a single day in the Kankakee region,” in Indiana, 
and added that “Deer made their last stand [in 
Indiana] in the marshy expanse of the Kankakee 
and in the cypress swamps of Knox county. The 
last wild deer was seen near Red Cloud in Knox 
county in 1893.” 
Because the deer that lived in Knox County 
and along the Kankakee River in Indiana did not 
disappear until some time between 1878 and 1893, 
it is conceivable that, during that period, some of 
these animals wandered into Illinois and lived 
here for short periods of time. 
For Champaign County, in east-central [lli- 
nois, Wood (1910:516) reported that a deer “was 
seen near Homer as late as 1880.” 
In southern Illinois, remnants of the original 
herds held on much longer. Cory (1912:62) told 
of a letter dated April 7, 1910, in which C. J. 
Boyd of Anna had written, “There are a few Deer 
in the hills in this county [Union] and in Alexander 
County.” Supporting this information is a state- 
ment by Aldo Leopold, in an unpublished report of 
May 1, 1929, to the Game Restoration Committee, 
Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ 
Institute, that Ed. C. Karraker of Jonesboro said 
“that wild deer of native stock did not disappear 
from Union County until about 1910.” No data 
postdating these records of wild deer of native 
stock in southern Illinois have been uncovered; 
therefore, it is believed that the original I[llinois 
white-tailed deerherds probably were exterminated 
shortly thereafter. 
Repopulation of Deer 
The white-tailed deer may have returned to 
the wild in northern Illinois through occasional 
escapes from a herd maintained near Polo by the 
late Judge John D. Campbell. It is not known 
when or where Judge Campbell obtained these 
deer. It seems reasonable to conclude that the 
Judge was maintaining a herd as early as the 
1860’s. Miss Anna Parmalee, a resident of Polo, 
who was 96 when interviewed on March 21, 1952, 
recalled “seeing Judge Campbell’s deer when I 
was a little girl.” Attorney Harry Typer of Polo 
revealed, in an interview on the same day, that he, 
as a boy of 14, took care of Judge Campbell’s 
herd of deer in 1882. Miss Parmalee and another 
elderly Polo resident, E. M. Clinton, claimed 
that deer occasionally escaped from the Judge’s 
pen. Typer, however, did not believe that escapes 
occurred, and observed that “The deer were kept 
by the old Judge until his death in 1910, at which 
time the herd, then numbering 20 to 25 animals, 
6 
was turned loose on the Scott McMillan farm,” 
located about 5 miles northeast of Polo in Ogle 
County. These deer were thought to have sur- 
vived and increased their numbers in the wild. 
Another herd, fig. 3, which may have con- 
tributed to the repopulation of parts of northern 
Illinois with deer was kept by the late George 
Stevens of Kishwaukee, Illinois. Harry Stevens, 
a son, interviewed on March 18, 1952, reported 
that “In the summer of 1896 or 1897, Mr. W. A. 
Rothwell bought a doe fawn from a hotel keeper 
in Eland, Wisconsin. Mr. Rothwell gave this 
animal to my father and he kept it in apen on his 
farm 1 mile west of Kishwaukee. It was given the 
name Fanny. In the fall of 1898, my father secured 
a buck from Judge Campbell of Polo. This buck, 
Sam, and Fanny were successful in raising a 
number of fawns in the ensuing years. Occasion- 
ally one of the penned animals escaped; the entire 
herd, 10 or 12 at the time, was lost in the spring 
of about 1903, when a tornado felled trees on the 
pen, letting the deer out.” These observations 
were substantiated by Lester R. Rothwell, a 
brother-in-law of the late George Stevens in a 
letter dated March 28, 1952. In referring to the 
herd following its escape from the Stevens pen, 
he stated, “The first year they stayed in F. C. 
Johnson’s orchard; then went to the woods along 
Rock River; later along the Kishwaukee.” 
From all accounts it seems apparent that 
these two released herds contributed to the tre- 
population of parts of northern Illinois with wild 
deer early in the twentieth century. Also, it is 
conceivable that an occasional deer may have 
wandered into Illinois from Wisconsin at that 
time. 
A release worthy of record, because of its 
location, was made at the Savanna Ordinance 
Depot in Carroll County, northern Illinois, at 
some time in the middle 1930’s. Sergeant Albert 
Bingham (retired) stated, in an interview on May 
22, 1952, that in about 1936 he had released there 
a buck and a doe obtained from the Mount Vernon 
Game Farm. Later he released a doe obtained 
from the Springfield Game Farm in 1937 and a 
buck obtained from the same place in 1938. Ser- 
geant Bingham indicated that fawns were pro- 
duced by these deer. His releases are thought to 
have been successful, as, during the census of 
1950-51, a population of about 100 deer was 
estimated for Carroll County. 
The circumstances and dates of the return of 
wild deer to southern Illinois are not clear. Ben- 
nitt & Nagel (1937:80) reported an estimated 
