds fat and less active, but their extraordinary power of flight remained, for they have been killed in Pennsylvania, with crops full of rice that must have been gathered by them hundreds of miles away in the Carolinas, or in the Mississippi valley, beyond Memphis, Tenn. They could have crossed the Atlantic ocean in about three days, flying from island to island.

In color the Passenger Pigeon was attractive and) distinguished, especially in the male birds. The head, part of the neck and the chin a slate-blue; the low£r part and sides of the neck deep slate, “shot” with gold, green and purplish-crimson, changing with every movement of the bird, or in the rays of sunlight as they intensify or become obscured by passing clouds. The throat, breast and sides are reddish-hazel, the back and upper tail coverts dark slaty-blue, slightly powdered with black on the shoulders. The primary and secondary quill-feathers are black, the primary being tipped with dirty-white. The lower part of breast a pale purplish-red, and the abdomen white. The long, pointed tail had the two central feathers deep black, the rest white, taking a bluish tint near their bases, and marked with one black spot and another of rustyred on the inner webs.

The beak was black, eye a fiery-orange and a naked space around the eye was purplish-red. The female was smaller, with oaken-brown breast and ashen neck and a slaty space around the eyes. An adult male was about 16 inches long, while a female scarcely attained 14 inches, although she was as swift and tireless in flight as he was. In nest building the female did the building and her mate fetched materials — a few twigs rudely woven into a platform, so loosely that eggs and young can be seen from below and begun and finished in one day. They are neither artists nor craftsmen; for many nests fall to the ground in the winds and eggs and squabs are lost. The ground was covered with the ruins of many homes, under the nesting trees of their colonies and animals gorged upon the young birds nightly.

The Indians told quaint legends of the pigeons, when they returned, awaking an honest adoration in their hearts : The Spirits of men came upon the earth seeking incarnation, among the birds and animals, i with an appeal, “H-o, Elder Brother, the children have no bodies.” But they were unheeded, until the pigeon came and answered : “Your children shall have bodies ; my bones shall be their bones, my flesh their flesh, my blood their blood, and they shall see with my eyes.

My feathers shall cover their heads and their legs shall be bare, as my legs are bare/’ It was believed that if the hair were lost the souls could never reach the Happy Hunting Ground.

The Forest of Northern Pennsylvania

(From Altoon-a Tribune)

Following is an extract from the introduction to articles on great hemlock forests of western Pennsylvania, in “History of the Lumber Industry in the United States,” from the pen of John C. French:

“When that romantic enthusiast, Ole Bull, with 105 followers, founded the ill-starred Norwegian colony, in the summer of 1852, on the waters of Kettle creek, a tributary of the west branch of the Susquehanna, in the southeastern part of Potter county, and devoted so much of his time and energy to building his castle among the pines and hemlocks on the bank of Bull Run, an almost unbroken forest stretched away to the westward for a distance of more than 150 miles. It was chiefly mature hemlock timber arid* included several counties, embracing upward of 5,000,000 acres; but there were strips of pine fringing the streams, and ridges of hardwood timber which had succeeded the original growth of evergreens, wherever forest fires or tornadoes had destroyed it or where it had succumbed to the insect blight.”

Chapter II

Customs, Flights and Nesting Grounds— Last Appearance of Noted Birds in the Central Hardwood Belt

UPON the subjects of nesting grounds and of the migratory flights of the Passenger Pigeons the legends have been numerous and wonderful, during the last 200 years and more. Wherever the beech-mast was plentiful, which may be roughly outlined as “the central hardwood belt" and many conifer regions, surrounding the same, in which grew much beech timber in groves of many other kinds of trees. From the Niagara it ran east, then south, passing through central New Jersey; thence southwest, following the eastern and southern edge of the Piedmont plateau* to central Alabama; thence in a westerly direction into Oklahoma ; thence north through that state to, approximately, its northeastern corner ; thence continuing in a general northeasterly direction through Missouri and Illinois to the northwest corner of Indiana; thence northeast to Lake St. Clair in Michigan ; thence east through Ontario to the place of beginning.

The territory thus included embraces parts of Canada, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois and

Michigan. Entirely included within this boundary are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West 'Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. From Lake St. Clair the belt of hardwoods, including beech timber, extended in a northwest direction to the northern peninsula ; thence west to the head of Lake Superior in Minnesota, and thence north and east to the vicinity of James Bay.

Throughout this hardwood belt the Passenger Pigeons were known, and far beyond, when they sought the foods of seasons when beech-mast could not be obtained. In small flocks they spread abroad over the adjacent forest and plain to procure subsistence. Scouting flocks followed the receding snow line toward the north, in spring, to locate their favorite food for rearing their young. When it had been discovered in vast quantities, the news spread and, flock by flock, their fellows came, formed colonies in the secluded nooks of the forest, near the heads of the brooks where they loved to drink and bathe.

Nests were prepared — flimsy affairs in the treetops, consisting of platforms of twigs and sticks laid across the branches and loosely bound together — as soon as a colony had gathered in one spot. Other wards assembled in other streams near the first colony, until a city extended forty miles or more, along the chain of hills from which the streams flowed to meet some river or larger creek. The width of the city might be two or three miles or much more, sometimes twenty miles. Between the wards of the pigeon city there were avenues in the forest where no nests were

U built. These might be one mile, or five miles wide, so the actual nesting colonies occupied only 3 per cent, of the townships and counties the pigeon city was built across, sometimes much less than 3 per cent.

In early days pigeons were so plentiful that a forest would seem almost entirely occupied by nests and the roosts of numerous pigeons that had no nests. The males cover the eggs and the young about half the time and females go in separate flocks to feeding grounds. The sexes seem to be divided into shifts, for all the males at one period and all the females at another equal period. But in this there are variations, owing to distance from feeding grounds. The male is on duty while the female is away.

After choosing their mates their custom seems to be of strict loyalty to each other and so devotedly attached that when death takes one of them the other remains single. With abundance of their favorite food available, two eggs are usually laid at a nesting; but it has been averred by unimpeachable testimony that in the larger cities the general rule is, but one egg to each nest. They usually nest three or four times in summer, as they follow the snowline northward; but in winter they loaf in the southland and become fat.

The chronicles of earlier writers indicate that Pennsylvania streams all had pigeon cities in their environs, the Delaware, Susquehanna and Allegheny valleys. In 1870 there was a large city, and in 1886 the last pigeon city, along the Allegheny and its tributaries.

The winter of 1876-7 was an open one. The farmers of our northern tier counties did their plowing in December and January, and the later half of February was similar to Indian Summer; so oats were sown in the first days of March and many migratory birds remained, all winter, at the north. Heavy snow, falling in March, caused the death of many by starvation and exposure. Concerning pigeons in the southern counties of Pennsylvania Mr. Hench, of Altoona, told the story, in a letter to the Altoona Tribune, last winter, as follows :

A. L. Hench, of Broad Avenue, Altoona Writes of Great Flocks and Hunting Them at Their Feeding Grounds

Atcheson L. Hench, of 2527 Broad avenue, is numbered among the residents of this city, that hunted wild or passenger pigeons in this vicinity when they were numberous at masts in Cambria county back some forty-two years ago. In the following letter he relates some of his experiences in hunting the pigeons and throws some light on the habits of the birds :

When a boy in Perry county, Pennsylvania, I saw many flocks of pigeons in wheat planting season, and I saw their depredations on the wheat fields. In December of the year 1872, I removed to Alum Bank, Bedford county, Pennsylvania, and during the winter of 1875 or 1876, about the first of January, that portion of the Allegheny mountains, where the line dividing the counties of Cambria and Somerset is located, was visited by millions of pigeons. There was no snow on the ground during January and February of that year, and mast in the form of beechnuts and chestnuts was abundant. It was not generally known that they were there, although I lived within eight miles of this locality, until February 1. About that date, their presence became known to me and I, with others, went up to hunt for them. When we arrived, we found hunters there from Bedford, Johnstown, Pittsburg, Altoona, and even from such distant points as New York.

The pigeons roosted in the cedar swamps in northeastern Cambria county, and in the morning they would fly from their roosts and cover thousands of acres. When in flight, they made a noise like a passing freight train. You could stand for an entire day on one spot and either shoot at those on the wing or at those which settled on the trees nearby. I made several trips during the month of February and about the first of March, several of us took provisions and feed for our horses and set out, intending to make a two days’ hunt. We spent the night at the house of a friend near the feeding grounds of the pigeons. During the night, snow fell and covered the ground, burying the mast. We went into the timber in the snow, but only a few pigeons apeared. After that no more pigeons were seen, having left for parts unknown. Some people, more greedy than myself, visited their roosts at night and shot them from their perch, bringing them away by the bag-full.

At this time referred to, there were thousands of acres of virgin timber, consisting of beech, hemlock, sugar and chestnut, in the locality where the birds were seen. Since then the mountain has been denuded of large timber by the operation of large sawmills and coal operations. — Altoona Tribune.

' WILLIAM FRENCH

Of “Pigeon Lake,” Tioga County, Pioneer Hunter of Northern Pennsylvania

CHAPTER III Development, Food and Decline — Shooting and Netting the Birds

WHEREVER the cradle of the human race may have been, their migrations, we may be sure, led them by forest routes to forest countries, and it was only in recent times that the plains attracted them. Shelter and fuel were necessities, which only the forest could . furnish. Food for his meagre diet was there abundant and was his for the simple effort of taking from the great orchard of bountiful Nature, whatever appealed to his appetite and his pleasure.

Upon the north shores of rivers, lakes and seas, where the sun warmed him and where the plants responded earliest to the warm rays from that orb of the day, and chief deity in his wonder and imagination, he found his garden in full blossom, the waters swarming with fish. Succulent roots in the sandy soil supplied the starchy food he required and back in the forest, fat young pigeons fell from the trees to supply his desire for flesh and oil.

From the forest he gathered fuel for his fire, poles and boughs for a lodge to protect him from storm and cold, and weapons for defense from the serpents and predatory animals. He found fruit and nuts hanging upon the trees and the winds shook them until they dropped at his feet. In the cool water he bathed his rugged body and retired to his lodge for refreshing sleep, and to deram of further ^pleasures on the morrow; for his domain was undisturbed by envious hatreds.

He was free to devise new things for his pleasure and to read the riddle of life, as he beheld it, and to improvise, by conjecture, the laws of the narrow universe about him. No doubt, he thought himself the recipient of all the blessings known to intelligence and benevolent solicitude for his comfort. This vision was impressed upon his soul while he was passing from the shadow land of youth — race infancy — to the field of greater efforts that should develop forces in him, then undreamed of; but essential to the plan of evolution from troglodyte to responsible man. This early impression became his Happy Hunting Ground.

By observation he learned that the mysterious Passenger Pigeon returned to his forest for nesting only when food from the beech ( Fagus Americana) was in abundance — a surplus of beechnuts, over and above the quantities consumed by other birds and stored for winter use by the little animals. Compared with the conifers, all broad-leaved trees are but recent arrivals in the evolution of plant forms upon the earth; and the beech tree came at the end of that development, about the last to develop, of all our tree species that bear nuts. In recent times, then, the beech tree developed to its maximum of development and suffered a rapid decline. The passenger pigeons developed with the beech, and declined in numbers, as the beech forests, in America, shrank to very unimportant and meagre forests.

The best beech forests of our times were on intervale lands of the Ohio river ; its tributaries ; and upon the slopes of the Appalachian mountains. These gave most of the mast for squab-feeding, and we may assume that many hundred millions of the old birds — adults — existed at the beginning of the nineteenth century— 1801 — in the United States, vanishing to naught since then.

The first authorities, writing in 1810, were unaware of other nesting cities, even in Kentucky, at the same time. Wilson saw one city and Audubon saw another city at the same time, and they told so vtvdly of each one that nc/ further effort was ever considered desirable, until it was too late to make new observations— the pigeons had become extinct, or nearly so, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Only one pair of birds was reported in 1901, in Pennsylvania, and five birds were all that anyone saw in 1906.

Since then none have been seen in this country. There are pigeons in South America that resemble the passenger pigeon and have been reported as practically identical; but this has not been verified. They are, very likely, a smaller variety, living upon local food that is in such ample supply they have no need to migrate, every month or two, to find a store suitable to sustain the young of a large city. Such inaction would demand less swiftness, strength and wariness to avoid their numerous enemies — animals, birds of prey, and man with his gun, his axe to fell the trees, and his nets to ensnare the parent birds.

The primitive inhabitants of our country, the Indians, no doubt, welcomed these pigeons, when they returned in spring, and regaled themselves upon the fat squabs for a few days ; but they were unsuited for their steady diet and the Redmen soon tired of them. They would be unable to kill many of the adult birds with their primitive weapons. They respected the nesting ground and spent much time in slaying the enemies of the birds that gathered in great numbers to gorge themselves upon the young birds, as they fluttered to the ground, when learning to fly.

Then the White men came, with no legends of gratitude for a benevolent incarnation; no sacred regard for the feathers, to wear as head-dress, ornament or talisman to avoid the mysterious confusion on the way to the hereafter, that bare heads should suffer, among the shades of departed. Their legs were not bare in honor of the sacred bird that had endowed Redmen with incarnation, yielding bodies for the children, as fast as they were needed, in their old piety. Firearms, snares and great netting traps were used to get the parent birds. With axes they cut down the trees and took the squabs by tons, and tons.

There are camp-fire stories, galore, of the carnivals of the slaughter and the orgies of the feasts, when the day’s work was finished, that are better buried in the oblivion of silence, as we draw the veil over the crime of extermination that befell God’s own messenger to children of the forest. For swiftness and endurance; for mystery and mysticism, the Indians venerated passenger pigeons, above all visible and animate beings.

Their numbers fell off approximately, at the rale of ten millions each year, until, at last, only one great city existed, and that gathered in Potter county, Pennsylvania, in 1886, centered on Pine Creek, the Tiadaghton of the romantic Indian legends. Jim Jacobs, the Seneca bear hunter, was recognized as he leturned from the celebrated last stand of the Passenger Pigeons. In sorrow his shade then slept with the ancients.

The story has been told; why repeat it? Men gathered together; from the tides of the sea to the great prairies they came. All night guns boomed among the trees. The moon was red in the clouds of powder-smoke that arose. The Indian hung his head in anguish; then crept away to his fate. Next day no pigeons remained — whither?

Restoring the Forest — Vision and Prophecy

As written in 1904, after reviewing the region, in the chapters in “The History of the Lumber Industry in America,” by John C. French, we find the following:

“No effort has been made to preserve or renew the forests of the Allegheny valley, and the streams have shrunk to mere creeks or dry beds of sand and gravel in summer. The Allegheny, that once was large enough to promise navigation, is transformed to a valueless water course for this generation. When the waste places of the hills and valleys shall again become the beautiful forests that once crowned them, the streams will assume their former volume of water ; for the rainfall will remain longer in the cool embrace of the forests, to feed the innumerable springs that break forth from the rocky cliffs to irrigate the slopes and supply the streams. It is estimated that only one-half of the land that constitutes the Allegheny watershed is used or needed for agriculture. The remainder is now a waste for briars and brush, or partly grown over with ferns and grass, although in many places foreshadowing a luxuriant second growth of hardwood and giving evidence of what the reforestation might be under the skill of a forester, applied to the region.”

Chapter IV

In Pennnsylvania and Elsewhere— A Tale of Reliable Observations by John Lyman, a Pioneer

IN the annals of Potter county we find that settlement was made first in the vicinity of Coudersport, and at Roulette and at Burtville, in 1804. In the spring of 1805, late in May, a hard freeze killed all the crops and the forlorn pioneers had no seeds to replant them in their gardens and meagre fields. Floods in all the streams made it impossible to cart seeds from Jersey Shore, on the Susquehanna. John Lyman, a youth of 18 or 19 years age, offered to go by boat, down the Allegheny to Olean, or Hamilton as it was first named, where Adam Hoops had started a settlement in 1803, to get some seeds for their urgent need.

With a companion he started, at once, with food for the trip and money to buy seeds. Seven miles below Coudersport, at the mouth of Trout brook, they landed and found an Indian family, planting corn in a narrow field on the river bank, which, with the Indian cemetery, half a mile below, upon a high gravelly bank, and a few deserted lodges, was all that then remained of the Seneca’s outpost and hunters’ town of Allegheweo.

At a later date Mr. Lyman bought and cleared a farm there, where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1866 he told this story, and many others, to the writer, in great detail, as we saw thirty Senecas from their reservation in Cattaraugus county, New York, encamped upon the site of the abandoned town, during the pigeon nesting near there. The Indian cemetery was made by platforms in the trees. Afterward Mr. Lyman buried the bones, ^parched corn, arrows, bows and ornaments of the Indian dead in the gravel, near the river. It has been enlarged and incorporated as the John Lyman Cemetery, and it is the principal place of interment in Roulette township, to this day.

In late May, 1805, John Lyman bought several hundred squabs of the Indians to take to Olean and barter for the seeds he was in search of ; for there was a nesting then, near there, along Reed’s Run and on the hill west from Point Lookout, where the canyon of the Sinnemahoning was overlooked for possible intruders from the south. Smoke from their camp fires would betray their forays, for about fifty miles, to the Seneca scout and he would paddle down the river to Tununguam, their chief town on the Allegheny, nine miles below Olean, opposite to the mouth of a creek, now named Tuna Gwant, flowing past the city of Bradford and thence to the river. The Senecas would then be ready to defend their hunting grounds, when the intruders arrived.

The first night was spent by John Lyman with Cyrus Turner, at his home in a hollow buttonwood tree on the left bank of the river at Voemont — Wailing Hill — and he went through to Olean the second night, where he sold the squabs ; but found no seeds and continued down the river to Warren, Pa., calling at Tununguam on the way, where he became acquainted with John Titus, the young chief who led his braves, 1814, to Lundy’s Lane at Niagara Falls, Ontario, in one day — 80 miles— and joined the fighting Americans at sunset, the record for infantry ; and also stopping at Cornplanter’s Run in Warren county, where he met John O’Bail, known as Chief Cornplanter, the friend of the whiteman.

He found that Captain Warren had been to Pittsburg with rafts of pine lumber and, upon hearing of the freeze up the river, had hustled a boat load of fresh seeds to Warren, which had just arrived, and Mr. Lyman procured all he required and then began his arduous return trip — 100 miles up the Allegheny. With help of Indians the canoe, loaded with seeds, was poled and, in swift places, hauled by towlines, back to Allegheweo, in fifteen days, and by oxen, on sleds onward to Coudersport, and beyond, to Lymansville, where all the gardens were replanted by the 24th of June, and the ruined com fields sown with buckwheat, on and before July 4, by the rejoicing settlers.