The Black Moose in Pennsylvania

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.

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."

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.

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