CASTING DEEP SHADOWS
Every afternoon [the pigeons] came sweeping across the lawn, positively in clouds, and with a swiftness and softness of winged motion, more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew. Had I been a musician, such as Mendelssohn, I felt that I could have improvised a music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which should have indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them.
—MARGARET FULLER, ON THE ROCK RIVER NEAR OREGON, ILLINOIS, 1843
Unlike such natural spectacles as the geysers of Yellowstone or the herds of bison grazing across the rolling grasslands of the Great Plains, one did not have to travel to remote districts to see passenger pigeons. In their movements across the eastern half of the continent, these birds cast deep shadows over Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago, Louisville, and other cities. The pigeons did not appear everywhere every year, and their abundance ebbed over the decades from east to west as the forests upon which they depended gave way to agriculture and economic development. But as long as there were large flocks, most anyone had the chance to experience the intense emotions evoked by this bird. For most of the Midwestern cities, this chance lasted through the late 1860s and early to mid 1870s.
Philip Hone, mayor of New York City from 1826 to 1827, assiduously maintained a diary for thirty-one years, leaving to future generations a detailed glimpse of that time and place. Through reading and listening to friends, he had long been familiar with the aerial splendor of passenger pigeons on the move, but he did not get to see the sight himself until November 4, 1835, while in Mattawan, New York: “They came from the west, and crossing the valley where I was, passed the top of the mountains and went to the south and east. The air was filled with them; their undulation was like the long waves of the ocean in a calm, and the fluttering of their wings made a noise like the crackling of a fire among dry leaves or thorns. Sometimes the mighty army was scarcely visible in the bright blue sky, and in an instant a descent of astonishing rapidity brought them so low that if we had been provided with guns, it would have been literally ‘every shot a pigeon.’” He was pleased to have finally observed the spectacle, in part because he would thereafter be able “to talk ‘pigeon’ with Audubon, in his own language.”18
The residents of Columbus, Ohio, reacted to a large flight of passenger pigeons not with wonder but fear. One warm spring morning in 1855 the people of that city were going about their usual routines when they first noticed “a low-pitched hum” that slowly engulfed them. It grew louder, as horses and dogs began fidgeting. Then just within the limits of vision, wispy clouds appeared on the southern horizon: “As the watchers stared, the hum increased to a mighty throbbing. Now everyone was out of the houses and stores, looking apprehensively at the growing cloud, which was blotting out the rays of the sun. Children screamed and ran for home. Women gathered their long skirts and hurried for the shelter of stores. Horses bolted. A few people mumbled frightened words about the approach of the millennium, and several dropped on their knees and prayed … Suddenly a great cry arose from the south end of High Street. ‘It’s the passenger pigeons! It’s the pigeons!’ … And then the dark cloud was over the city … Day was turned to dusk. The thunder of wings made shouting necessary for human communication.” When the flock had finally passed almost two hours later, the town looked ghostly in the now-bright sunlight that illuminated a world plated with pigeon ejecta.19
The many pigeons that flew over Cleveland in early March of 1860 provided an opportunity to perform a unique and cruel experiment. The owner of one of the local fireworks houses decided to see how the birds would react to hissing skyrockets in their midst. He launched several heavy missiles into a large group of birds, causing the flock to divide and scatter in various directions. Some landed and wandered about in seeming panic. The explosion of one projectile just below a flock caused the birds to rise until they were no longer visible. Many of the birds that opted for the ground were caught by boys. No mention is made that the rockets caused any direct avian fatalities, but all those present “enjoyed the sport as peculiarly original and well worthy the Spirit of the Times.”20
Chicago is a good place to look at the pigeon flights over time. Being on the southern end of the only Great Lake on a north/south axis made it a particularly advantageous location to observe bird migration. Over the nineteenth century, the city grew at a rate matched by few if any others. From 1840 to 1870, the population increased from 4,470 residents to 298,977. By 1890, it would exceed a million.
A newspaper story from September 17, 1836, reported that within the past several days “our town was swarming with pigeons, the horizon in almost every direction was black with them.” Nineteen years after that, yet another article claimed “a flock of pigeons, over six miles in length,” crossed the city’s skies. The species was still considered a “very abundant” migrant and nester in small numbers up to 1876. Another observer gives May and June of 1881 as the last time “they were at all abundant in Cook County,” where the city is located.21
The last big pigeon flight I know of in the region appeared in the spring of 1871 over the South Shore Country Club, a marshy area that back then was just southeast of Chicago, as it had not yet been annexed by the city. A hunting party arriving there that spring learned that ducks were largely absent but the jacksnipe were plentiful. In less than an hour they had bagged “as many birds as the right kind hunters care to kill.” After a leisurely lunch of roast snipe and ample libations, the men headed back. The driver suddenly pulled to a stop and pointed to a dark cloud heading quickly toward them. One of his passengers readily identified the cloud as wild pigeons and exhorted the driver to accelerate so they could be close enough to do some unexpected shooting. But it was not to be, as when the flock spied Lake Michigan, it headed east and away from the hunters.22
According to Henry Eenigenburg, who lived next to the Calumet marshes on Chicago’s southeast side, the fall of 1871 marked the end of the passenger pigeons as a common nesting species at the south end of Lake Michigan. The birds, he said, used to nest in the white pines that were still common in the Indiana Dunes. (These were clearly not in the huge nestings that occurred elsewhere but in the smaller configurations that few observers seem to have described in much detail.) But virtually no rain fell that summer, so that by September the entire region flanking Lake Michigan was a tinderbox. On October 8 the flames erupted and burned for several days. Peshtigo, Wisconsin, lost 1,152 people, and four square miles of Chicago became ash and rubble. Eenigenburg claims millions of pigeons also perished, which is doubtful, but the habitat that attracted them did suffer. Perhaps worse than the impacts of the fire itself was that little standing timber, particularly the highly coveted white pine, would survive the rebuilding of Chicago.23
RARE BIRDS: THOSE WHO PROTECTED AND APPRECIATED PASSENGER PIGEONS
If the laudable quest for survivors of the species proves not forlorn, we trust our boasted humanity will hold the protection of this beautiful bird to be a most sacred trust—an attitude rarely taken in the day of its abundance.
—ALBERT HAZEN WRIGHT, 1911
In the extensive passenger pigeon literature prior to the 1870s, many marveled at their numbers and movements and admired their beauty, although these sentiments were often uttered as the author participated in helping bring about the bird’s extinction. Most statements of affection or appreciation were published only after the pigeons had disappeared. Although people kept live passenger pigeons as food, targets, and flapping decoys, for a bird so abundant, hearty, and innocuous (at least as individuals), there are surprisingly few mentions of them as pets. But the exceptions do exist, and they stand out as tiny islands in the sea of carnage.
Thomas McKenney was a Quaker, a pious man whose career became entwined with the treatment of Native people. Although he lamented that they were not being treated with the humaneness and justice they deserved, he also supported Preside
nt Jackson’s brutal Indian-removal policy, which with respect to the Cherokee even countermanded a Supreme Court decision. Despite McKenney’s inconsistencies, his impulse toward the humane seems to have been stronger than that of most and stoked by his faith.
During the summer of 1826, McKenney left Washington, D.C., to become part of a delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Fond du Lac, then a post of the American Fur Company that would later become Duluth, Minnesota. He and his party of forty-three met with the Chippewa in a successful effort to get them to open some of their land to mining. As the armada of voyageur canoes headed back from Fond du Lac, they broke into small groups, traveling at different speeds and taking slightly different routes. At six in the morning of August 14, McKenney’s boat and its companion were within sight of Keweenaw Point. The wind strengthened, Lake Superior foamed, and the crews struggled to keep their vessels on course. At that moment, a solitary bird, laboring to stay above the chop, was seen first heading toward the other canoe and then began following McKenney’s. With a final burst of energy, it reached the upper yard, where it landed. As one of the paddlers raised his oar to strike the waif, McKenney grabbed his arm to stop the blow.24
The exhausted bird was handed to McKenney: “It was too feeble to fly. Its heart beat as if it would break. I took some water from the lake with my hand, into my mouth, put the bill of the little wanderer there, and it drank as much as would have filled a table spoon … It seemed to have sought my protection, and nothing shall cause me to abandon it.” He looked about for a suitable container for the bird and placed it in a mocock (a kind of box) that had been given to him as a gift. He went on to speculate: “This is a member of the dove family, and the ‘travelled dove’ of the voyage. Is it a messenger of peace?—Why did it pass one canoe, and turn and follow another? Why come to me? None of these questions can be answered. But of one thing this poor pigeon is sure—and that is, of my protection; and though only a pigeon, it came to me in distress, and if it be its pleasure, we will never part.” A few hours later, the party stopped to rest. McKenney noticed three Indians pounding corn between two rocks. They accepted his offer of tobacco for some of the corn, which he then fed to the bird, which gulped it eagerly.
The published account of this trip appeared a year later and included this touching footnote: “The pigeon called by the Chippeways Me-me, and by which name, it is called, is yet with its preserver—tame, and in all respects domesticated. It knows its name, and will come when called.”
Another writer, identified only as F., tells of his journey through the Great Lakes in July of 1847 on the vessel St. Louis. The passengers comprised a distinguished group that included writers, editors, politicians, and clergy. They departed Chicago on July 7 bound for Green Bay, as they lazily made their way toward Buffalo. After stops in Milwaukee and Sheboygan, the boat continued northward until they reached the first opening to Green Bay. Dawn was breaking, the sun tracing wispy clouds in polished gold: “Everything around us was so calm, so bright so peaceful.” The aura of tranquillity was suddenly enhanced by the appearance of a bird that symbolized peace like no other: “Peace’s chosen emblem, with an arrow’s speed, flew over us, and alighted not on a lovely lady’s bosom, but on one of the iron rods extended between the smoke-pipes.”25
F. waxed lovingly on this dove, not a “lumpish ungraceful” domestic rock pigeon, but “something far prettier: —a blue, free, fleet wild pigeon—a thing like Cora, untameable, and given to wild flights, but of a truly gentle disposition.” Everyone on board took pleasure in the presence of the tired bird, hailing its appearance as a happy omen. John Smith, a fellow voyager familiar with the Great Lakes, explained that birds of all kinds were often found floating on the deep waters of Lake Michigan, and on occasion gales and deep fog claimed even passenger pigeons, otherwise noted for their speed and endurance.
As the passenger pigeon maintained its post, concern mounted among the observers that the heat of the pipes would prove untenable for the bird. Its drooping wings and an open bill eventually drove a sympathetic editor to grab a fishing pole; he wished to save the visitor by dislodging it from its torrid perch. Smith reached out and stopped him, however, pointing out that fatigue posed a greater threat to the bird than the heat. If it was otherwise, the pigeon would surely have left on its own. Sure enough, with the elapsing of half an hour and the increasing proximity to shore, the bird “launched into the air and sought the pleasant green-wood shade.”
From Pennsylvania come tales of property owners objecting to the felling of their timber to get at passenger pigeons. They had no interest in the birds, however, but were merely attempting to halt the wanton destruction of their valuable property. Unique in the passenger pigeon annals is the short memoir written by Richard W. Wharton of Joaquin, Texas. His maternal great-grandfather John Clinton Payne immigrated to the United States from England in 1841. He wanted to see the frontier so he moved west from Virginia and settled down near Shelbyville, Texas, three years later. Through cabinetmaking and farming, he eventually amassed holdings in excess of seven hundred acres, some of which was old-growth forest and some an open area called the Old Prairie.26
While growing up in England, Payne developed a lifelong affection for birds. Fortunately, Payne’s property held extensive tracts of maple and water oak (probably Quercus nigra), which drew large flocks of passenger pigeons in the fall. Unlike most landowners, he aggressively protected the pigeons on his land: “On one occasion, he caught two poachers with a sack of pigeons. With the three hired hands with him, they surrounded the poachers. My great-grandfather confiscated the birds, gave the two poachers a brief, intense sermon on the evils of poaching, issued them a diploma along with a few bruises.”
The experiences of Joseph Dodson of Kankakee, Illinois, also stand alone in the relations of passenger pigeons and humans. Dodson became known for the birdhouses he built and sold, including his ninety-room, 490-pound purple-martin mansion. In his eighties, he wrote his recollections of growing up in Alton, Illinois, where the Illinois River joins the Mississippi. Pigeons by the millions streamed over their house, and hunters killed them in tremendous quantities. The Dodson family, repelled by the slaughter, sent young Joseph out with a small basket to collect injured birds. He searched the thick grass and shrubs where crippled pigeons had eluded the killers. Joseph returned home with as many as he could carry. His parents had built a wire coop to hold the birds while they mended. Over time, the Dodsons became pioneering wildlife rehabbers, gaining proficiency in repairing wings and legs. If a bird lacked both eyes or had both wings or both legs broken, they would have no choice but to euthanize it. But often injured birds would recover and be returned to the sky over which they were masters.27
A far more famous writer also had parents who would never kill passenger pigeons. Gene Stratton-Porter was one of the most popular novelists during the early 1900s. Her bread and butter were maudlin novels such as Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost. But she also very much wanted to write natural history, which her publishers permitted from time to time to keep her happy. Some of these books include Moths of the Limberlost and What I Have Done with Birds. Much of her work was set in the Limberlost, a thirteen-thousand-acre wetland in northeastern Indiana where she believed she saw a passenger pigeon in 1912. But of greatest concern here is what she wrote of her parents. Her father was a farmer and a Methodist minister who hunted quail but felt more solicitous toward the pigeons for religious reasons, probably not unlike Thomas McKenney. The Strattons had twelve children, whom they sternly admonished to never shoot at either of the two native doves: “He used to tell me that they were among the very oldest birds in the history of the world … and he explained how the doves and the wild pigeons were used as a sacrifice to the Almighty, while every line of the Bible concerning these birds, many of them exquisitely poetical, was on his tongue’s tip.”28
One time Stratton-Porter visited some neighbors who were in the midst of dressing freshly killed pigeons: “I was shocked
and horrified to see dozens of these beautiful birds, perhaps half of them still alive, struggling about with broken wings, backs, and legs, waiting to be skinned, split down the back, and dropped into the pot-pie kettle. I went home with a story that sickened me.” Her father once again renewed his prohibition against any family member’s shooting any dove. To his theological concerns, he added the very material warning that if there was no cessation in the killing, the birds might disappear. Stratton-Porter acknowledged this was merely a precaution, for “that such a thing could happen in our own day as that the last of these beautiful birds might be exterminated, no one seriously dreamed.”
Gene Stratton-Porter. Courtesy Indiana State Museum
James Fenimore Cooper, often considered America’s first significant novelist, was the also the earliest writer to articulate “an American environmental conscience.” Biographer Wayne Franklin calls Cooper’s account of the passenger pigeon slaughter a defining moment, his initial call “to his fellow citizens—and the world—to imagine a better way of being on the earth.” His daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper was one who did heed the call, as she would distinguish herself by becoming the first American woman to publish a book on nature when her Rural Hours appeared in 1850. (She, too, wrote a bit on passenger pigeons.) Another was Henry David Thoreau, whose work was in large measure inspired by the writings of Cooper.29
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