A Feathered River Across the Sky

by Joel Greenberg

  Some of the pros were disappointed with the season, as many of the birds departed without nesting. But others did quite well. Dr. Isaac Voorheis of Frankfort, Michigan, caught 1,316 birds with a single snap of his net. Six snaps netted him $650 worth of pigeons.56

  Simon Pokagon visited the nesting and was filled with shame and pity. Many of the nests were placed in mature white birch, the bark of which peels like flammable paper. With the birds scattered and many disappointed pigeoners around, Pokagon witnessed two techniques for procuring pigeons that he had not seen before: “These outlaws to all moral sense would touch a lighted match to the bark of the tree at the base, when with a flash more like an explosion, the blast would reach every limb of the tree, and while the affrighted young birds would leap simultaneously to the ground, the parent birds, with plumage scorched, would rise high in the air amid flame and smoke.” The fat squabs, so rudely dispossessed, would often splat upon hitting the ground. Pigeoners collected thousands of fledgling that way over the day.57

  Petoskey memorial, placed in 1957 to commemorate the 1878 Petoskey nesting, stands at the Michigan State Fish Hatchery at Oden, Michigan. Photo by author

  That evening Pokagon stayed with an old trapper who was camped just outside the nesting ground. Pokagon explained his anguish at what he had witnessed earlier in the day. The trapper appeared moved and promised to show him the way he caught birds, a method “that will please any red man and the birds too.” Early the next morning they headed to the trap site not far away. The trapper threw handfuls of corn as enticement for the pigeons. After a short wait, the birds descended on the bait and fed voraciously. As Pokagon admired the sight, he noticed the pigeons beginning to topple, beating their wings to no effect as they lay on their sides quivering. The trapper leaped from his hiding place and with Pokagon’s help soon caged a hundred birds. Pokagon thought to himself, “Certainly Pokagon is dreaming, or this long-haired white man is a witch.” The old man revealed his secret: the corn had been soaked in whiskey. Pokagon left, feeling both betrayed, as the trapper had expressed support of temperance, and overwhelmed by sorrow: “Surely the time is now fulfilled, when false prophets shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.”58

  POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA: 1881

  The Indian Territories, now known as Oklahoma, began to emerge as a place that harbored some of the last gatherings of pigeons. The first rail line to cross the territory was completed in 1872, but another fifteen years passed before any new tracks were laid. The limited transportation opportunities made it poor pickings for the pigeoners as long as the birds could still be taken in areas with better infrastructure. Most of the pigeons used this region as wintering grounds, including one large roost on the Baron Fork River that was utilized from at least the Civil War years to 1873.59

  The massive nesting on the Pottawatomie Reservation (Pottawatomie County) west of Atoka in the spring of 1881 was unprecedented. Not a great deal is known about this occurrence, but according to the available information it comprised millions of birds. They took up residence in a tract of masting post oak twenty miles long and fifteen wide. A seasoned pigeoner named W. P. Thomas said he penetrated ten miles into the nesting and saw no end in sight. Pigeons covered every tree in such numbers the branches sagged.60

  Due to its isolated location, the nesting drew only professionals and locals from the reservation. There were none of the conflicts with gun enthusiasts that plagued the netters at other locations. Thomas said that the Pottawatomie left the pigeons alone as food, preferring to hunt white-tailed deer and turkeys, both of which were readily available. Tribal members showed friendliness toward the outsiders, and many Indians found work collecting squabs for a St. Louis firm. Those birds were packed in barrels of ice and sent to cities as far away as Boston. Despite the obstacles, that St. Louis outfit Judy and Company reaped a profit of $20,000.

  But Thomas specialized in live pigeons for the shooting trade. Because acorns were so abundant and the nearby Canadian River provided ample water, the usual methods of baiting proved ineffective. Most of the netting activities, therefore, took place on the gravel banks of the river, where the pigeons sought the stones they needed for digestion. There are many descriptions of netters and how they killed newly caught birds, but Thomas provides one of the best accounts of those who sought live pigeons: “The crates in which the birds are put when caught are simply large flat coops. The netters are spread over an area of twelve or fourteen miles. Every evening the teams take a round and collect all the crates. It is now necessary to get the birds ‘on their feed,’ or else they will die.” The pigeons were then transferred to large holding pens with ample food and water. Typically, several days would have to elapse before they relaxed enough to be again crated for the next leg of their journey. Loaded on wagons, they began the arduous trip to the railroad station, where yet another holding coop awaited them before their being sent east on the train.

  Thomas already had contracts for forty thousand live birds to supply the New York State Sportsmen’s Association’s annual shooting meet. But he lamented that the business would be much less profitable than usual due to the 110 miles and rough terrain that separated the roost from the closest railroad station: “At one time I had fifteen wagons on the road. There are several streams to be forded and the Arbuckle Mountains have to be crossed … It took a wagon three days to make the trip.”

  Lest any of his readers be concerned, Thomas ends his comments with comforting news: “Pigeons nest four times a season … The increase is larger [this year] than ever before. The number of squabs killed and pigeons netted is insignificant in comparison with the numbers hatched out. There are millions of them.”

  KETTLE CREEK, PENNSYLVANIA, AND WISCONSIN: 1882

  There were two more attempts at large nestings. One occurred on Kettle Creek near Emporium, Pennsylvania. Large masses of pigeons settled in by March 23. The first of the pigeoners appeared a week later, and by the end of April they filled the local hotels. Live pigeons in astonishing numbers were brought to nearby Coudersport. A newspaper report from June 22 says, “Pigeoners still besiege the nesting and many thousands of birds, both dead and alive, have departed as freight from Potter County.” The total take was estimated as between seventy-five thousand and one hundred thousand birds. And finally there is a curious comment on August 10 that pigeon corpses were accumulating along the river near town.61

  Probably involving a greater quantity of pigeons were the well-documented nestings that occurred in several places in Wisconsin. Monroe County hosted one that was three and a half miles by four miles, and another that was nine miles long and one and a half miles wide. Breeding pigeons in Adams County occupied a section nine miles long and one and a half miles wide. The birds were drawn by the heavy acorn crop from black oaks, although many of the birds that were killed had been feeding on various domestic grains as well.62

  As a boy the Reverend E. C. Dixon’s father took him, his two brothers, and several other helpers into the pigeon city in Adams County. It was a Saturday and the party went from tree to tree with a tall ladder so they could collect the squabs from their nests. At the end of the day they had amassed eighty-one dozen fledglings for sale, not to mention another several dozen they had forced from their nests but could not salvage.63

  Amateurs such as Dixon and his comrades did their part in reducing the nesting birds, but the professionals went the extra mile to make 1882 so devastating. Although it was unspoken, one gets the feeling that in their guts they knew the end was near, so they were committed to taking every last pigeon. In Adams County, before the birds even began nesting, one netter caught over six hundred dozen in a single day. For this, he made $600, although some of it went to helpers and the cost of shipping. More pernicious was the unnamed C, a former member of the Wisconsin legislature who credited himself as responsible for the passing of a law protecting pigeons on their nests. (Schorger identified him as W. H. H. Cash.) He hired two hundred Ho Ch
unk tribesmen to systematically go from nesting area to nesting area collecting squabs: “In order to get more of them and with less difficulty, the Indians have been and are still employed to shake the trees.” In this way not only the young are killed but the eggs are broken. In two days this operation reportedly reaped 27,060 squabs.64

  Adding to the carnage, other Ho Chunks, working freelance, also arrived to partake of the bounty. The women used long poles to get at the squabs; when the birds were beyond their reach, archers employed blunt arrows to knock them to earth. Some of these were kept for personal use as the old men and women devoted their time to removing feathers and drying the morsel that remained. Tribal members sold the excess squabs in great enough quantities to earn up to $13 a day. The younger the squabs, the more tender they were. Unfortunately, such tenderness did not hold up well when the product was jammed tightly into barrels with ice. To ensure that the barrels were filled to maximum capacity, the contents would “be forced in by treading and stomping.” Not surprisingly, eastern dealers were less than happy upon receiving barrels full of squab pâté. This led to complaints and promises by the game associations that they would not allow this profligate destruction to be repeated in future years. And, truth to tell, it was not repeated.65

  The Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin reported that one dealer received so many more pigeons than he could handle, thirteen hundred dozen spoiled and had to be “buried in a heap.” In another incident, several tons of unsold birds were dumped into the Wisconsin River. This comprehensive slaughter led citizens in New Lisbon to send a petition to the governor asking that he deploy the National Guard to protect the nestings. Because the 1882 nestings were scattered, it was even more difficult than usual to get a handle on the total number of birds killed. One estimate placed the take at 2,138,400. Schorger made the point using different words: in 1850 those numbers would have been mere drops in a most capacious bucket, but in 1882 they were a large part of a pool that had substantially shrunk.66

  From 1870 to 1882 was a critical period in the history of the passenger pigeon. What happened in those years made the bird’s extinction inevitable. In 1871, the largest nesting on record occurred, but 1878 saw the final attempt of the birds to breed in vast numbers. Four years after that, the last nesting attempts of any size numbered at most a few or so million birds. By then, there were probably not enough living passenger pigeons to have kept the species going for long even if they had been allowed to breed. But, if anything, these remnants encountered even more ferocious exploitation, and so their efforts to reproduce became virtually futile.

  I can’t help but think that if just one large mass of nesting birds had been allowed to breed in peace, their cohort of young might have given the species an extra decade or so of life, just enough time for the species to be rescued by new laws and attitudes. But neither an organized industry nor those practicing behaviors etched over lifetimes were to be denied by a dawning reality new to their experience. And so it goes.

  LAST NESTING AREAS

  1870

  Potato Creek, McKean County, Pennsylvania

  Mettagami River, Cochrane County, Ontario

  Kepple, Grey County, Ontario

  Ashfield, Huron County, Ontario

  Goderich, Huron County, Ontario

  1871

  Kilbourn City (Wisconsin Dells)/Sparta, Wisconsin

  Wabasha, Minnesota

  Chatfield, Minnesota

  Mattagami River, Cochrane County, Ontario

  1872

  Ulster County, New York

  South Haven, Van Buren County, Michigan

  Shawano County, Wisconsin

  Kepple, Grey County, Ontario

  Bruce County, Ontario

  1873

  Rochester, Minnesota

  Grey County, Ontario

  1874

  Shelby, Michigan

  Collingwood County, Ontario

  Welland County, Ontario

  1875

  Chatfield, Minnesota

  Kincardine, Bruce County, Ontario

  1876

  Shelby, Michigan

  Amabel, Bruce County, Ontario

  Kincardine, Bruce County, Ontario

  Abitibi River, Cochrane County, Ontario

  1877

  Faribault, Minnesota

  St. Vincent, Grey County, Ontario

  1878

  Petoskey, Michigan

  Warren County, Pennsylvania

  Abitibi River, Cochrane County, Ontario

  1879

  Corry, Pennsylvania

  Parry Sound, Ontario

  1880

  Warren and McKean Counties, Pennsylvania

  Benzie County, Michigan

  1881

  Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma

  1882

  Kilbourn City/Sparta, Wisconsin

  Emporium, Pennsylvania

  Table generated by author

  Chapter 8

  Flights to the Finish

  For every pigeon that was shot and recorded during the last part of the nineteenth century, probably 100, perhaps a thousand, were shot and eaten. Who was there to record them?

  —EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH, 1927

  THE LAST WILD FLOCKS: 1883–89

  Between 1882 and 1886, there were several mass gatherings, but they were tiny in comparison to what had been but a few years earlier. Because they were small and were of short duration due to exploitation, not much is known about them. For example, a roost formed near Huntsville, Texas, in 1883. Hunters marauded the site every evening during November and December.1

  Missouri seemed to draw most of the birds and attention during the next two years. W. W. Judy, the pigeon dealer in St. Louis, reported from Oregon County in 1883 that a small group of birds had begun nesting. Forty netters were on-site and primed for action, but he feared that they would be stymied by the shooters, who were killing off the pigeons before they could nest. A local newspaper gave the total shipped to St. Louis from the site as more than ten thousand dozen, and that was two months before Judy’s dispatch. This was the pigeon city that supplied the forty thousand birds that died before they could be shipped to hunting clubs.2

  The last “really impressive” number of pigeons in Missouri appeared in January 1884. Crowds of pro and amateur pigeon catchers descended on the roost, located in the same area of Oregon County. Fortunately, one of the visitors published an account of his trip. With provisions enough for four days, his group set out for the pigeon gathering. After spending a restless night, they were up before dawn: “As the sun rose, the birds began to fly over us, all day at short intervals we were shooting right and left in the roost. The trees were literally crowded with them.” As their outing concluded, they packed their gear and headed to the nearest town with a wagon full of pigeons. On the way they met more hunters, and as one small caravan they pulled into Augusta (now Thayer) with a combined total of 5,415 birds.3

  Later in 1884, a nesting colony of three hundred pigeons took up residence in the wooded heights of Potter County, Pennsylvania, near Cherry Springs (now a state park but no longer a town). Remarkably, they completed their breeding without human interference, thanks to the secrecy maintained by the six or so persons who knew about it. Why they were so restrained in their speech and acts is not known, but that they allowed the pigeons to nest in peace may have been unprecedented in the passenger pigeon annals.4

  The largest reported concentration of breeding birds in 1885 spread along the Oconto River in Langlade County, Wisconsin. But gunners drove the pigeons away before they could fledge any offspring. An hour after a flock of migrants showed up at Racine, five hundred hunters armed with shotguns appeared. The number of men may well have exceeded that of the birds. Longtime professional pigeon netter J. B. Oviatt found his last handful of nests that year in his home range of McKean County, Pennsylvania.5

  The spring of 1886 saw remnant flocks of passenger pigeons converge on the upper Susquehanna basin of northern Pennsylvania to nest alon
g the west branch of Pine Creek, where the beeches had produced a bountiful nut crop the preceding fall. John French had been watching the groups of birds as they passed over his hometown of Coudersport, and when he learned of their destination, he arose early one morning to see for himself a spectacle that was becoming less and less frequent.6

  French began the thirty-mile trip before the sun had yet made its appearance, and not a single pigeon crossed his path over the entire hilly course. Nor were there any live pigeons when he finally reached the woods they had occupied. Instead, he was greeted by a sight so fantastic he might have been dreaming: “Young men were coming from the woods with bags full of dead birds. Many of them were lumberjacks, with high, spiked shoes on their feet; gray trousers, with legs chopped off at the knees, tucked into high-topped socks; mackinaw coats of bright red and brown and gray, in large checks; silken scarves around their necks; and high hats.”7