EASTERN TURKEY 327 



forests from Maine and Ontario, southward and westward. But the 

 coming of the white man to our shores spelled the beginning of the 

 end for both of these picturesque Americans. The forests disap- 

 peared before the white man's ax, his crude firearms waged warfare 

 on the native game, and the red man was gradually eliminated before 

 advancing civilization. In the days of the Pilgrims and Puritans 

 the Thanksgiving turkey was easily obtained almost anywhere in the 

 surrounding forest; the delicious meat of the wild turkey was an 

 important and an abundant food supply for both Indians and set- 

 tlers; and the feathers of the turkey held a prominent place in the 

 red man's adornment. 

 Thomas Morton (1637), one of the earliest writers, says: 



Turkies there are, which divers times in great flocks have sallied by our 

 doores ; and then a gunne, being commonly in a redinesse, salutes them with 

 such a courtesie, as makes them take a turne in the Cooke roome. They daunce 

 by the doore so well. 



They soon began to disappear, however, for John Josselyn (1672) 

 writes : 



I have also seen threescore broods of young Turkies on the side of a marsh, 

 sunning of themselves in a morning betimes, but this was thirty years since, the 

 English and the Indians having now destroyed the breed, so that 'tis very rare 

 to meet with a wild Turkie in the Woods. 



Edward H. Forbush (1912) says: 



In Massachusetts Turkeys were most numerous in the oak and chestnut 

 woods, for there they found most. food. They were so plentiful in the hills bor- 

 dering the Connecticut valley that in 1711 they were sold in Hartford at one 

 shilling four pence each, and in 1717 they were sold in Northampton, Mass., at 

 the same price. From 1730 to 1735 the price of those dressed was in North- 

 ampton about one and one-half penny per pound. After 1766 the price was 

 two and one-half pence, and in 1788, three pence. A few years after 1800 it 

 was four pence to six pence a pound, and about 1820, when the birds had greatly 

 decreased, the price per pound was from ten to twelve and one-half cents. 



Wild turkeys made their last stand in Massachusetts in the Holyoke 

 range, where the last one was killed in 1851. According to Dr. D. D. 

 Slade (1888) 



these birds had the range of a large tract of wild mountainous country, in some 

 parts almost inaccessible and impassable, lying at the base of and comprising 

 Mount Holyoke, and to the Southwest also including Mount Tom and its sur- 

 roundings. I am unable to state the exact period at which this flock became 

 exterminated but should say it must have been in 1840 or thereabouts. 



The last turkey in Connecticut was seen in 1813, a few remained 

 hidden in the Vermont Hills until 1842, and they were said to be 

 numerous along the southern border of Ontario as late as 1856. 

 Albert H. Wright (1914 and 1915) has written a very complete ac- 

 count of the early history of the wild turkey to which the reader is 



