Typical Maine Moose Head

Typical Maine Moose Head (Killed in 1902 by Samuel Merrill).
(Frontispiece)

THE BLACK MOOSE
IN PENNSYLVANIA

BY

HENRY W. SHOEMAKER

(Author of "Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns", etc.)

"The kingly Lyon, and the strong arm'd Beare

The large lim'd Mooses, with the tripping Deare,

Quill darting Porcupines, and Rackcoones bee,

Castelled in the hollow of an aged tree."

—William Wood, 1634

Altoona, Pennsylvania

Published by THE ALTOONA TRIBUNE COMPANY

1917

Copyrighted—All Rights Reserved

INDEX TO CHAPTERS

Chapter | Page
I. | Fossil Remains. | 5—7
II. | Historical Evidence. | 8—15
III. | Traditional Evidence. | 16—21
IV. | Summary. | 22—27
V. | Moose Horns. | 28—31
VI. | The Original. | 32—45

wolf

SETH IREDELL NELSON

SETH IREDELL NELSON (1809-1905).
A Hunter Possessing Definite Data Concerning the Black Moose in Pennsylvania.

I. FOSSIL REMAINS.

When the writer first visited the hunting lodge home of Seth Iredell Nelson (1809-1905) at Round Island, Clinton County, in August, 1899, he noticed a medium-sized set of moose-horns hanging on the wall of the great Nimrod's living-room. Having heard traditional stories of the occasional appearance of the Black Moose or Original in Pennsylvania, the thought flashed through his mind, "Those may be the antlers of a Pennsylvania Moose." Upon asking Nelson where the horns came from, the magnificent old hunter replied that they were Canadian horns, sent to him some years before by a party who had once hunted with him in Pennsylvania in deer season. "But," added the old Nimrod, "there once were moose in Pennsylvania." Asked if he had ever seen any, he replied that he never had, that the last were gone long before his day, but that he had killed at least 500 elk, sometimes called "grey moose" in the Pennsylvania forests. That same fall, the writer heard that a farmer named John Hennessy, about 1850, as near as could be ascertained, while grubbing stumps on the edge of the Tamarack Swamp in Northern Clinton County, had unearthed a pair of fresh looking moose horns. When Samuel N. Rhoads published his great work, "Mammals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey," in 1903, the writer found little comfort in the assumption that moose had wandered into Pennsylvania in post-Columbian days. This is what Rhoads has to say under title of "Eastern Moose": "The fossil remains of moose have been found in Pennsylvania caves. Certain statements of earliest travellers imply that the moose was found on the west shores of the Hudson River opposite New York and in Northeastern Pennsylvania. There is a Moosic in Lackawanna County; a Moosehead in Luzerne County, and Chickalacamoose in Clearfield County. In Doughty's 'Cabinet of Natural History,' Volume I, Page 281, a Philadelphia correspondent says that the horns of moose were found in a salt lick in the Allegheny Mountains, Pennsylvania, near the New York State line. These items are here noted in support of the theory that the moose in late pre-Columbian times wandered into the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania from its more favored haunts in the lake regions of New York. Miller states 'it once ranged throughout the State of New York.' If this can be verified by history it would be an interesting fact, at once removing any improbability of its range in parts of Northern Pennsylvania, quite as well suited to its needs." Rhoads further states that fossil remains of the East American Moose (Alces Americanus Jardine) dating from the Pleistocene period were found in the Durham Cave, near Reigelsville, Bucks County, and that a skeleton of Scott's Fossil Moose (cervalces scotti Lydekker) also of the Pleistocene period were unearthed from a shell marl beneath a bog at Mount Hermon, Warren County, New Jersey. It will be the purpose of the following pages to endeavor to show that the Black Moose was present in Pennsylvania as an irregular migrant or straggler within the last one hundred and twenty-five years, citing as evidence, the writings of reliable travellers and historians, and the traditions of old hunters who were themselves sons of old hunters. That it is not a case of confusion of Nomenclature, for Rhoads states that somewhere in Dr. B. S. Barton's writings the grey moose or wapiti is called the "Original," will also be demonstrated, as the old-fashioned hunters were very jealous and proud of their knowledge of the different kinds and species of wild animals.

bobcat

II. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE.

Historical evidence of the presence of the Black Moose in Pennsylvania, though not plentiful, is convincing. Dr. J. D. Schoepf, the distinguished German army surgeon and naturalist, who travelled through Pennsylvania in 1783-1784, has this to say in his "Travels in the Confederation," Vol. I, Page 161, in speaking of the vicinity of Heller's Tavern, one mile south of the Wind Gap in Northampton County: "The farmers were not well content with their lands. The nearness of the mountains brings them in Winter unpleasant visits from wolves and now and then, bears. And there is no lack of other sort of game; deer and foxes are numerous: elks wander hither at times. From several descriptions furnished by people hereabouts, it seems that they give the name Elk to the Moose as well as to the Canadian stag, and so give rise to errors. Both animals come down from the North, where one is known as Moose, Black Moose or Original, and the other (the Canadian stag) as Grey Moose to distinguish it from the first." On page 243 of the same volume, the talented author, in speaking of the Allegheny Mountains between Carlisle and Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) remarks: "The commonest wild animal is the Virginia deer: the Grey Moose, very similar to the European stag has also been seen in these woods, but it is more numerous in Canada.

C. W. DICKINSON

C. W. DICKINSON,
A Living Pennsylvania Hunter Whose Memory Retains Many Interesting Reminiscences of the Moose.

"The Black Moose or elk, is seen here but rarely." H. Hollister, in his inimitable "History of the Lackawanna Valley," published in 1857, in speaking of Tripp's Meadow, near Scranton, a hunting and camping-ground highly thought of by Indians and early white settlers, says: "Around this camp game was abundant. The elk and the fleeter moose stood among their native pines, or thundered onward like the tread of cavalry, the deer in fearless mood browsed on the juicy leaf, while the mountain sides, though stern with wilderness offered to the panther or the bear little shield from the well-poised arrow of the Indian." On Page 210, the same author says: "The Moose, from which the mountain range bordering the Lackawanna—The Moosic—derived its name, were found here in great abundance. Deer and elk, at that period thronged along the mountains in such numbers that droves often could be seen browsing upon the budding saplings or lazily basking in the noonday sun." In Doughty's "Cabinet of American History," Volume I, Page 281, a Philadelphia correspondent tells of the finding of a fresh-appearing set of Moose antlers in a salt lick near the New York State line. Investigation of this account showed that the antlers in question were unearthed in 1819 by Jim Jacobs, "The Seneca Bear Hunter," a noted Indian hunter at a swamp which was situated in Bradford, McKean County, in the center of what is now the City Park. This would show conclusively that the Moose, in post-Columbian times ranged into Northwestern Pennsylvania. If at one time they "ranged all over New York State" it would be natural that they would frequent the headwaters of the Allegheny River just across the line in Pennsylvania. But as Western New York was opened to civilization they withdrew to their hiding places in the North Woods, only venturing South when driven by severe winters and then through the last unbroken stretch of forest from the Adirondacks to the Catskills, and thence into the wilds of Northeastern Pennsylvania—keeping close to the Catskill-Allegheny Mountain backbone. Tales of the presence of the Moose in the Keystone State will also be found in "More Pennsylvania Mountain Stories," Chapter I (Reading, 1912), "The Indian Steps," Chapter I (Reading, 1912), and "Juniata Memories," Chapters IX, XXIV and XXVI (Philadelphia, 1916), by the author of these pages. Other mention of the Black Moose in Pennsylvania is occasionally made in county histories, romances and poems of the Northern and Eastern parts of the State. Careful research will undoubtedly bring further valuable references to light. The Black Moose has left his name indelibly along the entire route of his latterly migrations through Pennsylvania. There is a Moose's Wood Pond in Kidder Township, Carbon County. There were said to be Moose Ponds in Susquehanna, Wayne and Pike Counties. There is a Moosehead (in Foster Township) and Moosic Mountain—"The Imperial Moosic" of the Poet Caleb Earl Wright, in Luzerne County. In Lackawanna County, in addition to the Moosic Mountain there are two Moosics, one a town of four thousand inhabitants in Old Forge Township, the other a hamlet in Newton Township, and a Moosic Lake in Jefferson Township. There is a Moose Run in Centre County in Boggs Township; the Moshannon, i. e., Moose-hanne or Moose-stream, forms the western boundary of Centre County, dividing it from Clearfield County. The Black Moshannon, or Black Moose-stream is a creek in Centre County. In Clearfield County is found a Moose Run in Huston Township, and Moose Run Station, also Upper Moose Creek, (Lawrence Township), and Moose Creek (Girard Township). Clearfield town, the seat of justice, was formerly called Chickalacamoose. The Moshannon rises near the northern border of Blair County, at the Three Springs. In the extreme southern limit of the range there is said to be a Moose Creek in Somerset County. On account of so many small lakes in Pennsylvania having been renamed with fanciful names by influential summer colonists within the past twenty years, the historic names have been discarded, but old settlers in the neighborhoods can give the real names in every instance; in this way it is thought that eventually some of the "moose" names will be restored. In Sullivan County the beautiful and romantic Lewis' Lake was rechristened "Eagles Mere" by summer boarding-house keepers. It is held by some that Elk Lick, Somerset County, was named for the Moose, which was called "Elk" by many German pioneers, as well as for the true Elk or Wapiti. At any rate Black Moose were seen in the vicinity of this swale shortly before the Revolutionary War. Dr. C. Hart Merriman in his splendid report of the animals of the Adirondack Mountains, published by the Linnean Society in New York in 1884 states that the last moose in the "North Woods" of New York was killed on Raquette Lake, Hamilton County, in August, 1861. The height of this last specimen, which was a female, was seven feet at the hump and weighed 800 pounds. Samuel Merrill in his authoritative and fascinating "Moose Book" published in New York, in 1916, thus describes the slaughter: "A party of four men from Philadelphia, including a lawyer and a physician with two guides, were on a fishing trip in two boats. One sportsman fired a charge of buckshot into her shoulder at 50 yards' distance; another fired a charge of number 6 shot, and the guides each added a rifle ball." Among the last men in New York to kill a moose was Hon. Horatio Seymour, Governor of the State, the antlers of which were admired for many years at his home at Deerfield, Oneida County. The Governor killed his moose at Jock's Lake, Herkimer County, in 1859. Alva Dunning, a well-known hunter, killed several moose on West Canada Creek in 1860. Verplanck Colvin, State Engineer of New York, in his report on the "Adirondack Wilderness" transmitted to the Legislature at Albany in April, 1874, says: "As a matter of Zoological and general interest, I may mention that in a few of the most remote portions of the wilderness, we have met with indications of the Moose, which to some of the guides seemed unmistakable.

LEWIS DORMAN

LEWIS DORMAN (1820-1905).
Friend and Protege of Josiah Roush, "The Terrible Hunter."

This gigantic deer is, however, almost extinct in the Adirondacks, and I would suggest that it be made, in future, unlawful to kill or destroy the animal at any season." From the above it will be noted that the Black Moose held on in its Northern fastnesses for three quarters of a century after its extirpation in Pennsylvania. Moose have since been re-introduced in New York, but it is not known for certain whether the experiment will prove a success. In the Catskills, situated midway between the Adirondacks and the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, Black Moose were noticed during the first decade of the Nineteenth Century. At one time, at least, Moose were found in Connecticut, and a cow moose was killed within two miles of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1721. Jim Jacobs, the discoverer of the Moose horns in the swamp in Littleton, now called Bradford, McKean County, was one of the most interesting figures in the sporting annals of Pennsylvania. He was a grandson of Captain Jacobs, the brave defender of Fort Kittanning, and his mother was a daughter of the Seneca chieftain, Cornplanter. He was therefore of the Indian aristocracy. "The Seneca Bear Hunter," as the great Nimrod was generally called, was born near Gawango, on Cornplanter's Reservation in Warren County (the house, the oldest in the Reservation, is still standing) in 1790. From the time he was old enough to "tote a gun" he was noted as a slayer of big game. Innumerable were the elks, deer and bears that fell before his unerring rifle. On June 25, 1814, with Captain John Titus and other Senecas, he participated in the famous march, 80 miles, between sunrise and sunset, between Cold Spring on the Seneca Reservation and Lundy's Lane, on the Niagara River, participating in the battle of that name and helping to win the victory for the American forces. In 1867 he killed an elk in Flag Swamp, Elk County, that by some authorities is held to be the last native wild elk killed in Pennsylvania. He was several times married. By his first wife, according to C. W. Dickinson, he had one daughter, who died of consumption while still in her teens. By other wives he had two sons. John C. French says that probably Jim Jacobson (also a noted elk hunter) and "Dan" Gleason, the wolf hunter, were his sons. On the night of February 24, 1880, there was a great blizzard in Northern Pennsylvania. Jacobs, then in his 90th year, happened on the tracks of the Erie Railroad, near Bradford, when he was hit by a freight train and killed. P. L. Webster, an aged citizen of Littleton or Bradford, who died recently, is authority for this account of the "Bear Hunter's" taking off. John C. French of Roulette, Potter County, historian and litterateur, states that in Indian summer, 1881, while in the Seneca Reservation near Carrolltown, he met Jim Jacobs in the forest, carrying his long rifle, and that he engaged in an interesting conversation with him. He was seen by others in the Reservation up to that time and later. "But," adds Mr. French, "my seeing 'The Seneca Bear Hunter' does not prove that he was alive. The Indians were firm believers in ghosts, and if he was actually killed a year or two previously, they would have said that I merely saw his shade revisiting the favorite hunting grounds."

weasel

III. TRADITIONAL EVIDENCE.

Traditional information concerning the presence of the Moose in Pennsylvania is not lacking. Every old hunter can talk freely on the subject, and will relate what was told him by his father or his father's father on this subject. The gist of the evidence is convincing, as it all dove-tails together so nicely; it is not a heterogeneous collection of irreconcilable statements. Beginning with Seth Iredell Nelson there was not a single old-timer interrogated who had any doubts as to the presence of the animal in Pennsylvania or its identity. John Q. Dyce, probably the most intelligent and best informed of the older generation of Pennsylvania hunters, declared that the Moose had a "crossing" on the West Branch near Renovo, which they followed to Chickalacamoose and along the Allegheny summits to Somerset County. Clement F. Herlacher quotes Josiah Roush as saying to Lewis Dorman that the Moose in Pennsylvania was called the "Original" that it meant that the moose was the "ancestor" or "daddy" of the entire deer tribe. Roush, who was known as "The Terrible Hunter," trailed deer in the snow, using no weapons, killing them by running them to the water, and plunging in after them and drowning them in mid-stream.

JIM JACOBS

JIM JACOBS (1790-1880).
"The Seneca Bear Hunter," Who Found a Set of Moose Antlers in McKean County in 1819.

In one of his solitary hunts he penetrated to Pike County where he met a redman named Tahment Swasen, probably the Indian hunter of that name who was so admired by the gifted Thoreau, and who told him the meaning of the word "Original." From constant exposure in icy waters Roush became "knotted with rheumatism," finally succumbing from an attack of pneumonia at his home near Woodward, Centre County, at the early age of 45 years. Merrill in his "Moose Book" conclusively proves that the name is not original but orignal, and is derived from a Basque word orenac meaning deer. This was corrupted by the French Canadians into orignac and then to Orignal. In Pennsylvania it was Original. Swasen claimed that as the moose was the only species of deer found on all continents it proved him to be the progenitor of the entire cervine race. No trustworthy information has come to the writer that the moose bred in Pennsylvania. John Q. Dyce said: "They probably bred in the State at one time." Other old hunters made the same guarded remark. Jesse Logan, grand-nephew of James Logan, "The Mingo Orator," who was born in 1809, and died on February 17 of last year, had heard of the presence of Moose in Pennsylvania during his father's lifetime, but said it was the scarcest of all the wild animals of the Commonwealth. He had heard that in the deep pools of the Moshannon, or "Moose Stream," the moose were in the habit of bathing, performing strange evolutions when the horns of the crescent moon were up-turned, that no Indian would kill a moose at that time, that Chickalacamoose (now Clearfield) meant "the meeting place of the moose." A Moose, one of the last killed in Pennsylvania, was shot at one of these pools, and Captain John Logan (Jesse's grandfather), who lived nearby, fastened the antlers over the door of his cabin to bring good luck. "But," added Jesse Logan reflectively, "Captain Logan had bad luck every day he lived under the moose horns, and was finally put out by a white man who claimed to own the ground on which the shack stood." Generally speaking, Moose horns above a door were supposed to bring good luck. Joshua Roush stated that the moose always crossed into Pennsylvania at one particular point, near Narrowsburg on the Delaware River, from there the path led southwesterly along the Allegheny highlands clear to the Maryland line. The Wind Gap in Northampton County was evidently an outlet for the Moose to Southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Wind Gap is only ten miles as the crow flies to the mouth of Martin's Creek on the Delaware River. Very old people in that section can tell of the occasional appearance of Moose in the Wind Gap up to the last decade of the Eighteenth Century. There is a story of a moose being killed by Moravian Indians on Moose Run, Centre County, of another killed on Burgoon's Run, Blair County, and one or two driven South by dogs, slain near the Juniata in the vicinity of McVeytown, but the dates are uncertain. Jesse Logan stated that the Black Moose was not seen in Northwestern Pennsylvania in his day, but the finding of a comparatively fresh-looking set of Moose antlers at the salt-lick (now the centre of the City Park of Bradford, McKean County) in 1819, and the prevalence of the Moose-Wood or Leather-wood, show that they were present in that section probably a generation earlier. C. W. Dickinson, born in 1842, a great authority on wild life topics, who resides at Smethport, McKean County, states that when he was a boy he heard some of the old gray-haired men say that they had been told that there were Black Moose on the headwaters of Pine Creek (Tiadaghton) in an early day, but that he never heard anyone say that they saw one. That would establish the presence of Moose in Northern Potter and Tioga Counties, completing the evidence that they lived at one time along the entire "Northern Tier" of Pennsylvania Counties. It is stated that the early Scotch-Irish settlers along the Juniata River referred to the Moose as the Black Elk. It is understood that this name was sometimes applied in Ireland to the extinct "Irish Elk" (Megaceros hibernicus); it would seem that the pioneers from the Emerald Isle noted the resemblance between the palmated antlers of the extinct forest monarch dug up in their own bogs and the Black Moose of their new Pennsylvania home. There are some who claim that the Black Moose was a regular resident of Pennsylvania, breeding in the State up to the years immediately following the Revolutionary War. As names, dates and places are lacking, and in the face of documentary evidence, and the views of naturalists like Rhoads and others to the contrary, it must be regarded as the veriest tradition. According to Boyd's "Indian Local Names," Chickalacamoose, now Clearfield, Clearfield County, signifies "It comes together," or "The meeting place." As before noted, according to Jesse Logan, it meant "meeting place of the Moose," a far more plausible translation of this ancient name. In Daniel G. Brinton's "Dictionary of the Lenni Lenape," the Delaware word for Moose was "Mos." John C. French, speaking of Potter County (Northern Pennsylvania) says: "None of our oldest men ever saw a Pennsylvania Moose, though Edwin Grimes (born 1830) heard some of the old men, back about 1840, tell of having killed or hunted 'the Original' about 1770 and earlier; both in Pennsylvania and New York. Capt. John Titus, born about 1784, said in 1881—he was nearly 97 years of age—that there had been none since he could remember in Western New York or Northern Pennsylvania, except an occasional traveller from farther north. He called them 'Woodeater' and said they were also called 'original' by some, as they were the largest—seven feet high at shoulders—and were thought to be older than any other deer species, that their short necks and long legs fitted them only for feeding on trees and briars, or in water where plants floated on the surface, roots three or four feet below. My grandfather, William French, born in 1788, said they sometimes came south of the lakes in New York to the Chemung River, while he was a boy living there.

Birthplace of Jim Jacobs

Birthplace of Jim Jacobs. (Oldest House in Cornplanter Reservation, Warren County.)

The following is a memorandum of what my father told me, as he remembered, his grandfathers told him about the 'brown elk' as they called them. My great-grandfather, John G. Martin, who came from Ireland in 1775, to join the Continentals against England, and resided in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, after the war ended, for nearly fifty years, always called the 'Original' or Black Moose a brown elk. My father, born in 1818, never saw one; but his father, born in 1788, saw a few of them in Steuben County, New York, and along the Pennsylvania line in Tioga County, while a boy and spoke of them as Originals, and very rare—some of them very large."

fox

IV. SUMMARY.

Irregular Migrations—Range—Habits—Moose Birds—Moose Hunters—Final Extermination—The Last Moose.

Needless to say it is pretty well established that the Black Moose was not a permanent resident in Pennsylvania during the past five hundred years, it was not even an annual visitor, and if it bred here, it was after its migrations North were stopped by the "ring of steel" of the army of Nimrods along the Delaware. During exceptionally cold winters up to the last decade of the Eighteenth Century, the Moose moved Southward out of their permanent abodes in the Adirondack wilderness, crossing the Mohawk River at some un-named point, thence following the Catskill wilderness through Schoharie, Greene, Ulster and Sullivan Counties to Narrowsburg, where they crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania. From thence they followed the main chain of the Allegheny Mountains in a southwesterly direction through Wayne, Lackawanna, Wyoming, Sullivan, Lycoming, Clinton, Centre, Clearfield, Blair, Cambria, Bedford and Somerset Counties to the Maryland line, the extreme southern limit of their wanderings. They remained true to this path of migration, and those seen or killed in Huntingdon, Mifflin, Westmoreland or Allegheny Counties were presumably driven there by dogs or Indians; except that evidently there was a regular migration line from Wayne County through Pike County, a region reminiscent of the Adirondacks with its evergreens and ponds, on through Monroe County to the Wind Gap of Northampton County. It is not clear in the writer's mind if this was the Original's ancient route into New Jersey or that the moose noted in the Wind Gap were driven there by dogs, but it seems a fair supposition that the Wind Gap was their route of ingress to New Jersey. No record has been kept of the habits of the Moose during their sojourns in Pennsylvania. It is agreed that they were of a confiding nature, indulging in their favorite browse in close proximity to hunters' cabins. In the winter it probably comforted itself much as it would during mild winters in the Adirondacks. Moose which remained in Pennsylvania in the Springtime were fond of bathing in the deep holes of their favorite streams. The old settlers learned from the Indians when to expect the coming of the Moose by the appearance of the Moose Bird or Canada Jay (Periosoreus Canadensis). This rather thickset, more plainly plumaged relative of the common Blue Jay of Pennsylvania, visited Pennsylvania for the same reason as the Moose, the extreme cold weather in the North. Dr. W. T. Hornaday in his "American Natural History," says: "The plumage of the Canada Jay has a peculiar fluffy appearance, suggestive of fur. Its prevailing color is ashy-gray. The nape and back of the head are black, but the forehead is marked by a large white spot. The wings and tail are of a darker gray than the body. The home of this interesting bird—the companion of the Moose, as well as of forest-haunting man—extends from Nova Scotia and Northern New England, throughout Canada to Manitoba, and northward to the limit of the great forests." As they came by wing it was natural that they could reach Pennsylvania a week or ten days before the arrival of the Moose. Their coming was the signal for the hunters to get ready and many a moose that otherwise might have escaped, was forced to run the gauntlet of the forewarned and fore-armed Nimrods. Probably an occasional Moose that was belated in returning North gave birth to its calves in Pennsylvania. Merrill says that usually two or three were produced at a birth, making them the most prolific of the deer family. In the extreme Southern limits the calves were born in April. For years after the last Moose had ceased coming to Pennsylvania, the visits of the Moose Birds set the old hunters on the qui vive; as in the case of the bison in the West and the wild pigeons here, it took them a long while to realize that the Moose would come no more. John H. Chatham, the Clinton County naturalist and poet, saw a Moose bird in McElhattan, that county, in the winter of 1903. It is difficult to ascertain just who the hunters were who slew the Moose in Pennsylvania, few Indians of note were guilty of the slaughter of their beloved Original; only the starving rag-tag of the redmen helped in the final extirpation.

SAMUEL N. RHOADS

SAMUEL N. RHOADS,
The Great Authority on the Mammals of Pennsylvania.

Doubtless if a list of male residents along the backbone of the Allegheny Chain from Moosic Mountain, Lackawanna County, to Elk Lick, Somerset County, of about the year 1790 could be procured, it would be as good a roster of early Pennsylvania Moose hunters as is obtainable. Who killed the last moose in Pennsylvania is a mooted point. Jacob Flegal, a Clearfield County pioneer, is said to have killed the moose whose antlers adorned Captain Logan's cabin near Chickalacamoose, one of the Buchanans killed a moose south of the Juniata, near McVeytown, Indians killed a moose on Moose Run, Centre County (giving the stream its name); Landlord Heller's neighbors' dogs caused the death of the moose, the antlers of which hung over the main entrance of the old stone tavern in the Wind Gap for so many years. All these moose were killed during the decade between 1780 and 1790; there is no record of any having been seen since then. In other words, they were exterminated in Pennsylvania about the same time as the bison. It has been stated that "Colonel John Kelly killed the last bison in Pennsylvania in 1790 or 1800." As to definite dates, probably the moose killed by the Buchanans on the Juniata comes as near to being known as any. The old tavern which this family kept for many years was opened in about 1790. The moose was killed either that same year or the year following. For many years this tavern was known as "The Bounding Elk," being named for a Black Elk or Moose, which some years before the erection of the building, swam the Juniata nearby, but was killed before he could take harbor in the southerly forests. Dorcas Holt Buchanan, wife of "The Bounding Elk's" first landlord, was herself an intrepid Nimrod. It is recorded that on one occasion when a big deer was chased out of Matawanna Gap into the river by dogs the young woman plunged into the stream, and catching it by the horns, drowned it in a pool. Several of the habitues of the tavern cheered the plucky girl from the bench at the front door, shouting: "Go it, 'Dorkey,'" as she grappled with the terrified "Monarch of the Glen." It is related that the trick could not have been performed more neatly by Shaney John, an Indian hunter, who drowned many deer in this way, or by his white disciple, "Josh" Roush, "The Terrible Hunter" of the Seven Mountains. On another occasion while sewing by an open window one summer evening, Dorcas noticed a wolf looking in at her. Picking up the rifle, which she always kept by her side, she rammed the barrel down the frightened animal's throat. In this connection it may be well to quote Roush further on the Moose in Pennsylvania, as related to him by pupils of Shaney John. The old Indian said that he had as a boy feasted on "Moose nose," a great delicacy, and once had seen a young Moose broken to draw a sledge one particularly severe winter, at a camp near the headwaters of the Moshannon River in Blair County. The beast hauled a load of hides to the Bald Eagle's Nest in Centre County. An Indian hunter named Harthegig was the trainer, while two warriors named The Big Cat and Killbuck, accompanied the consignment to the nest. According to some authorities the European "Elk" or Moose has performed similar service in Sweden.

oppossum

V. MOOSE HORNS.

Few and far between are the traces of Moose horns in Pennsylvania. But they do exist, and probably in some remote farmhouse garret a set or two are still to be found. The writer, when engaged in antiquarian studies along the Blue Mountains accidentally learned of the last known pair. They hung for many years above the front door of Heller's stone tavern, near the Wind Gap, in Northampton County, once the famous pathway of the Moose from Northern to Southerly regions. It was related that Marks John Biddle, a celebrated lawyer of Reading, while stopping at this tavern, when on a horseback journey, noticed the horns, and asked about them of the landlord. Old Jacob Heller obliged his guest by taking them down and letting him measure them. They had a width of 78-1/2 inches and weighed a trifle over 91 pounds. Dr. Hornaday in his "American Natural History" tells of a Moose killed in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, in 1903, the antlers and skull of which weighed 93-1/2 pounds. The Record Moose Horns in the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, weigh about 92 pounds. This Record Moose was taken in the Kenai Peninsula in 1899. The late Captain F. C. Selous (recently killed in battle in British East Africa) stated that the antlers of a Moose which he killed on the McMillan River, Canada, in 1904 had a spread of 66-1/2 inches and weighed 75 pounds.

JOHN Q. DYCE

JOHN Q. DYCE (1830-1904),
A Hunter Who Delighted to Tell of the Times When Moose Were Visitors to the Wilds of the Keystone State.

Doubtless the Moose of Colonial days was a much larger animal than any specimens seen today, even the gigantic so-called "Alaskan" Moose. By studying the deterioration of European Red Deer, by the actual measurements of horns in various Continental collections and actual weights recorded in old-time sportsmen's note books, during the past three hundred years from antlered giants to puny runts, it is doubtless the same with our Moose. Like the Red Deer of Europe, the Moose of America is hunted ruthlessly for exceptional heads, and is no longer troubled by wolves which formerly pulled down the weakly and imperfect specimens; result a sure deterioration. That the predatory animals do not deteriorate in size is proved by the fact that fossil bones of wolves discovered in England are not any larger than those of European wolves of the present day. The Wind Gap moose horns were taken, Heller said, from a Moose which had been driven by dogs at a trot through the Gap, and at the Easterly end it had staggered and fallen to the roadway from exhaustion. A farmer named Adam Gross got an improvised rope and tackle, and swung the huge brute, which he averred weighed at least a ton, into his barn. It lived only a week, despite all manner of attentions devoted to it. The dead Moose was propped up astride of a fodder-shocker and exhibited in Gross's barn as long as the cold weather lasted. Heller remarked that there was another set of Moose horns on the out-kitchen of Eckhard's tavern, beyond the Wind Gap, of similar size, but they were not viewed by Mr. Biddle. Several old men hanging about the tap-room told Mr. Biddle that the Pennsylvania Moose was a creature of appalling size, the males often stood eight feet at the hump, that the spread of the horns was tremendous but the creatures handled these appendages with great dexterity. Marks John Biddle, let it be said, was one of the very few gentlemen hunters of his day in Pennsylvania. In his stable at Reading he had a room fitted up as a museum, with cases all around the walls filled with stuffed animals and birds that he had shot. On top of the cases were stuffed panthers, one of which had a white spot on its breast, and above hung the antlers of deer and elks. Mr. Biddle was particularly fond of elk hunting, and is the gentleman who hunted elks "on some barren mountains in Northwestern Pennsylvania" in company with Mr. Peale of Philadelphia, which has been so often quoted by natural history writers. De Kay in his "Natural History of New York" mentions a set of what were probably Adirondack Moose horns in the Lyceum of Natural History in New York as being 48 inches in width. Beside the Pennsylvania horns at Heller's tavern they would have appeared like pygmies. Charles Augustus Murray, the distinguished English traveller thus describes the Wind Gap. "From Owego to Easton the country is undulating, wild, wooded and the soil light and poor. A few miles from the latter town the road passes through the Blue Ridge of mountains at a point called the Wind-Gap; and a most noble situation it is for a temple of Aeolus. I know not the exact elevation, but it is very high, and being the only gorge in the neighborhood, the wind sweeps through it with tremendous violence." It may be that in the bleak winds of today can be detected the shrill whistle of the vanished Moose, the stalwart Orignal of other days. As stated in previous chapters moose horns were found in St. James Park, Bradford, about 1819, embedded in the slough of the old salt lick, another set was dug out of the Tamarack Swamp, in Northern Clinton County, by a farmer named John Hennessy about 1850, and another set adorned the lintel of Captain Logan's cabin at Chickalacamoose the last years of the Eighteenth Century. This last named Moose is said to have weighed, including antlers, over one thousand pounds after death. According to some it was killed by Logan himself, by others it was claimed that pioneers named Smith and Flegal were the slayers. It is to be hoped that information leading to the discovery of other sets of Pennsylvania Moose horns will be forthcoming.

weasel

VI. THE ORIGINAL.

A Tale of Kittanning Point.

Reprinted from "Juniata Memories," by Henry W. Shoemaker.

(Copyrighted by J. J. McVey, Philadelphia, 1916.)

Kittanning Point is a spot pre-eminent in Pennsylvania song and story. As a pivotal point in history it will always be remembered; as a scenic glory it is the envy of all the States. And in legendary lore it holds a secure place, for clustered about it are many weird and curious traditions, some of which still linger only in the hearts and minds of the old folks. Those few of the tales which have been written out are read and re-read with breathless interest. Still there are others unrecorded that possess a thrill or charm worthy of competent chroniclers. History tells us that many Indian paths converged at Kittanning Point, including the main pathway from Aughwick to Fort Kittanning, consequently it was a frequent meeting place of the savages in their journeys across the mountains. They often camped near the springs in Kittanning Gap, or on Burgoon's Run, and many are the arrow points and other relics picked up thereabouts by persons of quick wit. In addition to the Indian paths, the Point was a favorite "crossing" for many kinds of wild animals. While out of the line of the bison, whose main trails were further east and further west, these noble creatures sometimes summered on the high mountains in small bands, coming to and from their fastnesses through the Gap.

Dr. Owen Jacobs and son Ezra

Dr. Owen Jacobs (at right) and son Ezra (late of U. S. A.)
Descendants of Captain Jacobs, of Fort Kittanning Fame.

It was a favorite rallying ground for the elk and deer. They were so plentiful in Revolutionary days that all the hunters had to do was to penetrate the forests a few steps from their camps in order to have venison for dinner. And at that only the hindquarters or the saddles were used. A few elk lingered long in this region, ranging between the Point and Laurel Ridge, where one of the last killed in the State was slain at the Panther's Rock, in Somerset County, about the middle of the last century. Panthers also had a "crossing" over Kittanning Point. It was on one of their "migratory lines" between West Virginia and Central Pennsylvania. They always traveled by the same paths, consequently a hunter with a fair degree of patience would surely be rewarded. This "fixity" of travel was one of the reasons for their practical extinction in our Commonwealth. The wolves were prevalent at the Point until comparatively recent years, principally on account of the abundance of game. When it decreased, they left for more productive regions. Bears were often found about the Point, as the fine chestnut and walnut trees gave them rich "pickings" in the autumn months. In the Gap were several bear dens, which are still pointed out by the old hunters. These bears were all of the black variety. But most interesting of all the wild life, large and small, which ranged over these now desolated hills was the Black Moose. This mammoth animal, known in pioneer days in Pennsylvania by the quaint name of the Original, and elsewhere as Orignal, which is derived, according to Samuel Merrill, the great authority on Moose, from the Basque word Orenac meaning deer, was particularly partial to the glades and vales about Kittanning Point in the years immediately preceding the Revolution. In fact, its path for migration passed over the Point in a southwesterly direction. In these migrations these huge beasts made a practice of tarrying for several days amid the grand primeval hardwoods which covered the Point. Despite its size, for it is the largest of all deer, extinct or existing, the Original was very fleet of foot and well able to take care of itself. As far back as tradition goes there is no record that the moose ever bred in Pennsylvania to any considerable extent. They were distinctively a northern animal, though they had been coming to this State for untold ages, as their fossil remains well show. Pennsylvania was about the southerly limit of their migrations. After Southern New York had been opened to settlement, and the forests between the southern border of the Adirondack Mountains and the Pennsylvania State line cut away, the moose were unable to continue their journeys into the wilds of the Keystone State. The last to enter Pennsylvania came from the Catskill Mountains, crossing the Delaware River at various points north of the Water Gap.

CLEMENT F. HERLACHER

CLEMENT F. HERLACHER,
Whose Mind Is a Veritable Store House of Traditions of "Moose Days."

When the migrations ceased those moose already in Pennsylvania had to remain there, and they were cruelly butchered by the settlers. Perhaps on account of their all-time scarcity in our State, the early Indians seldom killed the Original. They looked with veneration on this gigantic brute, viewing it as the dignified progenitor of elk and deer, which formed their staple articles of life. To have a moose browse in the vicinity of an encampment presaged victory in war, to find a moose head or antlers in the forest, good luck in the chase or domestic life. The moose stood for all that was biggest, noblest and best in Indian life, it typified all outdoors, the grand free scope of the wilderness. To single out such a splendid animal for slaughter, while all around were myriads of deer, herds of elk, companies of bears and countless smaller game, seemed to the Indian mind, with its Mosaic sense of justice, almost a sacrilege. Consequently the moose were never killed unless in dire necessity, or in the later days of the Indian race when they were desperate and had lost many of their former ideals. But it was galling for them to see the white men slay moose without quarter, to see them disregard sporting standards that had been maintained for centuries. Among the proudest and shrewdest Indians residing in the Juniata Valley was Young Jacob, the youngest son of the knightly defender of Fort Kittanning, Captain Jacobs. Inborn was his mistrust of the white men, whose wanton destruction of forests, game and fish went hand in hand, he felt, with the complete annihilation of his own race. He resented the friendly advances made by the newcomers to the copper-colored aborigines. He held aloof from all gatherings where the two races apparently fraternized together. He would listen to no compliments, accept no favors from the white men. He never forgave the wrongs of his own family. James Logan, or Tah-gah-jute, was the only other Pennsylvania Indian who held similar views to a marked degree. He often told Young Jacob as they rested under the shade of the giant white oaks at Logan's Spring, near Reedsville, that the white men wished the entire Indian race under the sod, and would put them there as soon as they could. "Some of us," he declaimed tragically, "they will kill with bullets, others of us they will kill with poison called rum, our women and children they will starve to death." Logan's greatest sorrow was that he could not impress his ideas on the other Indians. They laughed away his fears, drank the white man's bad whiskey, bartered and played with him on all occasions, suspecting nothing, fearing nothing. Logan would go on to say that a hundred years in the future, when the proud Indian race remained but as a faint remnant of its former strength and greatness, his words would prove true, but now he was looked upon as such an anarchist that he could not even impress his own brothers, Thachnedoarus, or Captain Logan, and John Petty Shikellemy. But Young Jacob shared Logan's views to the minutest detail; he was intuitive, and he had proofs of the white man's perfidy. Never could he be influenced by soft speeches or tawdry gifts. He would be a true redman of the forest, uncorrupted to the last. He had as one of his special missions in life to save the wild animals and birds of the Juniata Valley from extermination. He traveled up and down the three branches, preaching toleration, moderation, conservation, among the drink-ridden Indians, who still lingered at their old hunting grounds. He begged them to cherish their old ideals, only to kill such game as was absolutely necessary for food and clothing. Even if the white men killed right and left, and permitted dead game to rot in the woods, which they called "sport," the Indians should kill moderately, as they did in the past, for was not the wild life a gift from the Great Spirit, and should be carefully tended as such? But most of his preaching fell on deaf ears. Homeless, drunken savages were out of touch with the high principles of the past; they wanted to kill just as their white corrupters were doing. Young Jacob was like an echo from the past, a past so distant that it hardly seemed possible ever to have existed. And once in a great while Young Jacob argued with white men on the impropriety of wasting wild life. Sport, as defined by the Indians, meant harmless pleasure, physical exercise, feats of skill, fun, the chase, but never wanton destruction of any gift of the Great Spirit. But the white men could not see it that way, as long as they had guns they liked to practice on living targets, to see how many animals or birds could be killed in a day or hour, besides game was a nuisance in a rapidly developing country. The game was in the woods to be killed, and if they did not kill it, somebody else would. And they laughed in Young Jacob's face as the price of his pains. All this served to deepen his hatred for the cruel white men who claimed they were "civilizing" the Juniata Valley, but to his mind desolating it. It grieved Young Jacob to see the Indians yielding to the white men's false titles and moving westward without a protest. He longed to fire their hearts with a sense of their wrongs, and lead them in a bloody war against their foes. With this in view he traveled up and down the valley, preaching a gospel of resistance. And sometimes he crossed over into the Allegheny headwaters beyond Kittanning Point. Almost every Indian was content to follow the white men's orders and move on, but occasionally he met one who was sober enough to realize the terrible injustice of it all. But the Indians who felt that way would say: "What you state is true; we are being robbed and murdered; but what can we do when the majority of us is willing to submit?" It was a hopeless task, the Indians were a doomed race. Still Young Jacob's energy was inexhaustible, he would not admit his teachings fruitless. He continued his missionary work, trusting that some spark from his torch of hate might kindle the unhappy red race to a last defiant stand. He carried on his work so quietly that none of the white men in authority suspected that he was any more than a surly, disgruntled savage, as befitted the son of a defeated Indian chieftain. And he was glad that they felt that way about him.

HON. HORATIO SEYMOUR

HON. HORATIO SEYMOUR.
Governor of New York 1852-1854, 1862-1864.
(Slayer of One of the Last Moose in New York State, 1859.)

Otherwise there would be a price on his head, or he would be ordered out of Pennsylvania on pain of death, like was meted out to the resisting Logan. He played his part better than Logan had done, and it gratified his savage heart. It was on one of his homeward trips from the Allegheny River that he shed the first white blood, which put a price on his head, and made him a skulking exile to the last of his days. He had been visiting the abandoned Indian settlements at Logstown and Kittanning, at the last-named important town viewing the grave of his defeated but not dishonored father, Captain Jacobs. This chieftain, named for a German ironmaster in Lancaster County, was one of the most heroic Indians in all the annals of the red race in Pennsylvania. He had followed the Indian trail across the mountains, his ultimate destination being Black Log Valley and Standing Stone. Near Kittanning Point, on Burgoon's Run, he had built a lean-to of boughs, expecting to be joined there by a couple of Indian spies who had gone down the Allegheny River in a canoe, and were to travel eastward by way of Laurel Ridge. On the night of his arrival, to his great pleasure, a giant moose ambled out of the forest and began leisurely browsing on the twigs of the moosewood trees which formed an undergrowth of the great hardwood forest. Apart from his delight in watching the monster's antics, as he bent down the trees and nibbled at the tenderest twigs, much as an elephant would feed, was the feeling that the beast foretold that the propaganda which he was promoting would some day become a reality. The moose saw the Indian, and looked at him with his comical little eyes, but he had perfect confidence that the redman meant him no harm. For several days and nights the mammoth animal made the vicinity of Young Jacob's camp his headquarters. He became so used to the Indian's presence that he kept as close to him as if he had been a big mule. On the evening of the third day Young Jacob was getting ready to start on his journey, as evidently his Indian friends had been detained or gone by a different route. His chief regret was at leaving the moose, which stood munching at the succulent twigs. He liked to travel by night, it was cooler, and as he knew every foot of the way he could travel further. While he was adjusting his pack on his back he heard the twigs crack and looked up. Perhaps it was another Original, and he had been camping in a moosic rendezvous! But instead of another moose he saw a solitary white man, clad in a green shirt, buckskin trousers, and moccasins, and carrying a long rifle. It is hard to tell whether the newcomer saw the Indian or the moose first. In any event he raised his firearm and took aim at the unsuspecting animal, which kept on browsing. When Young Jacob saw the white man's intentions, he stepped forward, saying politely, for all Indians, past and present, have been noted for their courtesy, "Brother, don't kill that moose. The woods are full of deer, if you are hungry, and the moose is a pet of mine." But the white man only sneered, and pulling the trigger, the ball sped with unerring aim, lodging in the big Original's heart. With an awful bellow of pain, mingled with surprise, the animal turned and charged on his white destroyer. The hunter, who reloaded his gun deftly, let the moose get within a few feet of him, when he fired again, but the big brute had been already mortally wounded, and fell without the aid of the second shot. With a sound like a falling pine the Original crashed to the earth, lying dead among the ferns and hazel bushes, his wide-spreading palmated antlers stretching out on either side like the knives of a reaper. Planting one foot on the dead animal's swarthy proboscis, the white man struck a silly attitude. Young Jacob, supposed savage, yet in reality a model of gentility and toleration, looked at him a moment in disgust. Then calmly he asked him what he intended to do with the mammoth carcass in the middle of summer. The white man stroked his long beard a moment and said, with a great show of insouciance, "Why, of course, leave it. What else could I do with it?" That was too much for the fair-minded Indian. The white man had killed a harmless moose for "sport" and now was going to leave it to rot and feed the ravens. He could contain himself no longer, and cursed the paleface roundly for his folly. "Why," he shouted, "that moose was around my camp for three days and nights, happy and doing no harm, and I thought no more of shooting him than I would the little singing birds in the trees above. We Indians only kill when we have to; we have sense." The white man's temper was equally aroused, and he swore at the Indian in turn. "You say you Indians only kill when you have to. You are damn fools. We white men kill when we want to, and intend to kill everything before we get through." With that he raised his rifle threateningly. But Young Jacob suspecting such a motive, and forgetting that the white man had not reloaded his weapon, pulled his own trigger first, and the paleface fell to the earth, a bullet through his lungs. When the redman saw what he had done he showed no remorse, until on picking up the white hunter's rifle he found it empty. Then he threw down his own gun and went to the dying man's side. Stooping down he said to him: "White man, I cannot call you brother now. I am sorry for what I have done. I did not remember that your gun was empty." But the white man, rolling his eyes which were glazing with death and staring at his slayer, cursed the Indian with his dying breath, then closed his eyes in death. As he passed away Young Jacob was leaning over him, and muttered, "Now you know how it feels to be in the moose's place." The die was cast. Young Jacob had now been added to the list of Indian murderers. It would be a waste of time to bury the dead man, the wolves would dig him out. The crime would be discovered sooner or later. So, without deigning to rifle the corpse's pockets or touch his gun and powder horn, he left him lying in the now profound darkness, within a dozen feet of the dead moose. It was there that the two Indians, arriving from Laurel Ridge found the body the next morning. Though they suspected some such episode as what had actually happened, knowing Young Jacob's nature so well, they seized upon it as a good excuse to curry favor with the white men. So they went through the dead man's effects, finding documents which identified him as Jacob Glelson, an adventurer and land prospector from Pennsbury on the Susquehanna. From the look of things he had been shot down by an Indian, Young Jacob, in cold blood. They made haste to report the crime when they arrived at Standing Stone. The virtuous Proprietary Government, on the alert to avenge a white man's death, but sometimes singularly apathetic when an Indian was slain, no matter what the circumstances, set its wheels in motion to apprehend the savage murderer. A reward was offered, and the news spread to the four corners of the wilderness. Young Jacob sensed this situation perfectly, and made himself a fugitive. When the pursuit became too hot he allied himself with the Tories and was one of the real leaders of that treacherous band. The contempt which the settlers once had for him changed to fear. Many were the white men ambushed and cruelly slain by his direction. His youth, his dash, and his close relationship to the old chiefs gave him the sobriquet of "the king's son." He seemed to be the active agent for all the devilish conduct of Indians and white renegades. The government was most anxious to apprehend him to atone for Glelson's "murder," and to remove the ring-leader of so many bloody deeds. It had not been forgotten how Young Jacob's father and his warriors had been rounded up at Kittanning by a force of three hundred intrepid men sent after them from Fort Shirley, under the command of the famous Colonel John Armstrong, for whom Armstrong County was named, and to whom the city of Philadelphia presented a silver medal for his great victory. It was in the month of September, in the year 1756, when the attacking force surprised the Indian band at three o'clock in the morning. They had been guided to the town through the darkness by the whooping of the Indians, who were holding a war-dance. Young Jacob had urged them to save their energies for a better purpose, but to no avail. And it was he, with clearer senses than the rest, at dawn first noticed the attacking party crossing the corn field which bordered the settlement. Rousing the sleepy-eyed defenders, he posted them at the loopholes in Captain Jacob's redoubt. A shot from Young Jacob's rifle wounded Colonel Armstrong in the shoulder, and he fell in a heap. Directing the forces from where he lay, he ordered that the Indians' huts be set on fire, as the redmen refused quarter. The redmen mocked their efforts to fire the buildings, but some of the soldiers with reckless bravery were able to start the blaze going at one corner of Captain Jacobs's house. During a lull in the firing the old chieftain, his squaw and Young Jacob, "the king's son," attempted to escape from the burning building through a window nearest the river. Captain Jacobs, in assisting his squaw through the window, was shot in the head and he fell back dead amid the smoke. The squaw plunged bravely into the water, but was shot dead. Young Jacob, not wishing to die a coward's death, sprang through the window and reached the opposite shore of the river before he fell wounded, pierced by half a dozen balls. The first reports had it that he was killed. A party of Indians who arrived on the far shore after the battle was in progress, at the risk of their lives rescued the courageous young warrior and carried him back into the forest. There in a dismal glade, in a haunt of night herons, he was nursed back to health, as befitted "the king's son." But after years of plotting Young Jacob was shot to death ignobly with Weston and his Tories, when they were surprised at Fort Kittanning Gap in 1778. And thus ended the earthly career of one of the most remarkable Indians of the Juniata, an unreconcilable to the last, fighting for the ancient ideals, for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And when the report was sent broadcast that Young Jacob was among the fallen, the slaughter of the Tories at Kittanning was accounted doubly a victory. But when James Logan, or Tah-Gah-Jute, heard the news out in Ohio, he grieved silently and long. He thought of the old days in Pennsylvania, at the "Logan Spring" where at his favorite resting place, he had spent so many hours in conference with the dead warrior. And his grief was deep, because he knew that the Indian race had lost its sincerest champion; that the hoped-for renaissance would never be.

ringed-tailed cat, raccoon relative

Transcriber’s Notes

page 24, Orignal changed to Original (slaughter of their beloved Original)

page 26, wnite changed to white (by his white disciple)

page 28, Peinsula changed to Peninsula (Kenai Peninsula in 1899)

Sentences divided by illustrations were reconnected and the location of the illustration adjusted.