[Illustration: 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 [Illustration of wolf] [Illustration: 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