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224 



THE AMERICAlSr BISONS. 



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named Logan, friendly to the whites, and who remained among the whites 



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after the Indians were driven aw^ay." 



Under date of March 30, 1876, Professor Loomis w^rote again to Professor 

 Hamhn respecting the same matter, from which I quote the following: 



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I soiKTht an interview with Dr. Beck The Colonel Kelly referred 



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man in some fif>-ht in New Jersey during the war. A small monument is in 

 our cemetery to his memory, from, which I take the following inscription : 

 'Col. John Kelly died Feb. 18th, 1832, aged 88 years & 7 days.' He owned 

 a farm about five miles from Lewisbnrg, in Kelly township, which was 

 named from him. About 1790 or 1800 (such is the indefiniteness) Colonel 

 Kelly was out with his gun on the McClister farm (which joined that of 

 Colonel Kelly), and just at evening saw and shot a buffalo. His dog was 

 young, and at so late an hour he did not allow it to pursue. The next morn- 

 ing he went to hunt his game, but did not find it. Nearly a week later word 

 was brought him that it had been found, dead, some mile or two away.' He 

 found the information correct, but the animal had been considerably torn and 

 eaten by wolves. He regarded the animal as a stray one, and had never 

 heard of any in the valley at a later day. Dr. Beck had the account from 

 Colonel Kelly about three months before his death. .... The Colonel also 

 told him that the valley was wooded originally with large but scattered 

 trees, so that the grass grew abundantly and furnished good pasturage for 

 the buffalo, and that the animal had been from this circumstance very 

 abundant in the valley. The Colonel repeated the statement of a friendly 

 Indian, Logan (probably not the native chief of that name), who said that 

 the buffiilo had been very abundant. He, Dr. Beck, had the same statement 



from Michael Grove, also one of the first settlers in the valley I was 



more particular than I should ordinarily have been, because this is about 

 last stage when reliable tradition can be had.'\ 



This, of course, affords satisfactory proof of the former existence of the 

 buffalo in the region about Lewisbnrg, which forms the most easterly point 

 to which the buffalo has been positively traced.* 



• lo respect to the supposed remains of Pylson americanus from the Carlisle bone-caves, Professor Baird, 

 in a recent letter to me (dated May 13, 1876), expressed some doubt as to their being referable to that 

 species. A re-examination of them he thinks would be necessary in order to determine " whether they 

 are of the bison, and if so of which species." During my recent visit to Washington, quite careful search 

 made for the specimens, but unfortunately without finding them, though they are doubtless still stored 

 somerdiere in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, and will some day be found. 



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