The Black Moose in PennsylvaniaShoemaker, Henry W. (Henry Wharton)
History
The Black Moose in Pennsylvania
Shoemaker, Henry W. (Henry Wharton)
Moose
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,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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