218 Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. [a^U 



committed a great error in loading with ball only: and although 

 I contrived to get three or four fair shots on the ground, and on the 

 wing, yet I confess through eagerness to have missed them. Once 

 I contrived to near a brood, but had the mortification, although 

 close to them, to hear them rising one by one on the other side of a 

 thicket; and when I did pull at the last bird, my gun which was 

 loaded with shot, missed fire through the badness of the copper 

 cap." In the same year T. Flint's "Mississippi Valley" appears. 

 In Tennessee (1. c, p. 340) he credulously says, "A nest of eggs of 

 the wild turkey were dug up in a state of petrifaction." Finally 

 in the "Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett 

 N. Y. 1835," p. 193, we find that he had a special fondness for 

 shooting the turkey in this region. 



Ohio. 



In all the United States, no state had more turkeys than Ohio 

 and her neighbors. Most of our records are restricted to the 18th 

 century and the first part of the 19th century. In Morton's " New 

 English Canaan 1637" we find that about 1 "Lake Erocoise" 

 "There are also more abundance of . . . .Turkies breed about the 

 part of that lake, then in any place in all Country of New England." 

 Daniel Coxe in his "Carolina 2nd edit. London, 1726" (pp. 52, 79) 

 finds " Great Companies of Turkies " all over the country. On a 

 journey to Ohio, Conrad Weiser on Sept. 19, 1748, notes 2 this 

 form. In 1750 Christopher Gist makes a journey from Old- 

 town, Md., to the Ohio River. On Nov. 30, he with his men 3 

 "killed twelve turkeys." The following year, Feb. 17, 1751, 

 he records that the country about Little and Big Miami Rivers, 

 "Abounds with turkeys." In the period from 1755-1759, Col. 

 James Smith frequently encounters this form. At Ligoneer, 4 

 "we found they had plenty of Turkeys, etc." Along Canesadoo- 



1 Force, P., Vol. IT, p. 65. 



: Colls. Hist. Soc. Penn., Vol. I, Phila., 1853, p. 33. 



3 Pownall, T. A Topographical Description of Such Parts of North America, 

 ..... London, 1776, Appendix, p. 8, 11. 



4 Smith, Col. James. An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and 

 Travels of Lexington, 1799. Reprint, Cincinnati, 1870, pp. 7, 27-31, 36, 75, 96. 



