The Black Moose in PennsylvaniaShoemaker, Henry W. (Henry Wharton)
History
The Black Moose in Pennsylvania
Shoemaker, Henry W. (Henry Wharton)
Moose
"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."
[Illustration of 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.
[Illustration: JIM JACOBS (1790-1880)
"The Seneca Bear Hunter," Who Found a Set of Moose Antlers in McKean
County in 1819.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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